istress i

u'll just step into the parlour s

d her husband dying there; and ever since that time the big, awkward, silent man had been to Katie as much "one of the family" as was the lazy black cat which now ensconced itself upon his knee. Pasht, for his part, regarded Martini as a useful piece of household furniture. This visitor never trod upon his tail, or puffed tobacco smoke into his eyes, or in any way obtruded upon his consciousness an aggressive biped personality. He behaved as a mere m

coming into the room. "One would think y

t you will give me some tea before we start. There will probably be a frightful crush, a

own to answer for without having his wife's imperfect housekeeping visited upon his head. As for t

the way, so are you to have put on that pr

it, though it is rather warm

g else ever suits you so well as white cashmere.

o fond of them! But they had much bette

of your supers

t get so bored, spending all the eve

red to-night. The conversazione

hy

ng Grassini touches beco

is not fair when we are g

then, it will be dull because half th

is

rmans, and the usual nondescript crowd of tourists and Russian princes and literary club people, and a few French of

rez? But I thought Grassini d

house to be the first place where the new lion will be on show. You may be sure Rivarez has

even know h

re comes the tea. No, don't ge

e in here after business hours and sit with her, generally in silence, watching her as she bent over her needlework or poured out tea. She never questioned him about his troubles or expressed any sympathy in words; but he always went away stronger and calmer, feeling, as he put it to himself, that he c

creature then; keen, cool, and logical, perfectly accurate and perfectly neutral. Those who saw her only at her political work regarded her as a trained and disciplined conspirator, trustworthy, courageous, in every way a valuable m

r as she opened the sideboard. "There, Cesare, there are barley-sugar and candied angel

man that ordinary women will rave over and you will dislike. A sort of professional dealer in sharp speeches, t

let-girl, or simply that you feel cross

sonally, I don't. She's a Hungarian gipsy, or something of that kind, so Riccardo says; from some provincial theatre in G

ir if he has taken he

ty won't. I think most people will very much resent being

now it unless h

r. But I should think even he would not have

ar about Signor Rivarez as a satirist, not as a man. Fabrizi told me he had been written to and had consented to come and

ave been any difficulty over the money question, as we feared there

t he has got shares in mines somewhere out in Brazil; and then he has been immensely successful as a feuilleton writer in Paris and Vienna and London. He seems to have h

e to start, Cesare. Yes, I will w

of her dress, and a long scarf of black Spanish lace throw

adonna mia; like the grea

trying to mould myself into the image of the typical society lady! Who wants a cons

it doesn't matter, after all; you're too fair to look upon for spies to guess your op

take some more barley-sugar to sweeten your t

ots; but his cold face lighted up at the sight of Gemma. He did not really like her and indeed was secretly a little afraid of her; but he realized that without her his drawing room would lack a great attraction. He had risen high in his profession, and now that he was rich and well known his chief ambition was to make of his house a centre of liberal and intellectual society. He was painfully conscious that the insignificant, overdress

nce of her mind; for the very expression of her face. And when Signora Grassini hated a woman, she showed it by effusive tenderness. Gemma took the compliments and endearments for what they were worth, and troubled her head no more about them. What is called "going into society" was in her eyes one of the wearisome and rather unpleasant tasks which

ere were so many tourists in need of instruction. For her part, she devoted herself to an English M.P. whose sympathies the republican party was anxious to gain; and, knowing him to be a specialist on finance, she first won his attention by asking his opinion on a technical point concerning the Austrian currency, and then deftly turned the conversation to the condition of the Lombardo-Venetian revenue. The Englishman, who had expected to be bored with small-talk, looked askance at her, evi

s were beginning to give her a headache. At the further end of the terrace stood a row of palms and tree-ferns, planted in large tubs which were hidden by a bank of lilies and other flowering plants. The whole formed

self against the threatening headache by a little rest and silence. The night was warm and beautifully s

the shadow, hoping to escape notice and get a few more precious minutes of silence before again having to rack her tired brain for conversation. To her

marred by a peculiar, purring drawl, perhaps mere affectation, more probably the result o

ed. "But surely the name is qu

ears ago,-don't you remember? Ah, I forgot-you lead such a wandering life; we c

he role of a patriotic mourner for the sorrows of Italy formed an effect

refugee, then? I seem to recognize the name, somehow; w

few months; then, two or three years later, when there was a warrant out against him again, he escaped to England. The n

died in Engla

his death; it caught scarlet fever. Very sad, is it not? And we are all so fond of dear Gemma! She is a little

ing of her private sorrows for purposes of small-talk was almost unbearable to

ss. "Gemma, dear, I was wondering where you could have disappea

He bowed to her decorously enough, but his eyes glanced over her face and

ook here," he remarked, looking at the th

corner. I came out h

eyes to the stars. (She had good eyelashes and liked to show them.) "Look, signore! Would not our sweet Italy be

!" the Gadfly murmured in

ing, surely, to deceive anyone. But she had underrated Signora Grassini's

es; you must come in presently and see her. She is a most charming girl. Gemma, dear, I brought Signor Rivarez out to show him our beautiful view; I must leave him under your care. I know you will look after him and introduce him to everyone. Ah! th

a coat glittering with orders; and her plaintive dirges for "notre malheureuse pa

man, and annoyed at the Gadfly's languid insolence. He was watching the retreating figures with

rning to her with a smile; "arm in arm and mightily pl

lightly and m

he Russian variety best-it's so thorough. If Russia had to depend on flowers and skies for her suprema

can hold our personal opinions without

Italy; they are a wonderfully hospitable people, these Itali

opposite to her, leaning against the balustrade. The light from a window

. For the rest, he was as swarthy as a mulatto, and, notwithstanding his lameness, as agile as a cat. His whole personality was oddly suggestive of a black jaguar. The forehead and left cheek were terribly disfigured by the long crooked scar of the old sabre-cut; a

e voice a jaguar would talk in, if it could speak and were in

re interested in the radical p

le; I have not

Signora Grassini that you undert

le woman she was, had evidently been chattering imprudently to this slipp

y; "but Signora Grassini overrates the importance of my o

of our host of this evening and his wife would make anybody frivolous, in self-defence. Oh, yes, I know what you're going to say; you

in now. Is that m

king at her with wide eyes as blue and

id penitently, "for fooling that painted

wardly thing to hold one's intellectual inferiors up to ri

lancing at his lame foot and mutilated hand. In another inst

ople's faces as she does her stupidity. At least give us credit for recognizing that croo

sed silence; his unexpected sensitiv

one end of the room; the host was fingering his eye-glasses with suppressed but unmistakable fury, and a little group of tourists stood in a corner casting amused glances at the further end of the room. Evidently something was going on there which appeared to them in t

no mistaking the malicious triumph in his eyes as he glanced from the face of the blissfully unconscious hostess to a sofa at the end of t

of tint and profusion of ornament as startling in a Florentine literary salon as if she had been some tropical bird among sparrows and starlings. She herself seemed to feel out of place, and looked at the

! Count Saltykov wants to know whether you can go t

n't dance if I did. Signora Bolla, allow

of her movements were delightful to see; but her forehead was low and narrow, and the line of her delicate nostrils was unsympathetic, almost cruel. The sense of oppression which Gemma had felt in the Gadfly's

they drove back to Florence late at night. "Did you ever see anything q

ballet-girl

to be the lion of the season. Signora Gr

rassinis into a false position; and it was nothing less than

him, didn't you? What

he last of him. I never met anyone so fearfully tiring. He gave me

tell the truth, no more do I. The man's