You cannot see a woman, that is to say happiness, behind any of their faces." He whispered: "Can you see a woman behind mine." "If you look like that," she replied, with a contented little laugh, "the whole world can see it." And so their talk drifted far away from Doges, just as their souls were drifting far from the Golden Calf of the Frank and Loyal Friendship which Sophie the Princess had set up.
How could they help it--and in Venice of all places in the world?
If she had determined on maintaining the friendship calm and austere, why in Minerva's name had she bidden him hither?
Sophie Zobraska passed for a woman of sense.

None knew better than she the perils of moonlit canals and the sensuous splash of water against a gondola, and the sad and dreamy beauty which sets the lonely heart aching for love.

Why had she done it?
Some such questions must Mademoiselle de Cressy have asked, for the Princess told him that Stephanie had lectured her severely for going about so much in public alone with a beau jeune homme.
"But we don't always want Stephanie with us," she argued, "and she is not sympathetic in Venice.

She likes restaurants and people.

Besides, she is always with her friends at Danielli's, so if it weren't for you I should be doing nothing all by myself in the lonely palazzo.
Forcement we go about together." Which was all sophistical and nonsensical; and she knew it, for there was a mischievous little gleam in her eye as she spoke.