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 the small water-color hanging alone upon the great bare wall. "It is no longer a paradise of snakes. We have brought mankind into it, and we cannot turn our backs upon them to go and begin a new life elsewhere."

He confronted his wife with a firm, concentrated gaze, which Mrs. Gould returned with a brave assumption of fearlessness before she went out, closing the door gently after her.

In contrast with the white glaring room the dimly lit corridor had a restful mysteriousness of a forest shade, suggested by the stems and the leaves of the plants ranged along the balustrade of the open side. In the streaks of light falling through the open door of the reception-rooms, the blossoms, white and red and pale lilac, came out vivid with the brillance of flowers in a stream of sunshine; and Mrs. Gould, passing on, had the vividness of a figure seen in the clear patches of sun that checker the gloom of open glades in the woods. The stones in the rings upon her hand pressed to her forehead glittered in the lamp-light abreast of the door of the sala.

"Who's there?" she asked, in a startled voice. "Is that you, Basilio?" She looked in, and saw Martin Decoud walking about, with an air of having lost something among the chairs and tables.

"Antonia has forgotten her fan in here," said Decoud, with a strange air of distraction; "so I entered to see."

But, even as he said this, he had obviously given up his search, and walked straight towards Mrs, Gould, who looked at him with doubtful surprise.