ce by her
dress. But it is not all settled yet."

"Then one cannot congratulate Don Giovanni to-day?" asked the Duchessa,
facing her interlocutor rather suddenly.

"No," he answered; "it is perhaps better not to speak to him about it."

"It is as well that you warned me, for I would certainly have spoken."

"I do not imagine that Saracinesca likes to talk of his affairs of the
heart," said Del Ferice, with considerable gravity. "But here he comes. I
had hoped he would have taken even longer to get that cup of tea."

"It was long enough for you to tell your news," answered Corona quietly,
as Don Giovanni came up.

"What is the news?" asked he, as he sat down beside her.

"Only an engagement that is not yet announced," answered the Duchessa.
"Del Ferice has the secret; perhaps he will tell you."

Giovanni glanced across her at the fair pale man, whose fat face,
however, expressed nothing. Seeing he was not enlightened, Saracinesca
civilly turned the subject.

"Are you going to the meet to-morrow, Duchessa?" he asked.

"That depends upon the weather and upon the Duke," she answered. "Are you
going to follow?"

"Of course. What a pity it is that you do not ride!"

"It seems such an unnatural thing to see a woman hunting," remarked Del
Ferice, who remembered to have heard the Duchessa say something of the
kind, and was consequently sure that she would agree with him.

"You do not ride yourself," said Don Giovanni, shortly. "That is the
reason you do not approve of it for ladies."

"I am not rich enough to hunt," said Ugo, modestly. "Besides, the other
reason is a good one; for when ladies hunt I am deprived of their
society."

The Duchessa laughed slightly. She never felt less like laughing in her
life, and yet it was necessary to encourage the conversation. Giovanni
did not abandon the subject.

"It will be a beautiful meet," he said. "Many people are going out for
the first time this year. There is a man here who has brought his horses
from England. I forget his name--a rich Englishman."

"I have met him," said Del Ferice, who was proud of knowing everybody.
"He is a type--enormously rich--a lord--I cannot pronounce his name--not
married either. He will make a sensation in society. He won races in
Paris last year, and they say he will enter one of his hunters for the
steeplechases here at Easter."

"That is a great inducement to go to the meet, to see this Englishman,"
said the Duchessa rather wearily