the hips. Once, twice, and he was gone.

The ladies came down the _calle_ with rapid steps and flushed faces, and
Elmore let them in. His wife whispered as she brushed by his elbow, "I
want to speak with you instantly, Owen. Well, now!" she added, when they
were alone in their own room and she had shut the door, "what do you say
_now_?"

"What do _I_ say now, Celia?" retorted Elmore, with just indignation.
"It seems to me that it is for _you_ to say something--or nothing."

"Why, you brought it on us."

Elmore merely glanced at his wife, and did not speak, for this passed
all force of language.

"Didn't you see me looking at you when I spoke of going out in a
gondola, at breakfast?"

"Yes."

"What did you suppose I meant?"

"I didn't know."

"When I was trying to make you understand that if we took a gondola we
could go and come without being seen! Lily _had_ to do her shopping. But
if you chose to run off on some interpretation of your own, was _I_ to
blame, I should like to know? No, indeed! You won't get me to admit it,
Owen."

Elmore continued inarticulate, but he made a low, miserable sibillation
between his set teeth.

"Such presumption, such perfect audacity I never saw in my life!" cried
Mrs. Elmore, fleetly changing the subject in her own mind, and leaving
her husband to follow her as he could. "It was outrageous!" Her words
were strong, but she did not really look affronted; and it is hard to
tell what sort of liberty it is that affronts a woman. It seems to
depend a great deal upon the person who takes the liberty.

"That was the man, I suppose," said Elmore quietly.

"Yes, Owen," answered his wife, with beautiful candor, "it was." Seeing
that he remained unaffected by her display of this virtue, she added,
"Don't you think he was very handsome?"

"I couldn't judge, at such a distance."

"Well, he is perfectly splendid. And I don't want you to think he was
disrespectful at all. He wasn't. He was everything that was delicate
and deferential."

"Did you ask him to walk home with you?"

Mrs. Elmore remained speechless for some moments. Then she drew a long
breath, and said firmly: "If you won't interrupt me with gratuitous
insults, Owen, I will tell you all about it, and then perhaps you will
be ready to do me _justice_. I ask nothing more." She waited for his
contrition, but proceeded without it, in a somewhat meeker strain: "Lily
couldn't get her things at Pazienti's, and we had to go t