Then he leaned back in his chair and with interest--I don't mean curiosity, I mean interest: "Does anybody know besides the two parties concerned ?" he asked, with something as it were renewed (or was it refreshed ?) in his unmoved quietness.

"I ask because one has never heard any tales.

I remember one evening in a restaurant seeing a man come in with a lady--a beautiful lady--very particularly beautiful, as though she had been stolen out of Mahomet's paradise.

With Dona Rita it can't be anything as definite as that.

But speaking of her in the same strain, I've always felt that she looked as though Allegre had caught her in the precincts of some temple.