It was adorable to have little secrets that
nobody else could understand.
Rose, dearly as she loved her husband, almost envied them for an
instant: lovers only just engaged, with no cooks and housemaids and
accounts to think of: nothing but each other, and poetry and romance.
Yet, she was not quite sure, on second thoughts, that she did envy them.
Vaguely she seemed to see something fatal in the two handsome, happy
faces; something that set them apart from the comfortable, commonplace
experiences of the rest of the world.
"I think--after all I'd rather be myself than that girl," she decided.
XXVI
Vanno's way of atonement for continuing to live at Monte Carlo was to
lunch or dine each day at the Villa Mirasole. On the first morning of
his great happiness he was due there for luncheon at one o'clock, but
having news to tell, he decided to go early. There was little danger of
finding Marie and Angelo out, for they walked after an early breakfast,
and generally spent the rest of the morning in their own garden, or on
the covered loggia of the villa, which looked toward the sea. In the
afternoon they sometimes took excursions in their motor-car, but they
made no social engagements and never went to Monte Carlo, not even to
the opera or concerts. This had struck Vanno as being odd; but soon he
had taken it for granted that they cared for no society except each
other's, which was after all quite natural.
Of late, Vanno's habit had been to dash over to Cap Martin at the last
minute in a taxi and back again in the same hurried way, in order to
give himself as much time as possible in the Casino; but this morning
the Casino had seemed of no more importance to him than the railway
station.
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