Mrs. Hawthorne, please, please, allow me--"

He tried to help her, waking to the fact that she was as strong as he,
if not stronger.

The room in a minute looked as usual, and she knelt in front of the
hearth, piling up a kindling of pine-cones and little fagots, on which
she laid a picturesque old root of olive-wood.

"You seem to be alone," he remarked.

"Yes; Estelle's gone out."

He was not sorry to hear it. Miss Madison, whom he entirely liked,
affected him curiously, or, to express the matter more exactly, in a
curious degree failed to affect him at all. Her personality did not bite
on his consciousness. Unless some chance left them on each other's
hands, he had difficulty in remembering her presence. It was not that
she was colorless; not by any means. She obviously had character,
brightness, individuality, even charm; but so far as he was concerned
she might have had none of these. Particularly when her big friend was
by Gerald ceased to see her. He recognized the danger of her negative
effect on him, and often made a point of devoting to her a special
amount of attention, being toward her of an unnatural amiability, trying
thus to keep her ignorant of the extent to which she did not exist for
him. Now he suddenly remembered that from the choice little treat
provided for Mrs. Hawthorne Miss Madison had been left out--forgotten.
He was dismayed. Then a pleasant side to the affair revealed itself by a
dim gleam. He was mortified by his forgetfulness, but the ladies were
after all not Siamese twins.

"You must wonder what brought me at this unusual time of day," he said.

"Any time's good that brings you. But what in particular was it?"

"I wanted to ask you to keep free next Saturday afternoon and, if you
will be so good, spend it in part with me. I should like to take you to
Mrs. Grangeon's."

"Mrs. Grangeon's...?"

"Don't you remember? Antonia! It is Antonia's real name. On the first
evening of our acquaintance you had a good deal to say about her. If I
remember rightly, you expressed then a desire to meet her--see her
face."

"Yes, yes. Antonia, of course."

"She is a figure of importance here in Florence. She is in truth a very
gifted woman--in her way, great, and of wide reputation. And she is
clever, except in just some little spots. Geniuses, one has observed,
are seldom quite free from such spots. She has kept herself very much to
herself now for several years, so that an occasion to see her