A great lady--ay, but before that, and after that, and always, a woman.
We laughed and jested lightly enough, as about us jostled the merry throng; but under our jesting was the deep earnestness of man and woman well advanced across the threshold of love and yet not too sure each of the other.

I shall not describe her.

She was small, exquisitely slender--but there, I am describing her.

In brief, she was the one woman in the world for me, and little I recked the long arm of that gray old man in Rome could reach out half across Europe between my woman and me.
And the Italian, Fortini, leaned to my shoulder and whispered: "One who desires to speak." "One who must wait my pleasure," I answered shortly.
"I wait no man's pleasure," was his equally short reply.
And, while my blood boiled, I remembered the priest, Martinelli, and the gray old man at Rome.

The thing was clear.