added, "I ought to tell you that he and I have become great
friends."

Miss Quisante had stopped laughing; now she made a gesture which seemed
to indicate that she washed her hands of any responsibility. But she
appeared fretful and disturbed.

"I'm immensely impressed by him; and I think these faults you talk so
much about are only superficial. They can't really belong to his nature
when so much that's fine does." Her voice shook a little as she implored
a merciful judgment from the relentless old lady. Aunt Maria's shrewd
eyes grew softer.

"I used to say that to myself for ever so long," she said. "I catch
myself saying it now and then even now."

"You're disappointed at not--not getting on better with him, and it makes
you bitter."

"And you? You get on very well with him?"

"I don't think I'm blind about him. I see what you mean and what a lot of
people feel. If there is a pit, I've walked into it open-eyed."

"He's in love with you, of course?"

A denial was hardly worth while and quite useless. "You must ask him
that, Miss Quisante," May replied. Aunt Maria nodded and gazed at her
long and steadily.

"Yes, you're his Empress among women," she said at last with a little
sneer. "Sandro has a phrase for everything and everybody. And are you in
love with him?"

May had wanted to come to close quarters and was glad that Aunt Maria
gave her a lead. But she did not return a direct answer to the question.

"You wouldn't be encouraging, if I were thinking of becoming his wife."

"It would be very extraordinary that you should."

"I've no particular desire to be ordinary," said May, smiling.

Miss Quisante leant forward suddenly and held up a short forefinger.

"My dear, you'd be very unhappy," she said. Then she leant back again and
received in complete stillness May's meditative gaze.

"In a good many ways perhaps I should," said May at last with a sigh, and
her brow puckered with wrinkles. "Yes, I suppose so," she sighed again.

"But I know what it is. You've let yourself get interested in Sandro;
you've let him lay hold of you." May nodded. "And it would seem rather
dull now to lose him?" Again May nodded, laughing a little. Aunt Maria
understood her feelings very well, it seemed. "I should be dull too if I
lost him." The old lady folded her hands in her lap. "There is that about
Sandro," she said with a touch of pride in her voice. "I don't like him;
well, you've gathered that perhaps; but if anyt