elli; she was considerate enough to-day to make
the effort to pronounce the gentleman's cognomen.

"I was savage at him, you remember," she said. "I was going to take his
head off. Then when it came to it, and I had told him what I thought of
him and the whole disgraceful scrape he had got me into--Oh, I went for
him, hammer and tongs! Incidentally, I made him tell me what it was I
had said. Pretty bad, wasn't it!--Well, do you know, he cried, he felt
so. He just cried on his knees, and didn't try to get rid of any of the
blame. All he wanted was that I should forgive him. And what could I do?
As long, particularly, as I knew that a good deal of the fault was my
own.... So now he comes to the house with a look as if he'd just been
baptized. And he tells me only stories fit, he says, for a convent. Here
is a sample, if you'd like to hear. Mrs. X, as he called her, who lives
in a palace not a thousand miles, he said, from Piazza degli Anti-nory,
and who had given Mr. B. reasons for not liking her, was seen by him, in
a suspiciously simple dress, going suspiciously on foot, in a little
suspiciously out of the way street, at a considerable distance from
Piazza degli Anti-nory. The gentleman followed her stealthily into a
house he saw her enter, thinking, you know, he would find out something
to her discredit. And what did he find out but that she was secretly
visiting and relieving the poor! The brilliant society lady, whom he
wished to be revenged on because, as I gathered, she had scorned his
dishonorable love-making, was secretly the angel of the poor.... Don't
you think that's a nice story? He tells me nothing now that's less nice
than that. We're reformed characters. He has asked my permission to
dedicate to me a beautiful piece of music he has just composed, and
which is called--but in French--'Prayer of the Evening.'"

Both of them were pleasantly aware of a tray placed on the table near
them, as if descended from heaven, laden with teapot, bread and butter,
jam. Neither of them really saw Giovanna, who brought it in, or was
struck by the stern expression of her face.

Aurora, never sorry of something to eat, turned her attention to the
tray. Gerald wished to serve her, and she first noticed his weakness
when she saw the teapot tremble slightly in his hand. She went on
chattering, but she was observing him.

"Is your carriage waiting before the door?" he suddenly asked, after a
space during which she had suspected