n him--he would as soon have kissed Arabella.

So she sailed from the room again, with her mouth shut like a vice, and
her handsome eyes glancing at him over her shoulder.

Next day, after having kept him waiting for an hour to take her out, she
decided they should spend what remained of the morning at the Bargello.
And, when they got there, she did her best to be a charming companion,
and pressed him to lean upon her instead of his stick. But to his
awakened understanding what was even probably true in her talk and
comprehension of the gems of art, seemed false and affected, and he was
only conscious of one continual jar as she spoke.

A thousand little trifles, never remarked before, now appeared to loom
large in his vision. At last they came to the galleries above, to the
collection of the Della Robbias, and Mrs. Cricklander rhapsodized over
them, mixing them up with delightful unconcern. They were all just bits
of cheap-looking crockery to her eye, and it was impossibly difficult to
distinguish which was Luca's, Andrea's, or Giovanni's; and, security
having made her careless, she committed several blunders.

John Derringham laid no pitfalls for her--indeed, he helped her out when
he could. To-day each new discovery no longer made him smile with bitter
cynicism, he was only filled with a sense of discomfort and regret.

He stopped in front of Andrea's masterpiece, the tender young Madonna.
Something in the expression of the face made him think of Halcyone,
although the types of the two were entirely different; and Cecilia
Cricklander, watching, saw a look of deep pain grow in his eyes.

"I wish to goodness he would get well and be human and masterful and
brilliant, as he used to be," she thought. "I am thoroughly tired out,
trying to cope with him. He is no more use now than a bump on a log. I
am sorry I made him come here!"

"It is about time for lunch," said John Derringham, who could no longer
bear her prattle; and they returned to the hotel.

Arabella and an American man made the _partie carree_, and Miss Clinker
did her best to help to get through the repast, and afterwards wrote in
a letter to her mother:

Mr. Derringham has arrived. He still looks dreadfully ill and
careworn, and I can see is feeling his position acutely. Since that
dreadful day when he found my notes in Gibbon, I have never dared to
look at him when in the company of M. E. I feel that distressing
sensation of hot