error-stricken nurses.

"And you, Emilio, what have you been doing?" he concluded.

"Working," said Artois.

He pointed to the writing-table, on which lay a pile of manuscript.

The Marchesino glanced at it carelessly, but the two vertical lines
suddenly appeared in his forehead just above the inside corners of his
eyes.

"Work! work!" he said. "You make me feel quite guilty, amico mio. I live
for happiness, for love, but you--you live for duty."

He put his arm through his friend's with a laugh, and drew him towards
the balcony.

"Nevertheless," he added, "even you have your moments of pleasure,
haven't you?"

He pressed Artois' arm gently, but in the touch of his fingers there
was something that seemed to hint a longing to close them violently and
cause a shudder of pain.

"Even you have moments when the brain goes to sleep and--and the body
wakes up. Eh, Emilio? Isn't it true?"

"My dear Doro, when have I claimed to be unlike other men?"

"No, no! But you workers inspire reverence, you know. We, who do not
work, we see your pale faces, your earnest eyes, and we think--mon Dieu,
Emilio!--we think you are saints. And then, if, by chance, one evening
we go to the Galleria, and find it is not so, that you are like
ourselves, we are glad."

He began to laugh.

"We are glad; we feel no longer at a disadvantage."

Again he pressed Artois' arm gently.

"But, amico mio, you are deceptive, you workers," he said. "You take
us all in. We are children beside you, we who say all we feel, who show
when we hate and when we love. We are babies. If I ever want to become
really birbante, I shall become a worker."

He spoke always lightly, laughingly; but Artois understood the malice
at his heart, and hesitated for a moment whether to challenge it quietly
and firmly, or whether laughingly, to accept the sly imputations
of secrecy, of hypocrisy, in a "not-worth-while" temper. If things
developed--and Artois felt that they must with such a protagonist as the
Marchesino--a situation might arise in which Doro's enmity must come out
into the open and be dealt with drastically. Till then was it not best
to ignore it, to fall in with his apparent frivolity? Before Artois
could decide--for his natural temper and an under-sense of prudence and
contempt pulled different ways--the Marchesino suddenly released his
arm, leaned over the balcony rail, and looked eagerly down the road. A
carriage had just rattled up from the harbor