Page:The Saint (1906, G. P. Putnam's Sons).djvu/38

4 "You do not know me," answered Jeanne. "You are the only one of my friends who does not know me."

"Of course. You imagine that only those who adore you really know you? Indeed, this belief that everybody adores you is a craze of yours."

Jeanne made the little pouting grimace with which all her friends were familiar.

"What a foolish girl," she said; but at once softened the expression with a kiss and a half-sad, half-quizzical smile.

"Women, as I have always told you, do adore me. Do you mean to say that you do not?"

"Mais point du tout," exclaimed Noemi. Jeanne's eyes sparkled with mischief and kindness.

"In Italian we say: Si, di tutto cuore," she answered.

The Dessalles, brother and sister, had spent the preceding summer at Maloja. Jeanne striving to make herself a pleasant companion, and hiding as best she could her incurable wound; Carlino searching out traces of Nietzsche in mystic hours round Sils Maria or in worldly moments flitting like a butterfly from one woman to another, frequently dining at St. Moritz, or at Pontresina, making music with a military attache of the German Embassy at Rome, or with Noemi d'Arxel, and discussing religious questions with Noemi's sister and brother-in-law. The two d'Arxel sisters, orphans, were Belgian by birth,