weet and silent, without the least reference to his not having
been back to the villa. The place was cool and dusky, the blinds were
drawn, to keep out the light and noise, and the little party wandered
through the high saloons, where precious marbles and the gleam of
gilding and satin made reflections in the rich dimness. Here and there
the cicerone, in slippers, with Neapolitan familiarity, threw open a
shutter to show off a picture on a tapestry. He strolled in front with
Percival Theory and his wife, while this lady, drooping silently from
her husband's arm as they passed, felt the stuff of the curtains and
the sofas. When he caught her in these experiments, the cicerone, in
expressive deprecation, clasped his hands and lifted his eyebrows;
whereupon Mrs. Theory exclaimed to her husband, "Oh, bother his old
king!" It was not striking to Captain Benyon why Percival Theory had
married the niece of Mr. Henry Piatt. He was less interesting than his
sisters,--a smooth, cool, correct young man, who frequently took out
a pencil and did a little arithmetic on the back of a letter. He
sometimes, in spite of his correctness, chewed a toothpick, and he
missed the American papers, which he used to ask for in the most
unlikely places. He was a Bostonian converted to New York; a very
special type.

"Is it settled when you leave Naples?" Benyon asked of Kate Theory.

"I think so; on the twenty-fourth. My brother has been very kind; he
has lent us his carriage, which is a large one, so that Mildred can lie
down. He and Agnes will take another; but, of course, we shall travel
together."

"I wish to Heaven I were going with you?" Captain Benyon said. He had
given her the opportunity to respond, but she did not take it; she
merely remarked, with a vague laugh, that of course he couldn't take his
ship over the Apennines. "Yes, there is always my ship," he went on. "I
am afraid that in future it will carry me far away from you."

They were alone in one of the royal apartments; their companions had
passed, in advance of them, into the adjoining room. Benyon and his
fellow-visitor had paused beneath one of the immense chandeliers of
glass, which in the clear, colored gloom (through it one felt the strong
outer light of Italy beating in) suspended its twinkling drops from the
decorated vault. They looked round them confusedly, made shy for the
moment by Benyon's having struck a note more serious than any that had
hitherto souuded betwe