face, so quoted as to
make her ridiculous by a fellow wanting in human vitals, like Hunt.

He would have liked, had it been possible, to ask a few frank questions
of Mrs. Hawthorne, and find out more certainly what he should think. He
would have liked to warn her against trusting her enormous ignorance to
one who would have so little good-humor and protectiveness toward that
baby-eyed giant-child. Really, instinct ought to teach her better whom
to make her confident as respected that grave affair.

Singularly, when next the music stopped, Mrs. Hawthorne, after she with
true politeness had taken the box of cigarettes to the other of her
guests, spoke of Hunt. Perhaps her thoughts, too, had gone straying, and
mysteriously encountered some straying thought of his.

"Charlie Hunt," she said, "is coming on Sunday morning to take us to the
picture-galleries. We're going to play hooky from church. His work,
don't you see, keeps him at the bank on week days till everything of
that sort is closed."

"Mrs. Hawthorne," cried Gerald and sat up in unaffected indignation,
while mustache, beard, hair, everything about him appeared to bristle,
"I thought _I_ had been engaged to take you sight-seeing! I thought
it was to be _my_ honor and privilege. Mrs. Hawthorne, my dear
friend, if you do not wish deeply to hurt me, deeply to hurt me, you
will write to Mr. Hunt at once, this evening, and I will post the
letter, that you have thought better of that immoral plan for Sunday
morning, and are going to church like a good Christian woman. And
to-morrow, Mrs. Hawthorne, at whatever time will be convenient for you,
I will come and take you to the Uffizi."

CHAPTER VI

And so because, in his uncalled-for chivalry, he had made himself guide
to a lady in a ball-room, Gerald, one thing leading to another, was once
more committed to serving as a guide in Florence.

He had filled the part so often, at the appeal of one good friend and
another, that he had sworn never again to be caught, cajoled, or hired.
He could have hated the Ghiberti doors had such a thing not been
impossible. He did rather hate the Santissima Annunziata. And now it was
all to do over again.

It might be adduced, as a mitigation of his misfortune, that this was
different.

This was sometimes very different.

A singular thing about acquaintance with Mrs. Hawthorne was that it had
in a sense no beginning. One started fairly in the middle. No sooner did
one mee