s.

"I love Naples. Is it Italian?"

"Yes."

"Really Italian?"

"Yes."

"Let us go there. And before we go I will sing you a street song of
Naples."

"You--you are not a Neapolitan?" she asked.

"No. I come from South America. But I know Naples very, very well.
Listen!"

And almost laughing, and looking suddenly buffo, he spoke a few
sentences in the Neapolitan patois.

"Ah, they are rascals there! But one forgives them because they are
happy in their naughtiness, or at any rate they seem happy. And there
is nothing like happiness for getting forgiveness. We will be happy
to-night, and we shall get forgiven. We will go to the _Bella Napoli_."

She did not say "yes" or "no." She was thinking at that moment of Craven
and Adela Sellingworth. It was just possible that they might be there.
But if they were? What did it matter? Minnie Birchington had seen her
with Arabian. Lady Archie Brooke had seen her. Craven had seen her.
And why should she be ashamed. Ought and ought not! Had she ever been
governed in her life and her doing by fear of opinion?

"Do you say yes?" he asked. "Or must you go back to dear Mademoiselle
Cronin?"

She shook her head.

"Then what do you say?"

"Yes, I'll go there with you," she answered.

But there was a sound of defiance in her voice, and at that moment
she had a feeling that she was going to do something more decisively
unconventional, even more dangerous, than she had ever yet done.

If _they_ were there! She remembered Craven's look at Arabian. She
remembered, too, the change in Arabian's face as Craven had passed them.

But Craven had gone back to Adela Sellingworth. Arabian, perhaps, had
been the cause of that return.

"Why do you look like that? What are you thinking of?"

"Naples," she said.

"I will sing you the street song. And then, presently, we will go. I
know we must not be too late, or your dear Mademoiselle Cronin will be
frightened about you."

He left her, and went once more to the piano.

CHAPTER IV

About seven o'clock that evening Lady Sellingworth was sitting alone in
her drawing-room. Sir Seymour Portman had been with her for an hour and
had left her at half past six, believing that she was going to spend
one of her usual solitary evenings, probably with a book by the fire. He
would gladly, even thankfully, have stayed to keep her company. But
no suggestion of that kind had been made to him. And, beyond calling
regularly at the hour when