natural to you to live in a palace again,' Stradella
said in a laughing tone. 'You must have had enough of inns by this
time!'

'The happiest days of my life have been spent in them,' Ortensia
answered with a little sadness. 'I am wondering whether it will ever be
the same again.'

'As long as we are the same there can be no difference, sweetheart. I am
glad you are to be more worthily lodged. Don Alberto was always a very
good-natured fellow and more or less a friend of mine, and he is taking
the greatest pains to make us comfortable in his father's house.'

'I wish he would not take such infinite trouble to stare at me all the
time!'

'Why should he look at anything else when you are in sight?' laughed the
singer. 'Do I? And just consider what a pleasant change it must be for
him after being obliged to gaze at the Queen by the hour together in
visible rapture! The vision must pall sometimes, I should think! I
really do not blame him for showing that he admires you, and he is not
the only one. There is our friend Trombin, for instance, who stands in
adoration staring at you and puffing out his round cheeks whenever we
meet.'

'Oh, he only makes me laugh,' Ortensia answered; 'he is so funny, with
his little pursed-up mouth and his round eyes! I am sure he must be the
kindest-hearted creature in the world. But Don Alberto is quite
different. I am a little afraid of him. I feel as if some day he might
say something to me----'

'What, for instance?' asked Stradella, amused. 'What do you think he may
say?'

'That he thinks me--what shall I say?--very pretty, perhaps!'

'He would only be saying to your face what every one says behind your
back, love! Should you object very much if he told you that he thought
you beautiful?'

'I do not wish to be beautiful for any one but you,' Ortensia answered
softly. 'I wish that every one else might think me hideous, and never
come near me!'

'And that I might seem to every one but you to sing out of tune!'
laughed Stradella.

'At all events they would leave us alone, if they thought so! But I did
not mean it in that way. I think you do not care whether men make love
to me or not!'

She was not quite pleased, and as she leaned her head back against the
wall he saw her pouting lips in the moonlight.

'I like to be envied,' said Stradella.

As he made this singular answer he bent over a mandoline he had been
holding on his knee and made the point of the quill quiver agai