posite. The veiled
lady leaned slightly forward and bowed and waved her white hand. Bero
bowed. So did the other officers.

Norman Mann and Eric excused themselves long enough to dash over to
welcome their friends and then stayed on for a little chat. These young
women were quite gorgeous in opera cloaks and tiny, nearly invisible,
American flags tucked through their belts. They tossed confetti down on
every one's heads, and shouted--a little over-enthusiastically, but one
can pardon even gush if it is only genuine. That was the question in
this case.

The horse race came; and Mae went fairly wild. When it was over, every
body prepared to go home. King Pasquino had virtually abdicated in favor
of the Dinner Kings. Mae unclasped her tightly strained hands, clambered
down from a chair she had perched herself on, smiled a good-bye at the
veiled lady, and came away. She rode home quietly with a big bouquet of
exquisite blue violets in her hand. There was a rose on top and a fringe
of maiden's hair at the edge, and the bouquet was flung from Bero's own
hand up at the side window on the quiet Jesu e Maria, when everyone else
but Mae was out on the Corso balcony.

"It is dreadful to grow old," said Mae, breaking silence, as the
carriage clattered over the stony streets.

"My dear," expostulated Edith, "you surely don't call yourself old. What
do you mean?"

"I fancied I could take the Carnival as a child takes a big bonbon and
just think with a smack of the lips, 'My! how good this is.' But here
I am, wondering what my candy is made of all the time, and forgetting,
except at odd moments, to enjoy myself for trying to separate false from
true, and gold from gilt. Still, what is the use of this stuff now! I'll
remember that horse race, for there I did forget myself and everything
but motion. How I would like to be a horse!" And the volatile Mae seized
the stems of her bouquet for whip and bridle and gave a little inelegant
expressive click-click to her lips as if she were spurring that
imaginary steed herself.

Norman smiled. "We can't keep children for ever, even--"

"The silliest of us?"

"Even the freshest and blithest."

"O, dear, that is like a moral to a Sunday-school book," said Mae;
"don't be goody-goody to-night."

"What bad thing shall I do to please your majesty, my lady Pasquino?"

"Waltz," said Mae. So, after dinner, Edith and Eric sang, and Norman and
Mae took to the poetry of motion as ducks take to