hree weeks at our disposal, and
here is a fortnight gone! I cannot continue my journey now; and, in any
case, I am not going to Venice, Florence and Rome all by myself. But you
will pay for it, and more dearly than you think, most likely. You are not
going to bring a man all the way from Paris in order to shut him up at a
hotel in Genoa with an Italian adventuress."

When I told him, very calmly, to return to Paris, he exclaimed that he
intended to do so the very next day; but the next day he was still there,
still in a rage and swearing.

By this time we began to be known in the streets through which we
wandered from morning till night. Sometimes French people would turn
round astonished at meeting their fellow-countrymen in the company of
this girl with her striking costume, who looked singularly out of place,
not to say compromising, beside us.

She used to walk along, leaning on my arm, without looking at anything.
Why did she remain with me, with us, who seemed to do so little to amuse
her? Who was she? Where did she come from? What was she doing? Had she
any plan or idea? Where did she live? As an adventuress, or by chance
meetings? I tried in vain to find out and to explain it. The better I
knew her the more enigmatical she became. She seemed to be a girl of poor
family who had been taken away, and then cast aside and lost. What did
she think would become of her, or whom was she waiting for? She certainly
did not appear to be trying to make a conquest of me, or to make any real
profit out of me.

I tried to question her, to speak to her of her childhood and family; but
she never gave me an answer. I stayed with her, my heart unfettered and
my senses enchained, never wearied of holding her in my arms, that proud
and quarrelsome woman, captivated by my senses, or rather carried away,
overcome by a youthful, healthy, powerful charm, which emanated from her
fragrant person and from the well-molded lines of her body.

Another week passed, and the term of my journey was drawing on, for I had
to be back in Paris by the eleventh of July. By this time Paul had come
to take his part in the adventure, though still grumbling at me, while I
invented pleasures, distractions and excursions to amuse Francesca and my
friend; and in order to do this I gave myself a great amount of trouble.

One day I proposed an excursion to Sta Margarita, that charming little
town in the midst of gardens, hidden at the foot of a slope which