The servant who admitted the cure had not said that the occupant of the
drawing-room was Miss Grant, but his first glance assured him of her
identity. Yes, this must be the face, the eyes, which had appealed to
all the romance in Vanno. Even the man whom conviction had dedicated
body and soul to the religion of self-sacrifice had enough humanity
mingling with his saintliness to feel the peculiar appeal of this gentle
girl. She was not only a woman, she was Woman. Unconsciously she called,
not to men, but to man, to all that was strong, to all that was
chivalrous and desired to give protection.
There was nothing modern about the type, the cure told himself, though
it might be that this particular specimen of it had been trained to
modern ideas. Such a woman would never struggle for her "rights." They
would be flung at her feet as tribute, before she could ask, and quite
without thought she would accept them. The cure would have laughed had
he been accused of lurking tendencies toward romance, except perhaps in
his love of gardens; yet he seemed to reflect the impressions of Vanno,
to realize with almost startling keenness the special allurement Miss
Grant had for the Prince; that remoteness from the ordinary which
suggested the vanished loveliness of Greece with all its poetry; which
would make an accompaniment of music seem appropriate to every movement,
like the _leit motif_ for a woman in grand opera.
"She is good and sweet," he said to himself, even before he spoke.
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