e gaily, as they took their places
on the marble bench. It was semicircular, with a high carved back,
(carved with the armorials of the Sforzas), and of course it was
lichen-stained, grey and blue and green, yellow and scarlet.

"_White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
Fairer and dearer than dearest and fairest,
To hear me sing, if it her sweet will is,--
Sing, minstrel-man, of thy love, an thou darest_,"

trolled John, in his light barytone, to a tune, I imagine, improvised
for the occasion. "But if it's a thousand years ago," he laughed, "that
song smacks too much perhaps of actuality, and I had best choose
another."

Maria Dolores joined in his laugh. "I did not know you sang," she said.
"Let me hear the other."

"A song," reflected he, "that I could sing with a good deal of feeling
and conviction, would be 'Give her but the least excuse to love me.'"

Maria Dolores all at once looked sober.

"Oughtn't you to be careful," she said, "to give her no excuse at all to
love you, if you are really resolved never to ask her to be your wife?"

"That is exactly what I have given her," answered John, "no excuse at
all. I should sing in a spirit purely academic,--my song would be the
utterance of a pious but hopeless longing, of the moth's desire for the
star."

"But she, I suppose, isn't a star," objected Maria Dolores. "She's
probably just a weak human woman. You may have given her excuses without
meaning to." There was the slightest quaver in her voice.

John caught his breath; he turned upon her almost violently. But she was
facing away from him, down the avenue, so that he could not get her
eyes.

"In that case," she said, "wouldn't you owe her something?"

"I should owe myself a lifetime's penance with the discipline," John on
a solemn tone replied, hungrily looking at her cheek, at the little
tendrils of dark hair about her brow. "God knows what I should owe to
her."

"You would owe it to her," said Maria Dolores, always facing away, "to
tell her your love straightforwardly, and to ask her to marry you."

John thrilled, John ached. His blue eyes burned upon her. "What else do
you think I dream of, night and day? But how could I, with honour? You
know my poverty," he groaned.

"But if she has enough, more than enough, for two?" softly urged Maria
Dolores.

"Ah, that's the worst of it," cried he. "If we were equals in penury, if
she had nothing, then I might honourably ask