. A slight smile sweetened her mouth as she presently perceived
one figure approaching her,--a lithe, dark, handsome man, who, when he
drew near enough, lifted his hat with a profoundly marked reverence,
and, as she extended her hand, raised it to his lips.

"A thousand welcomes, Madama!" he said, speaking in English with a
scarcely noticeable foreign accent--"Last night I heard you had
arrived, but could hardly believe the good fortune! You must have
travelled quickly?"

"Never quickly enough for my mind!" she answered--"The whole world
moves too slowly for me!"

"You must carry that complaint to the buon Dio!" he said,
gaily--"Perhaps He will condescend to spin this rolling planet a little
faster! But in my mind, time flies far too rapidly! I have worked--we
all have worked--to get this place finished for you, yet much remains
to be done--"

She interrupted him.

"The interior is quite perfect"--she said--"You have carried out my
instructions more thoroughly than I imagined could be possible. It is
now an abode for fairies to live in,--for poets to dream in--"

"For women to love in!" he said, with a sudden warmth in his dark eyes.

She looked at him, laughing.

"You poor Marchese!"--she said--"Still you think of love! I really
believe Italians keep all the sentiment of le moyen age in their
hearts,--other peoples are gradually letting it go. You are like a
child believing in childish things! You imagine I could be happy with a
lover--or several lovers! To moon all day and embrace all night! Oh
fie! What a waste of time! And in the end nothing is so fatiguing!" She
broke off a spray of flowering laurel and hit him with it playfully on
the hand. "Don't moon or spoon, caro amico! What is it all about? Do I
leave you nothing on which to write poetry? I find you out in Sicily--a
delightful poor nobleman with a family history going back to the
Caesars!--handsome, clever, with beautiful ideas--and I choose and
commission you to restore and rebuild for me a fairy palace out of a
half-ruined ancient one, because you have taste and skill, and I know
you can do everything when money is no object--and you have done, and
are doing it all perfectly. Why then spoil it by falling in love with
me? Fie, fie!"

She laughed again and rising, gave him her hand.

"Hold that!" she said--"And while you hold it, tell me of my other
palace--the one with wings!"

He clasped her small white fingers in his own sun-browned palm and