at his moustache.

"But besides your relatives I must have other people here. Your friends
have wives and sisters, haven't they?"

"Oh, yes; but of course I scarcely know them."

"Not know your friends' people?"

"Why, no. If they are poor and have to work for their living I may see
them--but not otherwise. Except--" He stopped. The chief exception was
a young lady, to whom he had once been introduced for matrimonial
purposes. But the dowry had proved inadequate, and the acquaintance
terminated.

"How funny! But I mean to change all that. Bring your friends to see me,
and I will make them bring their people."

He looked at her rather hopelessly.

"Well, who are the principal people here? Who leads society?"

The governor of the prison, he supposed, and the officers who assisted
him.

"Well, are they married?"

"Yes."

"There we are. Do you know them?"

"Yes--in a way."

"I see," she exclaimed angrily. "They look down on you, do they, poor
boy? Wait!" He assented. "Wait! I'll soon stop that. Now, who else is
there?"

"The marchese, sometimes, and the canons of the Collegiate Church."

"Married?"

"The canons--" he began with twinkling eyes.

"Oh, I forgot your horrid celibacy. In England they would be the centre
of everything. But why shouldn't I know them? Would it make it easier if
I called all round? Isn't that your foreign way?"

He did not think it would make it easier.

"But I must know some one! Who were the men you were talking to this
afternoon?"

Low-class men. He could scarcely recollect their names.

"But, Gino dear, if they're low class, why did you talk to them? Don't
you care about your position?"

All Gino cared about at present was idleness and pocket-money, and his
way of expressing it was to exclaim, "Ouf-pouf! How hot it is in here.
No air; I sweat all over. I expire. I must cool myself, or I shall never
get to sleep." In his funny abrupt way he ran out on to the loggia,
where he lay full length on the parapet, and began to smoke and spit
under the silence of the stars.

Lilia gathered somehow from this conversation that Continental society
was not the go-as-you-please thing she had expected. Indeed she could
not see where Continental society was. Italy is such a delightful place
to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite
luxury of Socialism--that true Socialism which is based not on equality
of income or character, but on the equality of m