ink I shall take my daughter to Rome. What do you say,
Vere?"

The girls face had become grave, even almost troubled.

"I can't look forward in this weather," she said. "I think it's almost
wicked to. Oh, let us live in the moment, Madre, and pretend it will be
always summer, and that we shall always be living in our Casa del Mare!"

There was a sound of eager youth in her voice as she spoke, and her eyes
suddenly shone. The Marchesino looked at her with an admiration he did
not try to conceal.

"You love the sea, Signorina?" he asked.

But Vere's enthusiasm abruptly vanished, as if she feared that he might
destroy its completeness by trying to share it.

"Oh yes," she said. "We all do here; Madre, Gaspare, Monsieur
Emile--everybody."

It was the first time the name of Artois had been mentioned among them
that day. The Marchesino's full red lips tightened over his large white
teeth.

"I have not seen Signor Emilio for some days," he said.

"Nor have we," said Vere, with a touch of childish discontent.

He looked at her closely.

Emilio--he knew all about Emilio. But the Signorina? What were her
feelings towards the "vecchio briccone"? He did not understand the
situation, because he did not understand precisely the nature of madness
of the English. Had the ladies been Neapolitans, Emilio an Italian, he
would have felt on sure ground. But in England, so he had heard, there
is a fantastic, cold, sexless something called friendship that can exist
between unrelated man and woman.

"Don Emilio writes much," he said, with less than his usual alacrity.
"When one goes to see him he has always a pen in his hand."

He tried to speak of Emilio with complete detachment, but could not
resist adding:

"When one is an old man one likes to sit, one cannot be forever running
to and fro. One gets tired, I suppose."

There was marked satire in the accent with which he said the last words.
And the shrug of his shoulders was an almost audible "What can I know of
that?"

"Monsieur Emile writes because he has a great brain, not because he has
a tired body," said Vere, with sudden warmth.

Her mother was looking at her earnestly.

"Oh, Signorina, I do not mean--But for a man to be always shut up,"
began the Marchesino, "it is not life."

"You don't understand, Marchese. One can live in a little room with the
door shut as one can never live--"

Abruptly she stopped. A flush ran over her face and down to her neck.
Hermi