Ralph Henry Barbour

“ As if a man could fall in love with a girl like that!”
“No? But I did. It is so very easy to fall in love in Venice, and so very much easier to fall in love with you! Why, any one could do it without half trying! I did it instantly, and take pride in the fact that there wasn't a moment's hesitation. And then I spent four years looking for you up and down the world. Oh, I don't mean”—at a protesting gesture from Beryl—“that I have wandered about all this time with no other aim than to find you. I was never the disconsolate lover. ”

“ I guessed you were English, but as the freshness of the mental picture of you wore off I had my doubts. Then you might have been German, perhaps, French, Russian, almost anything; but always beautiful. ”

“ It was queer that I never seriously thought you might be a countrywoman, although there are always many Americans in Venice. I suppose it was because the manner of our meeting, the scene, the moment, were all so romantic, and one, somehow, does not associate romance with Americans, or, at least, the romance of the Old World. ”