Now he believed himself to be in the throes of such
a love and was secretly proud of his passion, but the pain of seeing
Prince Vanno with Mary was rather too real, too sharp for analytical
enjoyment; and when he could, Dick avoided twisting the knife in his
wound.
Rose and George Winter had been alone together only for a few minutes,
and there had been no time to decide upon any plan of action, when Mary
and Vanno came in.
The girl was looking radiant, for in the excitement of bargaining for
land she had forgotten, not the little procession to which men lifted
their hats, but the heavy sense of impending loss it had laid upon her
heart. Rose thought that she had never seen Mary in such beauty. She
seemed to exhale happiness; and the fancy flashed through the mind of
the older woman that the girl's body was like a transparent vase filled
to its crystal brim with the wine of joy and life. To tell the news of
Hannaford's death would be to pour into the vase a dark liquid, and
cloud the opalescent wine. Still, Mary must be told, and it would be
better, safer, for her to know before she opened the letter with the
Italian postmark; otherwise something written there might come upon her
with a shock. Rose and her husband glanced at one another. Each was
hoping that the other would find a way to begin.
Mary had come to feel very happily at home with the Winters in the short
time she had spent with them; and often at night when she dreamed of
being at the Villa Bella Vista she waked thankfully, with a sense of
escape from something unknown yet vaguely terrible.
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