ust now, I sit and talk to you and take up all your leisure time. It
is wrong. You ought to see more of other men and women. Do men of genius
never marry? It seems to me absurd!"

"Genius!" exclaimed Reanda, shaking his head sadly. "Do not use the word
of me."

"I will do as other people do," answered Francesca. "But that is not the
question. The truth is that you live pent up in this old house, like a
bird in a cage. I want you to spread your wings."

"To go away for a time?" asked Reanda, anxiously.

"I did not say that. Perhaps I should. Yes, if you could enjoy a
journey, go away--for a time."

She spoke with some hesitation and rather nervously, for he had said
more than she had meant to propose.

"Just to make a change," she added, after a moment's pause, as he said
nothing. "You ought to see more of other people, as I said. You ought to
mix with the world. You ought at least to offer yourself the chance of
marrying, even if you think that you might not find a wife to your
taste."

"If I do not find one here--" He did not complete the sentence, but
smiled a little.

"Must you marry a Roman princess?" she asked. "What should you say to a
foreigner? Is that impossible, too?"

"It would matter little where she came from, if I wished to marry her,"
he answered. "But I like my life as it is. Why should I try to change
it? I am happy as I am. I work, and I enjoy working. I work for you, and
you are satisfied. It seems to me that there is nothing more to be said.
Why are you so anxious that I should marry?"

Donna Francesca laughed softly, but without much mirth.

"Because I think that in some way it is my fault if you have not
married," she said. "And besides, I was thinking of a young girl whom I
met, or rather, saw, the other day, and who might please you. She has
the most beautiful voice in the world, I think. She could make her
fortune as a singer, and I believe she wishes to try it. But her father
objects. They are foreigners--English or Scotch--it is the same. She is
a mere child, they say, but she seems to be quite grown up. There is
something strange about them. He is a man of science, I am told, but I
fancy he is one of those English enthusiasts about Italian liberty. His
name is Dalrymple."

"What a name!" Reanda laughed. "I suppose they have come to spend the
winter in Rome," he added.

"Not at all. I hear that they have lived here for years. But one never
meets the foreigners, unless they wis