After a few minutes only, the occupation became irksome to her once more.

She sat down by the table, and took up a guide-book.

'Suppose I inform myself,' she thought, 'on the subject of Venice ?' Her attention wandered from the book, before she had turned the first page of it.
The image of Henry Westwick was the presiding image in her memory now.
Recalling the minutest incidents and details of the evening, she could think of nothing which presented him under other than a favourable and interesting aspect.

She smiled to herself softly, her colour rose by fine gradations, as she felt the full luxury of dwelling on the perfect truth and modesty of his devotion to her.

Was the depression of spirits from which she had suffered so persistently on her travels attributable, by any chance, to their long separation from each other--embittered perhaps by her own vain regret when she remembered her harsh reception of him in Paris?
Suddenly conscious of this bold question, and of the self-abandonment which it implied, she returned mechanically to her book, distrusting the unrestrained liberty of her own thoughts.