ble.
If not, he said so, and relapsed into silence, studying the problem, or
trying to force his memory to recall a lost item. Reanda, on the other
hand, answered most questions with the expression of a vague opinion,
often right, but apparently not founded on anything particular. The
accuracy of Griggs sometimes irritated the artist perceptibly, in
conversation; but he took an interest in what Griggs wrote, and made
Gloria translate many of the articles to him, reading aloud in Italian
from the English. Strange to say, they pleased him for the very
qualities which he disliked in the man's talk. The Italian mind, when it
has developed favourably, is inclined to specialism rather than to
generalization, and Griggs wrote of many things as though he were a
specialist. He had enormous industry and great mechanical power of
handling language.

"I have no genius," he said one day to Gloria, when she had been
admiring something he had written, and using the extravagant terms of
praise which rose easily to her lips. "Your husband has genius, but I
have none. Some day I shall astonish you all by doing something very
remarkable. But it will not be a work of genius."

It was in the late autumn days, more than a year and a half after
Gloria's marriage. The southeast wind was blowing down the Corso, and
the pavements were yellow and sticky with the moistened sand-blast from
the African desert. The grains of sand are really found in the air at
such times. It is said that the undoubted effect of the sirocco on the
temper of Southern Italy is due to the irritation caused by inhaling the
fine particles with the breath. Something there is in that especial
wind, which changes the tempers of men and women very suddenly and
strangely.

Gloria and her companion were seated in the drawing-room that afternoon,
and the window was open. The wind stirred the white curtains, and now
and then blew them inward and twisted them round the inner ones, which
were of a dark grey stuff with broad brown velvet bands, in a fashion
then new. Gloria had been singing, and sat leaning sideways on the desk
of the grand piano. A tall red Bohemian glass stood beside the music on
one of the little sliding shelves meant for the candles, and there were
a few flowers in it, fresh an hour ago, but now already half withered
and drooping under the poisonous breath of the southeast. The warm damp
breeze came in gusts, and stirred the fading leaves and Gloria's auburn