When he came home, however, these thoughts would float away out of his mind. He did not think of marrying, though Miss Augustine spoke to him on the subject every day. He thought of something else, which yet was not so far different; he thought that nowhere, in society or out of it, had he seen any one like Giovanna. “Did you ever see such a picture?” he would say to Reine. “Look at her! Now she’s sculpture, with that child on her shoulder. If the boy was only like herself, what a group they’d make! I’d like to have Marochetti, or some of those swells, down, to make them in marble. And she’d paint just as well. By Jove, she’s all the arts put together. How she does sing! Patti and the rest are nothing to her. But I don’t understand how she could be the mother of that boy.” Giovanna came back across the lawn, having swung the child from her shoulder on to the fragrant grass, in time to hear this, and smiled and said, “He does not resemble me, does he? Madame Suzanne, M. Herbert remarks that the boy is not dark as me. He is another type--yes, another type, n’est ce pas!” “Not a bit like you,” said Herbert. “I don’t say anything against Jean, who is a dear little fellow; but he is not like you.” “Ah! but he is the heir of M. Herbert, which is better,” cried Giovanna, with a laugh, “until M. Herbert will marry. Why will not you marry and range yourself? Then the little Jean and the great Giovanna will melt away like the fogs. Ah, marry, M. Herbert! it is what you ought to do.” “Are you so anxious, then, to melt away like the fog?--like the sunshine, you mean,” said the young man in a low voice. They were all in the porch, but he had gone out to meet her, on pretence of playing with little Jean. “But no,” said Giovanna, smiling, “not at all. I am very well here; but when M. Herbert will marry, then I must go away. Little Jean will be no more the heir.” “Then I shall never marry,” said the young man, though still in tones so low as not to reach the ears of the others. Giovanna turned her face toward him with a mocking laugh. “Bah! already I know Madame Herbert’s name, her little name!” she cried, and picked up the boy with one vigorous, easy sweep of her beautiful arms, and carried him off, singing to him--like a goddess, Herbert thought, like the nurse of a young Apollo. He was dreadfully disconcerted with this sudden withdrawal, and when Miss Augustine, coming in, addressed him in her usual way, he turned from her pettishly, with an impatient exclamation: “I wish you would give over,” he said; “you are making a joke of a serious matter. You are putting all sorts of follies into people’s heads.” It was only at Whiteladies, however, that he entertained this feeling. When he was away from home he would now and then consider the question of throwing the handkerchief, and made up his mind that there would be a kind of justice in it if the petit nom of the future Mrs. Herbert turned out to be either Sophy or Kate.