t air--the poisonous
Roman air. The street was very quiet. Now and then some late wayfarer
passed under the light at the corner, but Mae had, on the whole, a
desolate outlook--high, dark buildings opposite, and black clouds above,
with only here and there a star peeping through.

She had taken down her long hair, thrown off her dress, and half wrapped
herself in a shawl, out of which her bare arms stretched as she leaned
on the deep window seat. She looked like the first woman--of the
Darwinian, not the Biblical, Creation. There was a wild, half-hunted
expression on her face that was like the set air of an animal brought
suddenly to bay. She thought in little jerks, quick sentences that
were almost like the barking growls with which a beast lashes itself to
greater fury.

"They treated me unfairly. They had no right. I shall choose my own
friends. How dare they accuse me of flirting? I flirt, pah! I'd like to
run away. This stupid, stupid life!" And so on till the sentences grew
more human. "I suppose Mr. Mann thinks I am horrid, but I don't care.
I wish I could see Eric, he wouldn't blame me so. What a goose I am to
mind anyway. The Carnival is coming! Even these old tombs must give way
for ten whole riotous days. I must make them madly merry days. I wonder
how I will look in my domino. I suppose the pink one is mine."

So Miss Mae dried her eyes, picked her deshabille self from the window
seat, turned up the light, slipped into her pink and white carnival
attire, and walked to the window again.

"This is the Corso all full of people, and I'll pelt them merrily,
so, and so, and so!" She reached forth her bare, round arm into the
darkness, and looked down, where, full under the street light, gazing up
at her, stood the Piedmontese officer.

It was at that very moment that Norman Mann put down his Sismondi, and
looked from his window also.

CHAPTER IV.

Mae met Mr. Mann at the breakfast table the next morning without the
least embarrassment. Indeed, the little flutter in her talk could easily
be attributed to unusually high spirits and an excited and pleased
fancy. That was how Norman Mann translated it, of course. Really, the
flutter was a genuine stirring of her heart with inquietude, timidity
and semi-repentance; but Mae couldn't say this, and it's only what one
says out that can be reckoned on in this world. So Norman Mann, who saw
only the bright cheeks and eyes and restless quickening of an eager girl