s. "Have you ever heard of telling fortunes in tea-grounds?"
he asked.

"Yes. It is a pleasant fallacy, and nothing ever comes true." And La
Signorina vaguely wondered where Kitty was. She needed Kitty at this
moment, she who had never needed anybody.

The tramp of feet beyond the wall diverted them for a space. A troop of
marksmen from the range were returning cityward. They were dirty and
tired, yet none seemed discontented with his lot. They passed in a haze
of dust.

The man and woman resumed their chairs, and Hillard bent his head over
the cup and stared at the circling tea-grounds in the bottom. The
movement gave her the opportunity she desired: to look freely and
without let at his shapely head. Day after day, serene and cloudless
Florentine days, this same scene or its like had been enacted. It took
all her verbal skill to play this game safely; a hundred times she saw
something in his eyes that warned her and armed her. When he passed that
evening on horseback she knew that these things were to be. She had two
battles where he had only one; for she had herself to war against. Each
night after he had gone she fought with innocent desire; argument after
argument she offered in defense. But these were all useless; she must
send him away. And yet, when he came, as she knew he would, she offered
him tea! And in rebellion she asked, Why not? What harm, what evil? Was
it absolutely necessary that she should let all pleasure pass, thrust it
aside? The suffering she had known, would not that be sufficient penance
for this little sin? But on his side, was this being fair to him? This
man loved her, and she knew it. Up to this time he had met her but
twice, and yet he loved her, incredible as it seemed. And though he
never spoke of this love with his lips, he was always speaking it with
his eyes; and she was always looking into his eyes.

She never looked into her own heart; wisely she never gave rein to
self-analysis; she dared not. And so she drifted on, as in some sunny
dream of remote end.

How inexplicable were the currents and cross-currents of life! She had
met a thousand men, handsomer, more brilliant; they had not awakened
more than normal interest. And yet this man, quiet, humorous, ordinarily
good-looking, aroused in her heart discord and penetrated the barriers
to the guarded sentiment. Why? Always this query. Perhaps, after all, it
was simply the initial romance which made the impression so lasting. Ah,