ed assortment of feelings and
a boundless fatigue of spirit.

"Mr. Fane," said the consul, "who is not nearly so busy a man as I, and
is the most sympathetic, well-informed cicerone you could find. When we
wish to be sure our visiting friends shall see Florence under the best
possible circumstances, we turn them over to Mr. Fane."

Gerald's face struggled into a sourish smile, and he bowed ironical
thanks for the compliment. Lifting his head, he shot a glance of
reproachful interrogation at the consul. Was his friend doing this
humorously, to tease him, or was the man simply not thinking?

The consul looked innocent of any sly intention; he was all of a jocund
smile; the consul, who should have known better, wore the air of doing
him a pleasure and her a pleasure and a pleasure to himself; the air of
thinking that any normally constituted young man would be grateful for
such a chance.

"I shall be most happy," said Gerald, with irreproachable and misleading
politeness.

Mrs. Hawthorne turned to him readily.

"Any time you say. Let me tell you where we live."

CHAPTER IV

The room in which Mrs. Hawthorne went to bed an hour or two after taking
leave of the dwindling company at Villa Foss was large and luxurious.
Its windows were enormous, arched at the top and reaching the floor. A
wrought-iron railing outside made them safe. In the angle of the wall
between two of them--it was a corner room--stood a mirror nearly the
size of the windows, in a broad frame of carved and gilt wood, resting
on a marble shelf that supported besides two alabaster vases holding
bunches of roses.

In the corner opposite to the mirror and placed "catty-corner," as the
occupier worded it, stood the stateliest of beds, upholstered and draped
in heavy watered silk of a dull, even dingy, yellow. Its hangings were
gathered at the top into the hollow of a great gold coronet, whence they
spread and fell in folds that were looped back with silk cords. The
walls were covered by that same texture of dull gold, held in place by
tarnished gilt moldings.

Mrs. Hawthorne had wanted all this dusty and faded splendor removed,--it
seemed to her the possible lurking-place of mice or worse,--but the
agent would not hear of it. The noble landlord was not really eager to
let.

So Mrs. Hawthorne, to brighten the room in spite of it, for she wished
to keep it for her own, having taken a fancy to the fresco
overhead,--that fascinating chariot dri