but slender fortune—himself, in fact—was the primary cause of the old Baroness von Hesselt's remarkable will. It was he whom the old lady held responsible for Constance Maitland's flat refusal to marry the son of an imperial privy councillor with seven points to his coronet. Oh, those days at the Villa Flora on Lake Como—those days that come only in youth, when the whole world seems young! When, from the terrace, Constance and himself watched the sunset trembling in the blue lake and making another heaven there! And those starlit nights when Constance and himself were in a boat alone together, and she sang to her guitar for him, and he repeated verses from Childe Harold to her! They were both young and singularly innocent, and were deeply in love—of that Thorndyke could never doubt; and because they were young and innocent and in love with each other the old Baroness thought them the wickedest and most designing creatures on earth. She had spent all her life in Europe, had frankly married for a title, and wished Constance to do the same. The old Baron, a helpless invalid, was not reckoned in the equation.
