Front matter (continued 2)

He looked so disconcerted that Mademoiselle Durand laughed outright.

"No, mon ami," she replied. "I may call you that, Monsieur Silvio, may I not, since conspirators should be friends? I promise you I will not give your secret away. All the same, unless I am mistaken, there is one person to whom you wish me to confide it—is it not so?"

"Yes," replied Silvio; "there is certainly one person."

"But it will not be easy," continued Mademoiselle Durand, "and it will take time. Yes," she added, as though to herself—"it will be fairly amusing to outwit Monsieur l'Abbé—only—only—" and then she paused, hesitatingly.

"Only?" repeated Silvio, interrogatively.

"Ma foi, monsieur, only this," exclaimed his companion, energetically, "that I like the child, and I do not wish any harm to come to her through me. Have you thought well, Monsieur Silvio? You say that you love her, and that she can learn to love you; you will marry her if she be twenty times Princess of Montefiano. Well, I believe that you love her; and if a good countenance is any proof of a good heart, your love should be worth having. But if you make her love you, and are not strong enough to break down the barriers which will be raised to prevent her from marrying you, will you not be bringing on her a greater unhappiness than if you left her to her natural destiny?"

Silvio was silent for a moment. Was this not what Giacinta had said to him more than once? Then a dogged expression came over his face—his eyes seemed to harden suddenly, and his lips compressed themselves.

"Her destiny is to be my wife," he said, briefly.

Mademoiselle Durand shot a quick glance of approval at him.

"Diable!" she exclaimed, "but you Romans have wills of your own even in these days, it seems. And suppose the girl never learns to care for you—how then, Monsieur Silvio? Will you carry her off as your ancestors did the Sabine women?"

Silvio shrugged his shoulders. "She will learn to care for me," he said, "if she is properly taught."

Mademoiselle Durand laughed. "Tiens!" she murmured again. "And I am to give her a little rudimentary instruction—to prepare her, in short, for more advanced knowledge? Oh, la, la! Monsieur Silvio, you must know that such things do not come within the province of a daily governess."

"But you see her for three hours every day," returned Silvio, earnestly. "In three hours one can do a great deal," he continued.

"A great deal too much sometimes!" interrupted Mademoiselle Durand rapidly, under her breath.

"And when it is day after day," proceeded Silvio, "it is much easier. A word here, and a word there, and she would soon learn that there is somebody who loves her—somebody who would make her a better husband than some brainless idiot of her own class, who will only want her money and her lands. And then, perhaps, if we could meet—if she could hear it all from my lips, she would understand."

Mademoiselle Durand gave a quick little sigh. "Oh," she said, "if she could learn it all from your lips, I have no doubt that she would understand very quickly. Most women would, Monsieur Silvio."

"That is what I thought," observed Silvio, naïvely.

The Frenchwoman tapped her foot impatiently on the ground.

"Well," she said, after a pause, "I will see what I can do. But you must be patient. Only, do not blame me if things go wrong—for they are scarcely likely to go right, I should say. For me it does not matter. I came to Rome to learn Italian and to teach French—and other things. I have done both; and in any case, when my engagement with Madame la Princesse is over, I shall return to Paris, and then perhaps go to London or Petersburg—who knows? So if my present engagement were to end somewhat abruptly, I should be little the worse. Yes—I will help you, mon ami—if I can. Oh, not for money—I am not of that sort—but for—well, for other things."

"What other things?" asked Silvio, absently.

Mademoiselle Durand fairly stamped her foot this time.

"Peste!" she exclaimed, sharply. "What do they matter—the other things? Let us say that I want to play a trick on the princess; to spite the priest—by-the-way, Monsieur l'Abbé sometimes looks at me in a way that I am sure you never look at women, Monsieur Silvio! Let us say that I am sorry for that poor child, who will lead a stagnant existence till she is a dried-up old maid, unless somebody rescues her. All these things are true, and are they not reasons enough?"

And Silvio was quite satisfied that they were so.

VI

Bianca Acorari was sitting by herself in the room devoted to her own especial use, where she studied in the mornings with Mademoiselle Durand, and, indeed, spent most of her time. It was now the beginning of June—the moment in all the year, perhaps, when Rome is the most enjoyable; when the hotels are empty, and the foreigners have fled before the imaginary spectres of heat, malaria, and other evils to which those who remain in the city during the late spring and summer are popularly supposed to fall victims.

Entertainments, except those of an intimate character, being at an end, the American invasion has rolled northward. The gaunt English spinsters, severe of aspect, and with preposterous feet, who have spent the winter in the environs of the Piazza di Spagna with the double object of improving their minds and converting some of the "poor, ignorant Roman Catholics" to Protestantism, have gone northward too, to make merriment for the inhabitants of Perugia, or Sienna, of Venice, and a hundred other hunting-grounds. Only the German tourists remain, carrying with them the atmosphere of the bierhalle wherever they go, and generally behaving themselves as though Italy were a province of the fatherland. In the summer months Rome is her true self, and those who know her not then know her not at all.

To Bianca Acorari, however, all seasons of the year were much the same, excepting the three months or so that she passed in the villa near Velletri. To these months she looked forward with delight. The dull routine of her life in Rome was interrupted, and any variety was something in the nature of an excitement. It was pleasanter to be able to wander about the gardens and vineyards belonging to the villa than to drive about Rome in a closed carriage, waiting perhaps for an hour or more outside some convent or charitable institution while her step-mother was engaged in pious works. At the Villa Acorari, she could at all events walk about by herself, so long as she did not leave its grounds. But these grounds were tolerably extensive, and there were many quiet nooks whither Bianca was wont to resort and dream over what might be going on in that world around her, of which she supposed it must be the natural lot of princesses to know very little. The absence of perpetual supervision, the sense of being free to be alone out-of-doors if she chose to be so, was a luxury all the more enjoyable after eight months spent in Palazzo Acorari.

But within the last few weeks Bianca Acorari had become vaguely conscious of the presence of something fresh in her life, something as yet indefinable, but around which her thoughts, hitherto purely abstract, seemed to concentrate themselves. The world was no longer quite the unknown realm peopled with shadows that it had till recently appeared to her to be. It held individuals; individuals in whom she could take an interest, and who, if she was to believe what she was told, took an interest in her. That it was a forbidden interest—a thing to be talked about with bated breath, and that only to one discreet and sympathizing friend, did not by any means diminish its fascination.

It had spoken well for Mademoiselle Durand's capabilities of reading the characters of her pupils that she had at once realized that what Bianca Acorari lacked in her life was human sympathy. This the girl had never experienced; but, all the same, it was evident to any one who, like Mademoiselle Durand, had taken the trouble to study her nature, that she was unconsciously crying out for it. There was, indeed, not a person about her with whom she had anything in common. The princess, wrapped up in her religion and in her anxiety to keep her own soul in a proper state of polish, was an egoist, as people perpetually bent upon laying up for themselves treasure in heaven usually are. And Bianca practically had no other companion than her stepmother except servants, for the few people she occasionally saw at rare intervals did not enter in the smallest degree into her life.

Mademoiselle Durand had very soon discovered Bianca's desire to know the girl who lived in the apartment above her, and her annoyance that she had not been allowed to make any acquaintance with the Signorina Rossano. This very natural wish on her pupil's part to make friends with some one of her own sex, and more nearly approaching her own age than the people by whom she was surrounded, had afforded Mademoiselle Durand the very opening she required in order to commence her campaign in Silvio Rossano's interests. As she had anticipated, it had proved no difficult matter to sing the praises of the brother while apparently conversing with Bianca about the sister, and it must be confessed that she sang Silvio's praises in a manner by no means half-hearted. Nor did Mademoiselle Durand find that her efforts fell upon altogether unwilling ears. It was evident that in some way or another Bianca's curiosity had been already aroused, and that she was not altogether ignorant of the fact that the heretical professor's good-looking son regarded her with some interest.

Mademoiselle Durand, indeed, was somewhat surprised at the readiness displayed by her pupil to discuss not only Giacinta, but also Giacinta's brother, and she at first suspected that things were a little further advanced than Silvio had pretended to be the case.

She soon came to the conclusion, however, that this was not so, and that Bianca's curiosity was at present the only feeling which had been aroused in her.

Mademoiselle Durand was not particularly well-read in her Bible; but she did remember that curiosity in woman had, from the very beginning of things, been gratified by man, and also that the action of a third party had before now been necessary in order to bring the desired object within the reach of both. She was aware that the action of the third party had not been regarded as commendable; nevertheless, she quieted any qualms of conscience by the thought that, after all, circumstances in this case were somewhat different.

On this particular June afternoon Bianca Acorari was free to amuse herself in-doors as she chose until five o'clock, at which hour the princess had ordered the carriage, and Bianca would have to accompany her to visit an orphanage outside the Porta Pia. She was not at all sorry for those orphans. An orphan herself, she had always thought their life must be certainly more amusing than her own, and she had once ventured to hint as much, to the manifest annoyance of her step-mother, who had reproved her for want of charity.

The afternoon was warm, and Bianca, tired of reading, and still more tired of a certain piece of embroidery destined to serve as an altar-frontal for a convent-chapel, sat dreaming in the subdued light coming through closed persiennes. Through the open windows she could hear the distant noise of the traffic in the streets, the monotonous cry of Fragole! Fragole! of the hawkers of fresh strawberries from Nemi and the Alban Hills, and now and again the clock of some neighboring church striking the quarters of the hour.

In a little more than a fortnight, Bianca was saying to herself with satisfaction—when St. Peter's day was over, before which festival the princess would never dream of leaving Rome—she would be at the Villa Acorari, away from the dust and the glare of the city, passing those hot hours of the day in the deep, cool shade of the old ilex-trees, and listening to the murmur of the moss-grown fountains in the quiet grounds, half garden and half wilderness, that surrounded the house.

The view from the ilex avenue seemed to unfold itself before her—the vine-clad ridges melting away into the plain beneath, Cori, Norma, and Sermoneta just visible, perched on the distant mountain-sides away towards the south; and, rising out of the blue mist, with the sea flashing in the sunlight around it, Monte Circeo, the scene of so many mysterious legends both in the past and in the present. Far away over the Campagna the hot summer haze quivered over Rome. Bianca could see it all in her imagination as she sat with her hands clasped behind her tawny mass of curling hair; though, in reality, her eyes were fastened upon an indifferent painting of a Holy Family, in which St. Joseph appeared more conscious than usual of being de trop.

The three hours of studies with Mademoiselle Durand that morning had been frequently interrupted by conversation. Of late, indeed, this had often been the case. Bianca had been delighted when she learned that Mademoiselle Durand was intimate with the Rossano family, and the governess had not thought it necessary to explain that Silvio was the only member of it with whom she was on speaking terms.

The fact was that Silvio had been becoming impatient lately, and Mademoiselle Durand's task grew more difficult in consequence. To afford him any opportunity of meeting Bianca, or of interchanging even a single word with her, appeared to be impossible. The girl was too well guarded. Mademoiselle Durand had once suggested to her that she should take her some morning to the galleries in the Vatican which Bianca had never seen. The princess's permission had, of course, to be obtained, and Bianca broached the subject one day at breakfast. For a moment her step-mother had hesitated, and seemed disposed to allow her to accept Mademoiselle Durand's proposition. Unfortunately, however, Monsieur l'Abbé was present, and, true to her practice, the princess appealed to him as to whether there could be any objections.

Apparently there were objections, although the Abbé Roux did not specify them. But Bianca knew by his manner that he disapproved of the idea, and was not surprised, therefore, when the princess said it could not be—adding that she would herself take her through the Vatican some day.

It was but another instance, Bianca thought, of the priest's interference in her life, and she resented it accordingly. Latterly she had become much more friendly with Mademoiselle Durand, who had at first confined herself almost entirely to lessons during the hours she was at Palazzo Acorari.

Nevertheless, after it became evident that she would never be allowed to go out under her escort, Bianca thought it prudent not to let it be supposed that Mademoiselle Durand talked with her on any other subject but those she was engaged to talk about, lest she should be dismissed and a less agreeable woman take her place.

Whether it was that Mademoiselle Durand was urged to stronger efforts by Silvio Rossano's increasing impatience, or whether she considered the time arrived when she could safely venture to convey to her pupil that Giacinta Rossano's good-looking brother was madly in love with her, the fact remained on this particular morning that never before had she spoken so much or so openly of Silvio, and of the happiness that was in store for any girl sensible enough to marry him.

Bianca Acorari sat listening in silence for some time.

"He is certainly very handsome," she observed, presently—"and he looks good," she added, meditatively.

"Handsome!" ejaculated Mademoiselle Durand. "There is a statue in the Vatican—a Hermes, they call it— Well, never mind—of course he is handsome. And as to being good, a young man who is a good son and a good brother makes a good husband—if he gets the wife he wants. If not, it does not follow. I am sorry for that poor boy—truly sorry for him!" she added, with a sigh.

Bianca pushed away a French history book and became suddenly more interested.

"Why, mademoiselle?" she asked.

Mademoiselle Durand pursed up her lips.

"Because I fear that he will certainly be very unhappy. Enfin, he is very unhappy, so there is no more to be said."

"He did not look it when I saw him," observed Bianca, tranquilly.

Mademoiselle Durand glanced at her. Like Princess Montefiano, she was never quite sure how much might be concealed beneath Bianca's quiet manner. But, like most of her race, she was quick to seize a point in conversation and use it to advance her own argument.

"Of course he did not look it—when you saw him," she repeated, "or when he saw you," she added, significantly.

Bianca knitted her brows. "If he is unhappy," she said, "and I am very sorry he should be unhappy—I do not see how a person he does not know can make him less so."

"That," said Mademoiselle Durand, "all depends on who the person is. It is certainly very sad—poor young man!" and she sighed again.

"I suppose," Bianca said, thoughtfully, "that he is in love with somebody—somebody whom he cannot marry."

"Yes," returned Mademoiselle Durand, dryly, "he is in love with somebody. He could marry her, perhaps—"

"Then why doesn't he?" Bianca asked, practically.

Mademoiselle Durand was a little taken aback at the abruptness of the question.

"I will tell you," she replied, after hesitating for a moment or two. "He has no opportunity of seeing the girl, except sometimes as she is driving in her carriage, or well, in church. By-the-way, I believe he first saw her in a church, and fell in love with her. That was odd, was it not? But what is the use of seeing people if you can never speak to them?"

"He could speak to her parents," said Bianca, who apparently knew what was proper under such circumstances.

Mademoiselle Durand shrugged her shoulders.

"Scarcely," she said, "since they are in heaven. Besides, he would not be allowed to ask for this girl's hand in any case. She is like you, of noble birth; and, like you again, she is rich. Those about her, I dare say, are not very anxious that she should marry at all. It is possible."

Bianca Acorari did not speak for a few moments. At length she said, slowly: "I wonder what you would do, mademoiselle, if you knew somebody was in love with you, and you were not allowed to see or speak to that person?"

Mademoiselle Durand looked at her critically.

"It entirely depends," she replied.

"And upon what?"

"Upon what? Oh, upon something very simple. It would depend upon whether I were in love with him."

"I don't think it is at all simple," observed Bianca. "How would you know if you were in love with him or not?"

Mademoiselle Durand laughed outright. Then she became suddenly grave. "Well," she replied, after hesitating a moment, "I will tell you. If I thought I did not know—if I were not sure—I should say to myself: 'Marie, you are in love. Why? Because, if you are not, you would be sure of the fact—oh, quite sure!'"

"And supposing you were in love with him?" demanded Bianca. She looked beyond Mademoiselle Durand as she spoke.

"Ah—if I were, then—well, then I should leave the rest to him to manage. Between ourselves, I believe that to be what is troubling the poor young Rossano. He does not know if the girl he loves has any idea that he does so, and still less if she could ever return his love. It is very sad. If I were that girl, I should certainly find some means of letting him know that I cared for him—"

"But you say she cannot—that she would never be allowed—"

Mademoiselle Durand sang the first few bars of the habanera in "Carmen" to herself. "When two people are in love," she observed, "they do not always stop to think of what is allowed. But, if you please, Donna Bianca, we will go on with our history—I mean, our French history, not that of Monsieur Silvio Rossano," and Mademoiselle Durand suddenly reassumed her professional demeanor.

It was of this little interlude in her morning's studies that Bianca Acorari was meditating as she sat waiting for the hour when she would have to accompany her step-mother in her afternoon drive. She wished that Mademoiselle Durand would have been more communicative. It was certainly interesting to hear about Giacinta Rossano's brother. Silvio! Yes, it was a nice name, decidedly—and somehow, she thought, it suited its owner. It must be an odd sensation—that of being in love. Perhaps one always saw in the imagination the person one was in love with. One saw a well-built figure and a sun-tanned face with dark, curling hair clustering over a broad brow, and a pair of dark-blue eyes that looked—but, how they looked! as though asking a perpetual question.... How pleasant it would be there in the gardens of Villa Acorari!—so quiet and cool in the deep shade of the ilex-trees, with the sound of the water falling from the fountains. But it was a little dull to be alone—always alone. What a difference if she had had a brother, as Giacinta Rossano had. He would have wandered about with her sometimes, perhaps, in these gardens ... and he and she would have sat and talked together by the fountains where the water was always making a soft music of its own. What was the story she had heard the people tell of some heathen god of long ago who haunted the ilex grove? How still it was—and how the water murmured always ... and the eyes looked at her, always with that question in their blue depths—and the graceful head with its short, close curls bent towards her ... the god, of course—they said he often came—and how his sweet curved lips smiled at her as he stood in that chequered ray of sunlight slanting through the heavy foliage overhead....

And with a little sigh Bianca passed from dreaming into sleep; her face, with its crown of tawny gold hair, thrown into sharp relief by the red damask cushions of the chair on which she was sitting, and her lips parted in a slight smile.

VII

"Bianca is certainly a strange child," the Princess Montefiano was saying. "I confess I do not understand her; but then, I never did understand children."

Baron d'Antin looked at his sister, and then he smiled a little satirically.

"After all," he replied, "the fact is not surprising. You married too late in your life—or, shall we say, too late in your husband's life—but it does not matter! No, Bianca is decidedly not like other girls of her age, in certain ways. But I think, Jeanne, that you make a mistake in regarding her as a child. She seems to me to be a fairly well-developed young woman."

"Physically so, perhaps," returned the princess.

Her brother smiled again—not a very pleasant smile. Monsieur d'Antin was scarcely middle-aged, being a good many years younger than his sister. He was tall for a Belgian, and tolerably handsome, with well-cut, regular features, and iron-gray hair as yet fairly plentiful. But he was a man who looked as though he had "lived." His eyes had a worn, faded expression, which every now and then turned to a hard glitter when they became animated; and his small, well-shaped hands were apt to move restlessly, as though their owner's nerves were not always in the best of order.

"Physically?" he repeated. "Precisely, my dear Jeanne. Physically, your step-daughter is—well, no longer a child, we will suppose. Some young man will probably suppose the same thing one of these days; and he will presumably not wish to confine himself to suppositions," and Monsieur d'Antin blinked his eyes interrogatively at his sister.

During the last couple of years, Baron d'Antin had abandoned Brussels and Paris, where he had hitherto passed the greater part of his time, for Rome. He had certainly not chosen Rome as a place of residence on account of its worldly attractions, and its other claims to interest did not particularly appeal to him. As a matter of fact, Monsieur d'Antin found Rome exceedingly dull, as a city. It is, indeed, scarcely the capital that a man of pleasure would elect to live in. Now Monsieur d'Antin had certainly been a man of pleasure while his constitution and years had allowed him to be so, and he still liked amusing himself and being amused. Unfortunately, however, when necessity obliged him to pursue other pastimes with greater moderation, he had given way more and more to a passion for gambling, and he had left the larger portion of his patrimony in clubs, both in his own capital, in Paris, and in Nice. It was not unnatural, perhaps, that, on financial disaster overtaking him, he should have remembered his sister, the Princess of Montefiano, and have been seized with a desire to pass a season or two in Rome; and it had never, somehow or other, been quite convenient to return to Belgium or to Paris since.

He had come to Rome, he told his acquaintances, to economize; which, in plainer language, meant to say that he had come there to live upon his sister. The princess, indeed, was not unconscious of the fact; but her brother carried out his intention with such unfailing tact and consideration that she had no excuse for resenting it.

Monsieur d'Antin did not often invade the austere seclusion of Palazzo Acorari. It would, no doubt, have been more economical to breakfast and dine at his sister's table, when not bidden elsewhere, than to eat at a restaurant or club. But Monsieur d'Antin liked to be independent; and, moreover, the pious atmosphere of Palazzo Acorari did not at all appeal to him.

His sister bored him, and her entourage bored him still more. It was infinitely more convenient every now and then to borrow sums of money from her to meet current expenses, on the tacit understanding that such loans would never be repaid, than to take up his abode in Palazzo Acorari, as the princess had at first more than once suggested he should do.

Monsieur d'Antin was an egoist, pure and simple, but he could be a very agreeable egoist—so long as he was supplied with all he wanted. Fortunately, perhaps, for his popularity, his egoism was tempered by an almost imperturbable good-humor, which, as a rule, prevented it from ruffling the nerves of others.

There are some men, and a great many women, who invariably succeed in obtaining what they want out of daily life. Their needs are trifling, possibly, but then life is made up of trifles—if one chooses to live only for the present. But to be a really successful egoist, it is necessary at all events to acquire a reputation for good-humor.

Monsieur d'Antin had acquired this reputation in Rome, as he had acquired it elsewhere; and he was shrewd enough to make it one of his most useful possessions. Indeed, it was almost a pleasure to lose money to Monsieur d'Antin at cards, or to place at his disposal any convenience of which he might momentarily be in need, such was his invariable bonhomie in society. He had very soon made a place for himself in the Roman world, and in this it must be confessed that he had shown remarkable ingenuity. Had he arrived in the Eternal City possessed of ready money, it would have made no difference whether he was a Belgian gentleman or an English or American "bounder," for all Rome would have willingly allowed him to entertain it at the Grand Hotel or elsewhere, provided he got the right society women to "run him." But Baron d'Antin had arrived in Rome with no reputation at all, beyond that of being an elderly viveur who happened to be the brother of the Principessa di Montefiano. He had studied his ground, however, and it had not taken him long to come to the conclusion that an unofficial foreigner, to be a social success in modern Rome, must usually be either an adventurer or a snob, and that the two almost invariably went together. Being a gentleman in his own country, albeit in somewhat straitened circumstances, Monsieur d'Antin had at first been amazed at the apparent inability of the average Romans of society to distinguish between a foreigner, man or woman, who was well-bred and one who was not. Finally, he had come to the conclusion that good-breeding was not expected from the unofficial foreigner, nor, indeed, any other of the usual passports to society—but merely a supply of ready money and a proper appreciation of the condescension on the part of the Roman nobility in allowing it to be spent on their entertainment. This, however, was not a condition of affairs that suited Monsieur d'Antin's plans. He had come to Rome not to be lived upon by the society he found there, but to make that society useful to him. That he had done so was entirely due to his own social talents, and to his apparently amiable disposition. He had no need of the Palazzo Acorari, so far as his society and his food were concerned, for there were few evenings of the week during the winter and spring that he had not a dinner invitation; and if by any chance he had no engagement for that meal, there were various methods at his disposal of supplying the deficiency.

Altogether, Baron d'Antin had become persona grata in Roman society, and in his good-humored, careless way he had deliberately laid himself out to be so, even waiving his prejudices and suppressing a certain nervous irritation which the Anglo-Saxon race generally produced in him, sufficiently to dine with its Roman members in their rented palaces.

"My dear Jeanne," he would say to his sister, "you have no sense of humor—absolutely none at all. I dined the other night with some of my Anglo-Saxon friends—I should rather say that I passed some hours of the evening in eating and drinking with them. The wines were execrable—execrable!—and the man who poured them out told us their supposed dates. Some of them, I believe, had been purchased when Noah sold off his cellar after the subsidence of the flood—although, if I remember rightly, he liked his wine, and his—well, sacred history is more in your line than mine, Jeanne. In any case, it was very amusing—and when one looked at the fine old rooms—the mise en scène of the comedy, you know—it was more amusing still."

But Monsieur d'Antin was much too shrewd to laugh at any of the component parts of the society he had determined to exploit. Had he wanted nothing out of it, as he frequently told himself, he could have afforded to laugh a good deal; and, being possessed of a very keen sense of humor, he would probably have done so. As it was, however, he concealed his amusement, or, at the most, allowed himself to give it rein when calling upon his sister, who was unable to appreciate his sarcasms, living as she did, completely apart from the cosmopolitan society in which her brother preferred to move.

Monsieur d'Antin had been paying the princess one of his occasional visits, which he did at regular intervals. To say the truth, he did not by any means approve of the compatriot he as often as not would find sitting with his sister when he was announced. He was well aware that Jeanne was a very pious woman; and very pious women, especially those who had reached a certain age, liked to have a priest at their beck and call. This, Monsieur d'Antin considered, was very natural—pathetically natural, indeed. All the same, he wished that the Abbé Roux had been an Italian, and not a Belgian priest. When Monsieur d'Antin had first appeared upon the scene in Rome, he had instantly felt that the director of his sister's spiritual affairs was not over well pleased at his coming. Accustomed as he was to study those with whom he was likely at any time to be brought much into contact, Baron d'Antin had at once arrived at the conclusion that the abbé probably did not confine himself to the direction of Princess Montefiano's spiritual concerns only; otherwise the advent of her brother would have left him profoundly indifferent. A sudden instinct told Monsieur d'Antin that he and the priest must clash—and then he had reflected, not without some humor, that, after all, there might be such a thing as honor among thieves. He had done his best to conciliate the Abbé Roux whenever they had chanced to meet at Palazzo Acorari, but the priest had not responded in any way to his advances. Monsieur d'Antin knew that the late Prince Montefiano had left as much as the law allowed him to leave in his wife's hands, and that she was his daughter's sole guardian until the girl should marry or come of age. The princess, however, had never written to her brother concerning her affairs—neither had there been any particular reason why she should do so. Rome had absorbed her, and even for some years before her marriage she had practically become Roman in everything but in name. There are many, both women and men, whom Rome has absorbed in a similar way; nor can an explanation of her magnetic attraction always be found in religion or in art, since the irreligious and the inartistic are equally prone to fall under her spell. Rather, perhaps, is the secret of her power to be found in the mysterious sense of universal motherhood which clings around her name—in the knowledge, at once awe-inspiring and comforting, that there is no good and no evil, no joy and no sorrow which humanity can experience, unknown to her; and that however heavily the burden may bear upon our shoulders as we walk through her streets, multitudes more laden than we have trod those stones before us, and have found—rest.

It could hardly be supposed, however, that the burden borne by Princess Montefiano was of a nature requiring the psychological assistance of Rome to lighten it. So far as she was concerned—and in this she differed in no respect from many other pious people of both sexes—Rome merely suggested itself to her as a place offering peculiar facilities for the keeping of her soul in a satisfactory state of polish.

As he saw more of his sister in her home life, Monsieur d'Antin became convinced that the Abbé Roux, as he had at once suspected, by no means confined himself to directing her spiritual affairs. It was very evident that the Abbé managed Palazzo Acorari, and this was quite sufficient to account for his distant attitude towards a possible intruder. As a matter of fact, Monsieur d'Antin had no great desire to intrude. He intended to benefit by the accident of having a sister who was also a Roman princess with a comfortable dowry, and he had very quickly made up his mind not to attempt to interfere with the Abbé Roux so long as that ecclesiastic did not attempt to interfere with him.

During the last few months, Monsieur d'Antin had often found himself wondering what his sister's position would be should her step-daughter marry. In any case, scarcely four years would elapse before Donna Bianca Acorari must enter into absolute possession of the Montefiano estates, and yet it was evident that the princess regarded her as a mere child who could be kept in the background. It had not escaped his notice that it was clearly his sister's wish that Donna Bianca should not receive any more attention than would naturally be paid to a child. Nevertheless, when Monsieur d'Antin looked at the girl, he would say to himself that Jeanne was shutting her eyes to obvious facts, and that at some not very distant day they would probably be opened unexpectedly.

He had tried to make friends with Bianca, but the princess had markedly discouraged any such efforts; and latterly he had observed that his sister almost invariably sent her step-daughter out of the room if she happened to be in it when he was announced.

Bianca Acorari herself had shown no disinclination to be friendly with her newly arrived step-uncle. Anybody who was not the Abbé Roux was welcome in her eyes. When Monsieur d'Antin had first come to Rome, before he had realized the monotony of domestic life in Palazzo Acorari, he had been in the habit of coming there more frequently than was now the case, and had repeatedly dined with his sister Bianca, and occasionally the Abbé Roux, making a little partie carrée.

It had amused him to address no small part of his conversation to his step-niece during these little dinners, and Bianca had talked to him readily enough. She was pleased, possibly, at having the opportunity to show the Abbé Roux that she could talk, if there was anybody she cared to talk with. Perhaps Monsieur d'Antin, with his accustomed penetration, had already guessed that the relations between the girl and her step-mother's spiritual director were those of a species of armed neutrality, at all events upon Bianca's side. However this might be, he had affected not to perceive the obvious disapproval with which his sister regarded his endeavors always to draw Bianca into the conversation, nor the offended demeanor of the priest at being sometimes left out of it.

To say the truth, Monsieur d'Antin was by no means insensible to Bianca Acorari's physical attractions. He flattered himself that he had an eye for female beauty in its developing stages; and he had arrived at an age when such stages have a peculiar fascination for men of a certain temperament. Perhaps the observant eyes of the Abbé Roux detected more warmth in his lay compatriot's glance, as the latter laughed and talked with the girl, than altogether commended itself to his priestly sense of what was due to innocence. In any case it was certain that on the last two occasions on which Monsieur d'Antin had proposed himself to dinner at Palazzo Acorari, Bianca had presumably dined in her own apartment; for she did not appear, and when Monsieur d'Antin inquired after her, the princess had said dryly that her step-daughter was scarcely old enough to dine with grown-up people.

Monsieur d'Antin felt this banishment to be due to clerical suggestion; and so, it must be confessed, did Bianca herself. He was bound to admit, however—and he admitted it with decided complacency—that his sister was right in safeguarding her step-daughter from premature masculine admiration. He reflected, too, that in Italy—as, indeed, in Belgium, or other Catholic countries—uncles and nieces were permitted to marry under dispensations comparatively easy to obtain; and that in the case of a step-uncle, no consanguinity existed. The reflection had been a pleasant one to Monsieur d'Antin, and he looked upon the uneasiness he had apparently inspired in the mind of the Abbé Roux as a proof that he might still consider himself as dangerous to female peace of mind—whereby he showed himself to possess to the full that peculiar form of male vanity supposed to be inherent in the Gallic races.

VIII

"Yes," continued Monsieur d'Antin, as his sister gazed at him in a slightly bewildered manner, "Bianca has only got to be seen, and to see a few men who do not cover their legs with a cassock, and she will very soon find out, Jeanne, that she is no child."

"Really, Philippe!" expostulated Princess Montefiano.

"There is no necessity to be shocked," proceeded Monsieur d'Antin, tranquilly. "I know what I am talking about. There are certain temperaments—female temperaments—one has come across them, you know. Bien, your step-daughter is one of these, unless I am much mistaken. Mark my words, Jeanne, if you keep her as though she were going to be a nun, everything will go on quietly for a time, and then one fine day you will discover that she has had an affair with the footman. What would you have?" and Monsieur d'Antin shrugged his shoulders philosophically.

Princess Montefiano appeared thoroughly alarmed.

"Do you really think so?" she asked, hurriedly. "I have always looked upon Bianca as—well, as quite a child still in all these ways, you know. I wonder," she added, suddenly, looking at her brother, "what makes you think she is not."

"Ah," repeated Monsieur d'Antin, meditatively, "what makes me think she is not?"

His meditations seemed to afford him some pleasure, for he did not hurry himself to answer the question. "Well, really," he continued, at length, with a little chuckle, "I could hardly explain what it is that makes me think so, my dear Jeanne—not to you, at all events, for I do not at all suppose you would understand. But all the same, I think so—oh yes—I certainly think so!" and, rising from his chair, Monsieur d'Antin began to walk up and down the room, gently rubbing his hands together the while.

The princess looked perplexed. "After all, Philippe," she said, "Bianca is only just seventeen. Of course she is tall for her age, and, as you say—er—well developed. I suppose men only judge by what they see—"

"Precisely," interrupted Monsieur d'Antin; "it is the only way we have of forming an idea of—what we do not see."

"I have thought only of her mind—her nature," continued the princess. "I suppose," she added, "that is what you mean? I cannot say that I understand her. I find her silent—apathetic. She seems to me to interest herself in nothing."

"Probably because you do not provide her with sufficient material."

"I try to do my duty by her," returned the princess, a little stiffly. "A step-mother is always placed in a difficult position. Of course, Bianca being, as it were, like an only son, and everything going to her, does not make things easier."

Monsieur d'Antin looked at his sister curiously. She had very rarely spoken to him of family affairs, and he had very little idea how the Montefiano property was settled, beyond a natural conclusion that the old prince would have left the bulk of it to his only child and representative.

"But of course," he observed, "you are always well provided for—in the event of Bianca marrying, I mean—or, as she must do before very long, taking over the estates into her own hands?"

"There is my jointure, certainly," said the princess, "but it is not large. I do not understand business matters very well, but naturally, so long as Bianca is a minor and unmarried, I must be better off than I shall be afterwards. A great deal will depend upon Bianca's husband. That is what Monsieur l'Abbé always says to me—that we must not be in a hurry to marry Bianca. She must not marry a man who simply wants her titles and money to use them for his own purposes."

"Monsieur l'Abbé is perfectly right," said Baron d'Antin, with a dry little laugh.

The princess glanced at him. "You do not like him," she said.

Monsieur d'Antin hesitated for a moment. Then he laughed again, easily.

"Not like him?" he repeated. "But, my dear Jeanne, I like him very much. I am not fond of priests as a rule. They are not—well, not what I am accustomed to, you know. But your tame abbé, I should say that he was a most estimable person, and, no doubt, to a woman in your position, a most useful adviser."

The princess sighed. "Oh, most useful!" she exclaimed. "He is a good man of business, too," she continued. "I feel that he acts as a kind of intermediary between me, as Bianca's representative, and the agents and people. After all, Philippe, I am a foreigner, you know—though I scarcely feel myself to be one—and Bianca is not. So I am doubly glad of Monsieur l'Abbé's advice sometimes."

"But he is as much a foreigner as you are, Jeanne," remarked Monsieur d'Antin.

"Oh, but then he is a priest!" exclaimed the princess. "That makes such a difference. You see, he was brought up in Rome, and went through his studies here."

"An admirable training," said Monsieur d'Antin, suavely.

"Yes, admirable," assented the princess. "It gives such a grasp of, such an insight into, human nature. That is one of the strange things about Bianca, for instance," she added, suddenly.

"That she has an insight into human nature?" demanded Monsieur d'Antin. "If she has, Jeanne, it must be a miraculous gift, for she can have seen little enough of it."

"No, no! I mean that she cannot bear Monsieur l'Abbé. Would you believe it, Philippe, that notwithstanding all his kindness, that child positively refuses to go to confession to him? She refused years ago, and now I never mention the subject."

"Tiens!" observed Monsieur d'Antin.

"It is incredible," continued his sister, "but nevertheless it is true."

Monsieur d'Antin shrugged his shoulders.

"It appears," he said, enigmatically, "that your step-daughter also has studied in Rome."

The princess dropped her voice mysteriously.

"I believe," she said, "that the mother, my blessed husband's first wife, you know, was an odd woman—or child, rather—for she was little more. There was some story—she was in love with some other man who was not thought a good enough match for her, and her family obliged her to marry my poor husband. It was not a happy marriage."

"That," observed Monsieur d'Antin, "was no doubt his reason for marrying again. He was determined to find happiness."

"Ah, well!" Princess Montefiano replied, with a sigh—"he needed rest. His life had been a troubled one, and he needed rest."

Monsieur d'Antin smiled sympathetically. He had heard it remarked in Rome that the late Montefiano had indeed worn himself out at a comparatively early period in life.

"I do not wonder," he said, presently, "that you feel the responsibility of selecting a suitable husband for Bianca. All the same," he added, "I think you will be wise to contemplate the possibility of her not remaining a child indefinitely. If you do not, I should be inclined to regard the footmen as a perpetual source of anxiety."

"Philippe!" exclaimed the princess. "You are really perfectly scandalous! One does not allude to such things, even in jest. But I see what you mean, although I must say that I think you put it rather grossly. I will consult Monsieur l'Abbé about the advisability of gradually letting Bianca see a few more people. I don't want it to be supposed that I am keeping her from marrying when the proper time comes for her to do so; and my only object would be to find her a suitable husband. Of course, as Monsieur l'Abbé says her marriage must almost certainly alter my own circumstances, but one must not allow one's self to think of that."

"Ah," said Monsieur d'Antin, thoughtfully, "Monsieur l'Abbé says so, does he?"

"It is natural that he should look at the matter from all points of view," returned the princess.

"Perfectly natural—from all points of view," repeated Monsieur d'Antin; "and," he added to himself, "more particularly from his own, I imagine. Well," he continued, "I must leave you, Jeanne. I should consult Monsieur Roux, by all means. He looks as though he knew something about feminine development—your little abbé; and you tell me that he has studied in Rome. Au revoir, my dear Jeanne—à bientot! Ah, by-the-way, there is one little matter I had nearly forgotten. Could you without inconvenience—but absolutely without inconvenience—lend me a thousand francs or so? Two thousand would be more useful—I do not say no. In a few weeks my miserable rents must come in, and then we will settle our accounts—but, in the mean time, it would be a great convenience."

The princess looked uneasy. "I will try," she said; "but, to say the truth, it is not a very favorable moment—"

Monsieur d'Antin waved his hands.

"Not a word—not a word more, I beg of you, my dear Jeanne!" he exclaimed. "You will think the matter over; and if two thousand is not convenient, I must make one thousand suffice. In the mean time, di nuovo, as the Italians say," and he kissed his sister affectionately and hurried from the room.

As he walked from the Palazzo Acorari to his little apartment in the Ludovisi quarter of the city, Monsieur d'Antin was unusually preoccupied, and more than once he chuckled to himself. His sister Jeanne was certainly not gifted with a sense of humor, but he found himself wondering whether she was quite as incompetent to look after her own affairs as she wished him to believe. Experience taught him that while piety and humor seldom went together, piety and a shrewd eye to worldly advantage were by no means unfrequently to be found working very harmoniously side by side.

Somebody in Palazzo Acorari, Monsieur d'Antin felt convinced, had an interest in maintaining the status quo, so far as the existing constitution of the Montefiano establishment was concerned. Jeanne might be a bad woman of business, but, when all was said and done, at thirty-five or so, with no money—with nothing, in short, except a local reputation for holiness—she had succeeded in marrying a man who had been able to give her a very substantial position in the world, and who had had the tact to leave her a good many years in which to enjoy its full advantages without the incubus of his company.

But it was more likely that Jeanne allowed herself to be swayed by the counsels of the priest whom, according to her own account, she always consulted. It was conceivable, nay, it was even probable, that Monsieur l'Abbé Roux might desire that Donna Bianca Acorari should remain as much as possible secluded from the world for reasons of his own. So long as she remained unmarried, so long would she, no doubt, be content that the Montefiano properties should be managed more or less as they had been hitherto managed; and who could tell how much benefit the Abbé Roux might not, directly or indirectly, gain from the present system of management.

And Bianca Acorari? Monsieur d'Antin allowed his thoughts to dwell upon her dreamy face, with its eyes that seemed always to be looking into an unexplored distance, upon the curved mouth and firm, rounded throat, upon the graceful lines of the figure just melting into womanhood, and came to the conclusion that Jeanne and her abbé were a couple of fools. Why, the girl had something about her that stirred even his well-worn passions—and how would it not be with a younger man? She had some idea, too, of her own power, of her own charm, unless he was very much mistaken. It was a vague, undefined consciousness, perhaps, but none the less fascinating on that account. A child? Nonsense! A peach almost ripe for the plucking.

IX

It was very still in the ilex grove of the Villa Acorari. The air was sultry, and not a leaf stirred; yet angry-looking clouds occasionally drifted across the sky from the sea, and cast moving patches of purple shadow on the plain stretching away from below Velletri to the coast.

The sunbeams glanced here and there through the heavy foliage. They threw quaint, checkered patterns on the moss-grown flag-stones surrounding a group of fountains, and flashed upon the spray falling over sculptured nymphs and river-gods wantoning in cool green beds of arum leaves and water-lilies.

A gentle, drowsy murmur of insects filled the air, and the splashing of the fountains—otherwise deep silence reigned. Lizards, green and golden-brown, darted out of the crevices in the old stone seats, paused abruptly with little heads poised in a listening attitude, and darted away again; while blue dragon-flies hawked over the waters of the fountains, now giving mad chase to a fly, now resting—jewels set in green enamel—on a lily leaf.

It was not to be wondered at if the gardens of the Villa Acorari were reputed to be haunted by spirits of the old gods. On this July afternoon some mysterious influence, infinitely peaceful but infinitely sad, seemed to brood over them. All the glamour of a mighty past seemed to enfold them—such a past as many an old villa in the neighborhood of Rome has witnessed, in which every passion, good and bad, has played its part; in which scenes of love and hate, of joy and sorrow, of highest virtue and foulest crime have succeeded each other through the centuries.

Tradition declared that a shrine sacred to the rites of the Lupercalia once stood in the midst of this ilex grove, on the very spot where the fountains now murmured and the water-lilies lifted their pure whiteness to the hot caress of the sunbeams.

If this were so, it was certainly as well that times had changed; that lizards and dragon-flies had usurped the place of the Luperci, and that lascivious Pan slept with the rest of the joyous company of Olympus; else had Bianca Acorari, quietly reading her book in the deep shadows of the ilex-trees, run grievous risk of receiving the sacred blow from the thong of some lustful votary of the god.

St. Peter's festival had come and gone, and Bianca, to her great satisfaction, had already been some days at the Villa Acorari. It was an untold relief to her to feel that for at least three months she was free to wander about these old gardens instead of driving through the hot, dusty streets of Rome. This year, too, she would not be quite so much alone as she had usually been. The princess had consented to a scheme whereby Mademoiselle Durand was to continue giving her lessons, at any rate for another month; and it had been duly arranged that she should come to the villa three times a week from Albano, where, it appeared, she was going to pass the remainder of the summer. The proposition had come from Mademoiselle Durand herself. She had other pupils, she had informed the princess, who would be in villeggiatura at Albano and Ariccia, and it would be very easy for her to come over to the Villa Acorari if the princess wished it.

Somewhat to her step-mother's surprise, Bianca jumped eagerly at the idea. There could be no objection, the princess thought, to the girl pursuing her studies with Mademoiselle Durand for a few more weeks; and she saw, moreover, that Bianca welcomed the thought of occasionally having the governess as a companion. She would not have wished Bianca to walk with Mademoiselle Durand in Rome, certainly; but at the villa it was a very different thing; and, after all, it was better for her than being perpetually alone, or merely having Bettina's society.

Mademoiselle Durand had already been over twice, and Bianca had shown her all her favorite walks, and the places where she liked to sit and read or work during the heat of the afternoons.

It had struck Bianca that the Frenchwoman displayed considerable curiosity as to her movements. Mademoiselle Durand insisted upon being taken all over the grounds of the villa, and almost appeared as though she were studying the topography of the spots which Bianca pointed out as being her usual resorts.

They had talked of many things only a couple of days ago—things which, it must be confessed, had nothing whatever to do with Bianca's education. In the course of the last few weeks the girl had lost much of the reserve she had formerly displayed towards her governess. The Rossano family had been, as it were, a sympathetic link between Mademoiselle Durand and Bianca, a subject to which it was refreshing to both to turn after wrestling with French history or German poetry.

Mademoiselle Durand had talked of Silvio on this very spot where Bianca was now giving herself up to the pleasant feeling of drowsiness induced by the murmur of the fountains and the fragrant warmth of the July afternoon, and she had shaken her head sadly and significantly.

That young man, she assured Bianca, was breaking his heart and ruining his health. It did not at the moment strike either her or her listener that Silvio could hardly do the one without doing the other. It was certainly very sad, and Bianca had confided to Mademoiselle Durand that she wished she could do something to avert such a catastrophe.

"Perhaps," the Frenchwoman said, tentatively, "if you were to make his acquaintance, he might become more reasonable," and Bianca had gazed at her with a startled air.

"You know, mademoiselle," she said, a little impatiently, "that I can never make his acquaintance."

"Never is a long time," returned Mademoiselle Durand, smiling. "Supposing—I only say supposing—you met him somewhere, on one of your walks, for instance, and that he spoke to you, would you not try to—well, to give him some good advice—to be kind to him?"

"He probably would not ask me for my advice," replied Bianca, laughing.

Mademoiselle Durand looked at her and hesitated for a moment.

"I think he would," she said, slowly. "You see, Donna Bianca, there is such a close resemblance between your own position and that of the girl with whom the poor boy is so madly in love."

Bianca was silent.

"I wonder," persisted Mademoiselle Durand, "what you would do. It would be very interesting to know."

"You mean—" began Bianca.

"I mean," interrupted Mademoiselle Durand, "if by any chance you happened to meet Monsieur Silvio and he asked you for your advice, as, du reste, he has asked me. You would not run away—no?"

"No," said Bianca, thoughtfully, "I don't think I should run away. I think I should try to help him if I could. I am very sorry for him."

Mademoiselle Durand suddenly sprang up with a little scream.

"A scorpion!" she exclaimed. "I am sure I saw a scorpion! It ran in there—into that hole close to my foot."

"I dare say," said Bianca, indifferently. "It is the time of year when one finds them, but I have never seen one just here. It is too damp for them, I think."

Mademoiselle Durand had made no further allusion after this either to Silvio Rossano or to the scorpion. Indeed, she turned the conversation into professional channels with some abruptness, and shortly afterwards she returned to the house preparatory to going back to Albano.

Mademoiselle's question returned to Bianca's mind as she sat under her ilex-tree. It was all nonsense, of course, for how could she meet Silvio Rossano and talk to him about his love-affair? Mademoiselle Durand knew perfectly well that there could be no question of such a thing. But still it would be very interesting to hear all about this mysterious girl with whom he was so hopelessly in love. And, yes, she would certainly like to meet him and talk to him. It was odd how well she remembered his features, though she had never dared to look at him very much. Nevertheless, since that Christmas night in the Sudario they had seemed to be impressed upon her mind. And that other girl, the one he was in love with, whose name Mademoiselle Durand declared she was bound in honor not to mention, did she think much about him—remember the look of his eyes and the expression of his mouth? Perhaps she never thought about him at all.

At this stage of her reflections Bianca suddenly found herself becoming angry. She had just paused to ask herself why this should be, when a soft, pattering sound which was not that of the fountains fell upon her ear. Looking up, she became aware that the sunlight had faded, and that the shade around her had grown suddenly deeper. The air felt heavier and more stifling, and the pattering noise that had at first attracted her attention seemed to come nearer and nearer as the light grew more dim. From somewhere in the underwood a frog began to croak contentedly:

"Or s'ode su tutta la fronda

crosciare

l'argentea pioggia

che monda,

il croscio che varia

secondo la fronda

più folta, men folta

Ascolta.

La figlia del aria

è muta; ma la figlia

del limo lontana,

la rana,

canta nell'ombra più fonda,

chi sa dove, chi sa dove!"[#]

[#] Le laudi; (Pioggia nel Pineto) Gabriele d'Annunzio.

Bianca rose hurriedly and looked at the sky. The campagna below, and even the vineyards on the slopes of the hill immediately beneath the park of the Villa Acorari, still lay bathed in sunshine. The light rain that was falling was evidently only a passing summer-shower, and not, as she had for a moment feared, the immediate precursor of one of those violent hail-storms that sometimes sweep over the Alban hills, devastating in a few minutes the crops of a whole district, and turning smiling vineyards, laden with fruit, into brown and barren wildernesses.

Bianca picked up her neglected book and made her way towards a little casino which stood at the end of the ilex avenue, inside which she proposed to shelter herself until the shower should have passed over. She had scarcely taken a few steps under the sombre green branches when she started back with a little cry. A man stepped from behind one of the gnarled trunks and stood before her, bare-headed. In an instant she recognized him. He was not the god—no. For a second she had almost thought that he might be. Then she looked at him again. Not the god—no; but surely the god could scarcely be fairer.

She turned aside hesitatingly.

"Donna Bianca!"

The low voice, very gentle, very pleading, seemed to mingle its tones with the murmur of the fountains and the croscio of the rain-drops among the ilex-leaves.

Silvio Rossano stood and looked at her. Bianca put her hand up to her throat. Something seemed to rise in it and choke back her words.

"You!" she exclaimed.

He smiled a little. "I, Silvio," he said, simply. "Donna Bianca," he continued hurriedly, as though anxious not to give her time to say more, "if you tell me to go, I will go, and you shall never see me again."

And then he waited.

A great silence seemed to follow his words, as though all the sylvan deities in their lurking-places were listening for her answer.

Only the frog croaked:

"Chi sa dove, chi sa dove!"

Presently Bianca Acorari spoke.

"I do not tell you to go," she said.

Then Silvio moved a few steps nearer to her.

Suddenly Bianca started, as though rousing herself from a dream.

"What am I saying?" she exclaimed. "Of course you must go! You should never have come here. If they were to find you—alone with me—"

Silvio's eyes flashed.

"Yes," he said; "alone with you—at last!"

Bianca drew back from him.

"At last!" she repeated. Then she smiled. "Of course," she continued, "you wished to talk to me. Mademoiselle Durand told me—though I do not understand what I can do."

Silvio looked at her in bewilderment.

"You knew!" he exclaimed; "and yet—you do not understand what you can do? Donna Bianca," he added, earnestly, "please do not laugh at me. Surely you understand that you can do—everything—for me?"

Bianca shook her head. "I do not laugh at you," she said slowly. "I am sorry for you. I would help you if I could; but how can I?"

She moved towards the casino as she spoke.

"Listen!" she added, "the rain is coming on more heavily. Do you not hear it on the leaves? And it grows darker again."

He followed her to the summer-house, but as she pushed open the door he drew back, and glanced at her hesitatingly.

"I will remain here," he said. "Afterwards, when the shower is over, if you will let me speak to you—"

Bianca Acorari looked at him. "Come," she said, briefly.

It was an unheard of proceeding. Verily, as Monsieur d'Antin had said, Bianca was no child—unless, indeed, she was more childish than her years warranted. Any behavior more diametrically opposed to all the rules and customs that so strictly regulate the actions of a young girl in Italy could scarcely be conceived.

Silvio Rossano himself was taken aback at her confidence in him. Her demeanor was so natural, however, and her manner, after the first surprise of seeing him had passed, had become so self-possessed, that he never for an instant misunderstood her.

Bianca seated herself upon a dilapidated chair—the only one, indeed, having its full complement of legs that the casino contained.

"Mademoiselle Durand said that if I—if we ever met, you would perhaps ask me for my advice," she said, gravely. "I cannot understand why you should think any advice of mine could help you. Perhaps she made a mistake, and you are here by accident."

Silvio almost laughed at her gravity, but she spoke with a certain dignity of manner which contrasted very charmingly with her fresh, girlish beauty.

"No," he said quietly, "I am not here by accident, Donna Bianca. I am here to see you—to tell you—"

"Ah, yes, I know!" interposed Bianca, hurriedly. "It is very sad, and, believe me, I am very sorry for you—very sorry."

Silvio's bronze face grew suddenly white.

"Sorry!" he exclaimed. "That means you can give me no hope—that you think me presumptuous—"

Bianca glanced at him. "I can give no opinion," she replied; "but I think—" and she paused, hesitatingly.

"Yes?" asked Silvio, eagerly. "What do you think, Donna Bianca?"

"That if I were a man," returned Bianca, slowly, "I would marry whom I chose, no matter how many difficulties stood in my way—that is to say," she added, "if I knew the woman whom I cared for cared for me."

"Ah," exclaimed Silvio, quickly, "but supposing you didn't know?"

"Then I should ask her," said Bianca Acorari, bluntly.

Silvio started violently. Then he came and stood beside her.

"Donna Bianca," he said, in a low, eager voice, "do you know what you are saying?"

Bianca looked at him a little wonderingly. She could not but notice his agitation. "Certainly I do," she replied. "You see, Monsieur Silvio," she added, and then stopped in confusion. "I beg your pardon," she said, blushing violently. "I am very rude—but I have so often heard Mademoiselle Durand speak of you as 'Monsieur Silvio,' that I fear—I am afraid—"

Silvio Rossano's head began to swim. He looked at her and said nothing. Then he swore at himself for being a fool and losing his opportunities.

"You see," proceeded Bianca, picking up the train of her thoughts again, "I am afraid I am not like other girls. I have lived most of my life alone, and I suppose I have odd ideas. When I am of age, I shall certainly please myself—but until then, I have to please other people. Of course, I know that a man is obliged to speak to a girl's parents before he can tell her that he loves her. But I am quite sure that if I were a man and wanted to know if my love were returned, I should ask the person I loved."

Silvio looked at her curiously.

"And is that your advice to me, Donna Bianca?" he said. "You advise me to ask the girl I love—whom I have loved ever since I first saw her seven months ago, though I have scarcely spoken to her in my life—whether she returns my love?"

"If I were in your place—yes," returned Bianca. "Why not, Mons—Signor Rossano?"

Silvio drew a long breath.

"It is what I came here this afternoon to do," he said, quietly.

Bianca looked at him with a bewildered expression. The blood left her face and she became very pale.

"What—you came here to do?" she repeated, slowly—"here? I do not understand."

"Ah, no? You do not understand? Then I will take your advice—I will make you understand." The words came to his lips fast enough now.

"Dear," he burst out, "you shall understand. I love you! Do you know what it means—love? I have loved you ever since that night—that Christmas night—when you looked into my eyes with yours. Do you understand now? I know I have no right to love you—no right to ask you to be my wife—for you are Donna Bianca Acorari, Princess of Montefiano, and I am—nobody. But this is what I have come to ask you—only this—whether you love me? If you do, I swear by God and by the Son of God that I will marry you, or I will marry no woman. If you do not love me, or will not love me, send me away from you—now, at once."

Bianca Acorari sprang up from her chair.

"Me?" she exclaimed. "You love me? Ah, but it is absurd—how can you love me? You are mad—or dreaming. You have forgotten. It is she you love—that other one—"

Silvio seized her hand almost roughly.

"Bianca!" he said, hoarsely, "what, in God's name, do you mean? I love you—you only. I have never looked at another woman—I never knew what love meant till I saw you."

Suddenly Bianca began to tremble violently. In a moment Silvio's arms were round her, and he was pressing hot, passionate kisses to her lips.

"Bianca!" he exclaimed. "Tell me—for God's sake, tell me—"

With a quick gesture she yielded herself wholly to him, drawing his face to hers and running her hands through his close, curly hair.

"Silvio," she whispered, "ah, Silvio! And it was I all the time! I thought—Mademoiselle Durand pretended that it was somebody else—some girl like me—and all the time I wondered why I cared—why I was angry—"

His arms were round her again, and he crushed her to him, while his lips blinded her eyes.

"Ah, Silvio mio," she sighed, "it is too much—you hurt me—ah, but it is sweet to be hurt by you—"

Suddenly she wrenched herself from him, crimson and trembling.

"God!" she exclaimed. "What have I done—what must you think of me? I did not know love was like that. It—hurts."

Silvio laughed aloud in the very intoxication of his joy.

"Beloved," he said, "that is only the beginning."

But Bianca shook her head. "I must be very wicked," she said. "I did not know I was quite so wicked. Silvio," she added, looking at him, shyly, "for the love of God, go! It is getting late. At any moment they may be coming to look for me. No—not again—"

"But I must speak with you here to-morrow—the day after," urged Silvio.

"Yes," said Bianca, hurriedly. "I must think," she added. "We must confide everything now to Mademoiselle Durand. Ah, Silvio, you should not have loved me—I shall bring you unhappiness."

Silvio looked at her gravely. "If we are true to each other," he said, "everything must come right. Even if we have to wait till you are of age and free to do as you choose, that is not a very long time."

They had left the casino as Silvio was speaking, and Bianca glanced uneasily down the avenue. Not a soul was visible. The rain had cleared away, and the sun, sinking westward, was streaming into the darkest recesses of the ilex grove. No sound broke the stillness except the splashing of the fountains, and now and again the notes of birds announcing that the hot hours were passed and the cool of evening was approaching.

Bianca turned and laid her hands on Silvio's. "Go, beloved," she said. "We must not be seen together—yet."

Silvio drew her to him once more. "Do you know," he said, "that you have never told me whether you will marry me or not?"

Bianca Acorari looked at him for a moment. Then she answered, simply:

"If I do not marry you, Silvio, I will marry no man. I swear it! Now go," she added, hastily—"do not delay a moment longer. I will communicate with you through Mademoiselle Durand."

"After all," said Silvio, "even if we have to wait three years—"

Bianca stamped her foot on the turf.

"Silvio," she exclaimed, "if you do not go, now—at once—I will not marry you for six years."

She turned away from him and sped down the avenue, while Silvio vanished through the undergrowth.

And the ilex grove was left in possession of the spirits of Pan and his Luperci; also in that of Monsieur d'Antin, who, with a little chuckle, stepped from behind the casino and emerged into the sunlight.

X

"You do not congratulate me, Giacinta."

Silvio and his sister were sitting alone together after a late dinner which was practically merely a supper. In the summer months in Rome, to be compelled by fashion to sit down to a meal at the pleasantest hour in all the twenty-four is a weariness to the flesh and a vexation to the spirit. Entirely in opposition to all the orthodox ideas inculcated by the guide-books and received by the British tourist, the Romans do not labor under the delusion that death stalks abroad with the sunset, and that deadly diseases dog the footsteps of those who wander through the streets or gardens when the shadows of evening are beginning to fall.

Those whose duties or inclinations keep them in Rome during the summer months do not, as a rule, complain of their lot, knowing full well that of all the larger Italian cities, and, indeed, of all southern capitals, it is on the whole by far the coolest and healthiest.

The Rossano family, like the majority of Romans, adapted their hours to the various seasons, and dinner, which was at any time from half-past seven to half-past eight in winter, became supper at nine or so in summer.

This evening the professor, as was his usual habit on fine nights at this season of the year, had gone out immediately after supper to smoke his cigar and read his evening papers, seated outside one of the caffè's in Piazza Colonna, where a band would be playing till between ten and eleven o'clock.

He had never again alluded to the subject of Silvio having presumably fallen in love. Indeed, he had forgotten all about it immediately after he had startled Silvio by accusing him of it. Giacinta, however, had by no means forgotten it. Silvio's silence, or rather his marked disinclination to discuss either Bianca or anything to do with Casa Acorari, only increased Giacinta's suspicions that he was at work upon his plans in his own way. That he would abandon his determination to make Bianca Acorari's acquaintance she never for a moment contemplated, knowing his strength of will. It was, in Giacinta's eyes, a most unlucky infatuation. In all probability, Donna Bianca Acorari's future husband had been chosen long ago, not by the girl herself, of course, but by the princess and her friends. Silvio's appearance on the scene as a suitor must infallibly lead to trouble, for the difference in their social position was too great to be overcome, except by a very much larger fortune than Silvio could ever hope to possess.

Giacinta Rossano's pride was aroused. It would be intolerable to feel that her brother was regarded as not good enough to be the husband of an Acorari, or of anybody else, for that matter. Knowing Silvio's contemptuous indifference to merely hereditary rank, she wondered that he did not realize the false position into which he was apparently doing his best to put himself. That Donna Bianca Acorari would fall in love with Silvio, if any reasonable opportunity were given her, Giacinta had very little doubt. Any woman might fall in love with him, if it were only for his good looks. But what would be gained if Donna Bianca did fall in love with him? There would be a great disturbo—a family consultation—probably a dozen family consultations—a great many disagreeable things said on all sides, and after the girl had had one or two fits of crying, she would give up all thoughts of Silvio, and allow herself to be engaged to some man of her own world. And, in the mean time, Silvio's life would be wrecked, for he would never stand the mortification of a refusal on the part of Princess Montefiano to regard him as a suitable husband for her daughter. He would probably become soured and embittered, and as likely as not take to wild habits. Altogether, Giacinta Rossano had a very unfavorable opinion of the whole business. She devoutly wished that the fates had led her father to choose any other apartment than the second floor of Palazzo Acorari; for in that case Silvio would certainly not have gone to mass at the Sudario on Christmas Eve, and lost his heart and his common-sense when he got there.

This process of reasoning was scarcely logical, perhaps—but Giacinta had quite made up her mind that the midnight mass was responsible for the whole affair. She believed that if Silvio had happened to see Donna Bianca Acorari for the first time under more ordinary circumstances, he would not have thought twice about her. Besides, to fall in love with a person in church, she considered, was certainly improper, and very likely unlucky.

Giacinta had listened to Silvio's account of his meeting with Donna Bianca in the grounds of the Villa Acorari, complete details of which, it is hardly necessary to add, he did not give his sister, with something approaching consternation. She had never doubted that sooner or later Silvio would succeed in obtaining some interview with the girl, but she had certainly not expected to hear that Bianca Acorari was so ready to give everything he asked of her. She had thought that at first Bianca would be bewildered, and scarcely conscious of what love might be, and that it would require more than one meeting before Silvio would succeed in fully arousing a corresponding passion in her.

Evidently, however, from Silvio's words, reticent though he was when he touched upon Bianca's avowed love for him, it had been a case of love at first sight on both sides, and not only, as she had always hoped, on that of Silvio only. This, Giacinta felt, complicated matters considerably; and it was natural, perhaps, if, at the conclusion of Silvio's confidences, she remained silent, engrossed in her own reflections.

"You do not congratulate me," repeated Silvio, as her silence continued.

Giacinta hesitated. "I would congratulate you," she replied, "if I were sure that what you have done will be for your happiness. But as yet," she added, "there is nothing to congratulate you upon."

"How do you mean—nothing to congratulate me upon," said Silvio, with an unruffled good-humor that almost annoyed Giacinta, "when I tell you that she loves me—that she has promised to be my wife? Is not that reason enough for you to congratulate me? But, of course, I always told you I was sure she returned my love."

"You never told me anything of the kind," said Giacinta curtly. "Until this evening, I do not think you have mentioned Donna Bianca Acorari's name to me for three months."

"Have I not?" asked Silvio, carelessly. "Well, it was no good talking about the matter until I was sure of my ground, you know."

"And you are sure of it now?"

"But of course I am sure of it! Has she not promised to marry me?"

"Oh, that—yes," returned Giacinta; "but, Silvio, you know as well as I do that in our country engagements are not made like that. Bianca Acorari is not an English miss. It all reminds me of English novels I have read, in which young men always go for long walks with young girls, and come back to the five-o'clock saying that they are going to be married. This is just what you have done; but, unluckily for you, we are not in England."

Silvio laughed. Nothing could shake his serenity, for had not Bianca sworn that if she did not marry him, she would never marry?

"You forget," he said, "that Bianca and I can afford to wait. Even if Princess Montefiano makes difficulties, it is a mere question of time. In three years Bianca will be her own mistress, accountable to nobody for her actions."

Giacinta shook her head. "That is all very well, Silvio," she replied, "but a great many disagreeable things may happen in three years. Do you think that Donna Bianca loves you enough to keep her promise to you, whatever opposition she may encounter?"

Silvio smiled. "Yes," he said, simply, "I do."

Giacinta was silent for a moment. Silvio was strangely confident, she thought. Perhaps she underrated Bianca Acorari's strength of character. It might be that this girl was really in love with Silvio, and that her character and Silvio's were alike in tenacity of purpose and loyalty. At any rate, she had no right to judge Bianca until she knew her, or at least had had some opportunity of observing how she behaved by Silvio when the storm which they had brewed finally burst, which it certainly must do very quickly.

"You are very sure of her, Silvio mio," she said, at length, with a smile.

"Very sure," responded Silvio, tranquilly. "After all, Giacinta," he continued, "what can the princess or her advisers do? They can but refuse to allow the engagement, but Bianca and I shall not consider ourselves the less engaged on that account. And when they saw that opposition was useless, that Bianca intended to marry me, and me only, they would have to give way. Otherwise, we should simply wait till Bianca was of age."

"But pressure might be brought to bear upon her," objected Giacinta.

"Pressure!" exclaimed Silvio.

"Yes; there are many ways. She might be placed in a convent, for instance. Such things have been done before now. Or they might force her to marry somebody else."

"Or kill me! Go on, Giacinta," said Silvio, laughing. "We are not in the Middle Ages, cara mia sorellina. In these days, when people disappear, inquiries are made by the police. It is a prosaic system, perhaps, but it has certain advantages."

"Silvio," exclaimed Giacinta, suddenly, "it is all very well for you to laugh, but have you considered how isolated that girl is? She has absolutely no relations on her father's side. Babbo says there are no Acorari left, and that the old prince quarrelled with his first wife's family—Donna Bianca's mother's people. She is alone in the world with a step-mother who is entirely under the thumb of her priest."

"And with me," interrupted Silvio.

Giacinta glanced at him. "They will keep you at a safe distance," she said, "if it does not suit the Abbé Roux that Donna Bianca should marry."

"Cristo!" swore her brother, between his teeth. "What do you mean, Giacinta? Do you know what you are implying?"

Giacinta Rossano's eyes flashed. She looked very like Silvio at that moment.

"I know perfectly well what I am implying," she said, quickly. "You have not chosen to trust me, Silvio, and perhaps you were right. After all, I could not have done so much for you as that Frenchwoman has done. God knows why she has done it!"

Silvio looked a little abashed. "How did you know about the Frenchwoman?" he asked.

Giacinta laughed dryly. "Never mind how I know," she replied, "and do not think I have been spying upon your actions. I have been making a few inquiries about the Montefiano ménage on my own account—about things that perhaps Mademoiselle Durand—is not that her name?—might never be in a position to hear, as she does not live in the house."

"Ah!" exclaimed Silvio. "Go on, Giacinta."

"The princess," proceeded Giacinta, "must be a strange woman. From what I can hear of her, I should doubt whether anybody knows her the least intimately, except the Abbé Roux. Oh no, Silvio, I do not mean to imply any intimacy of that nature between them," she added, hastily, suddenly becoming aware of the expression on her brother's face. "She is, I imagine, a curious mixture of worldliness and piety, but not worldliness in the sense of caring for society. She would have made an excellent abbess or mother-superior, I should think, for she loves power. At the same time, like many people who love to rule, she is weak, and allows herself to be ruled, partly because she is a fanatic as far as her religion is concerned, and partly—well, partly, I suppose, because she has a weak side to her nature."

Silvio looked at his sister, curiously.

"How did you learn all this?" he asked.

Giacinta shrugged her shoulders.

"You might ask—Why did I learn it?" she said. "I learned it because I wished to analyze the kind of psychologic atmosphere into which you might find yourself plunged!"

Silvio laughed. Giacinta often amused him; she was so like the professor in some ways.

"Perhaps," continued Giacinta, "had it not been that Prince Montefiano developed a conscience late in life, the princess would have been ruling nuns at this moment instead of managing the Montefiano estates."

A quick look of intelligence passed across Silvio Rossano's face. They were Romans, these two, of the sixth generation and more, and were accustomed to the Roman conversational habit of leaving i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed at discretion.

"Of course, she would not be very ready to give up her interest in them," he said.

"Of course not," returned Giacinta. "Moreover," she added, "the priest would do his best to prevent her from giving it up."

"Si capisce," said Silvio, briefly. "But how in the world do you know all this, Giacinta?"

"Oh," she replied, "I know a good deal more! I know that the Abbé Roux keeps his eye upon everything; that the princess does not spend a thousand francs without consulting him. She is tenacious of her rights to administer the Montefiano fiefs during Donna Bianca's minority, that is true. But the real administrator is the Abbé Roux. There is another person, too, with whom you ought to be brought into contact, Silvio—and that is the princess's brother, Baron d'Antin. He is niente di buono, so my informant tells me. But I do not imagine that Monsieur l'Abbé allows him to have any great influence with his sister. Apparently he comes here but seldom, and then only when he wants something. I do not suppose that he would concern himself very much about you and Donna Bianca."

"So you think all the opposition would come from the princess and that infernal priest?" said Silvio.

"But naturally! They do not want the girl to marry—at any rate, before she is of age. Why two or three years should make so much difference I have no idea. I should like to find out, but it would not be easy."

"I cannot imagine how you have found out so much," said Silvio.

Giacinta laughed. "I have stooped to very low methods," she said, "but it was for your sake, Silvio. If you must know, my maid has chosen to engage herself to one of the Acorari servants, and she tells me all these little things. Of course, she has told me considerably more than I have told you, but, allowing for exaggerations and for all the misconstructions that servants invariably place upon our actions, I believe what I have told you is fairly correct. It is not very much, certainly, but—rightly or wrongly—there appears to be an impression that Donna Bianca is being purposely kept in the background, and that neither the princess nor Monsieur Roux intends that she should marry. Perhaps it is all nonsense and merely gossip, but it is as well you should know that such an impression exists.

"May one ask what you and Donna Bianca mean to do next, Silvio?" concluded Giacinta, a little satirically. "The proceedings up to now have been—well, a little all' Inglese, as I think we agreed; and I do not quite see how you propose to continue the affair."

A look half of amusement and half of perplexity came into Silvio's eyes.

"To tell you the truth, Giacinta," he said, "neither do I. Of course, I must see Bianca again, and then we must decide when and how I am to approach the princess. I shall have to tell my father, of course. The usual thing would be for him to speak to Princess Montefiano."

"Poor Babbo!" exclaimed Giacinta. "It seems to me, Silvio," she added, severely, "that you have landed us all in a brutto impiccio. I certainly wish that I had never thought it would be good for your soul to go to mass last Christmas Eve!"

XI

Monsieur d'Antin did not immediately return to the house after having been an unobserved spectator of the parting scene between Bianca and her lover.

His presence in the ilex groves of the Villa Acorari that afternoon had been due to the merest chance—if, indeed, it were not one of those malicious tricks so frequently performed by the power that we call Fate or Providence, according to our own mood and the quality of the practical jokes played upon us.

He had been spending the day at Genzano, where he had breakfasted with a well-known Roman lady possessing an equally well-known villa lying buried in its oak and chestnut woods. The breakfast-party had been a pleasant one, and Monsieur d'Antin had enjoyed himself so much that he felt disinclined to return to Rome as early as he had at first intended. It would be agreeable, he thought, to drive from Genzano to the Villa Acorari, spend two or three hours there, and drive back to Rome, as he had been invited to do late in the evening, instead of returning by train.

Monsieur d'Antin had duly arrived at the Villa Acorari about four o'clock, only to find that the princess had gone to Rome for the day on business, and was not expected back until six. Donna Bianca, the servants told him, was at home, but she was in the gardens. Monsieur d'Antin was not so disappointed as he professed to be on hearing this intelligence. He would rest for a little while in the house, as it was still very hot—and—yes, an iced-lemonade would be very refreshing after his dusty drive from Genzano. Afterwards, perhaps, he would go into the gardens and see if he could find Donna Bianca.

A stroll through the ilex walks with Bianca would not be an unpleasing ending to his day among the Castelli Romani. Hitherto he had never been alone with her, and he was not sorry that chance had given him an opportunity of being so. The girl might be amusing when she was no longer under supervision. At any rate, she was attractive to look upon, and—oh, decidedly she sometimes had made him feel almost as though he were a young man again. That was always a pleasurable sensation, even if nothing could come of it. It was certainly a pity that he was not twenty years younger—nay, even ten years would be sufficient. Had he been so—who knows?—things might have been arranged. It would have been very suitable—very convenient in every way, and would have kept the Montefiano estates and titles in the family, so to speak. And Bianca was certainly a seductive child—there was no doubt about it. That mouth, that hair, and the lines of the figure just shaping themselves into maturity—Bah! they would make an older man than he feel young when he looked at them. Yes, it was certainly a pity. Jeanne, no doubt, would delay matters until—well, until those charms were too fully developed. That was the worst of these Italian girls—they were apt to develop too fast—to become too massive.

Monsieur d'Antin leaned back in an arm-chair in the cool, darkened salone of the Villa Acorari, and abandoned himself to these and various other reflections of a similar nature. He found the mental state a very pleasant one after his somewhat ample breakfast and hot drive. There was something, too, in the subdued light of the marble saloon, with its statues and groups of palms, and in the soothing sound of a fountain playing in the court-yard without, that gently stimulated such reflections.

At length, however, a striking clock had roused Monsieur d'Antin, and he sallied forth into the gardens, directed by a servant to the broad, box-bordered walk that led up the hill to the ilex groves where, as the man informed him, Donna Bianca usually went.

Probably, had it not been for that self-same shower of rain which had disturbed Bianca's meditations and caused her to seek the shelter of the avenue and the casino, he would have found her sitting in the open space near the fountains, where, as a matter of fact, Silvio Rossano had been watching her for some little time, wondering how he should best accost her. Silvio, concealed behind his tree, would certainly have seen Monsieur d'Antin approaching, and would have waited for another opportunity to accomplish his object. But, as usual, Puck or Providence must needs interfere and cause the rain to descend more heavily just as Monsieur d'Antin arrived at the fountains. Seeing that the avenue would afford him shelter he had entered it, and, after waiting for a few minutes, had bent his steps in the direction of the casino he observed at the farther end of it. The sound of voices coming from within the summer-house had caused him to stop and listen; and what he overheard, although he could not entirely follow the rapid Italian in which its occupants were speaking, was enough to tell him that Bianca Acorari was one of the speakers, that the other was a man, and that love was the topic of the conversation. Very quietly, and crouching down so as to be invisible from the window of the casino, Monsieur d'Antin had stepped past the half-closed door and concealed himself behind the little building. Through the open window he had been able from his hiding-place to hear every word that was said, and also to hear the sounds which certainly could not be called articulate.

Monsieur d'Antin's face, during the quarter of an hour he spent behind the casino, would have provided an interesting and instructive study to anybody who had been there to see it; it would also have made the fortune of any actor who could have reproduced its varied expressions. Astonishment, envy, lust, and malicious amusement, all were depicted upon his countenance in turn.

At last, when Bianca and her companion left the summer-house, Monsieur d'Antin was able to see what manner of man he was who had had the good fortune to arouse her passion. A single glance at Silvio, as the boy stood in the centre of the avenue with the sunlight falling on his well-built figure and comely face, explained the whole matter. If Bianca had such a lover as this, all that he had just overheard was fully accounted for. Nevertheless, a gust of envy, all the more bitter from the consciousness of its impotence, swept through Monsieur d'Antin's middle-aged soul.