as Prince Tor di Rocca.

"This is a great pleasure," he said. "But not to you, I am afraid. You
are not glad to see me."

"I am surprised. I--do you often come into churches?"

He laughed. "I sometimes follow women in. I saw you coming up the
steps just now. You are right in supposing that I am not devout. I
want to speak to you. Shall we go out?"

She looked for a way of escape but saw none.

"If--very well," she said rather helplessly.

The hunchback woman at the south door watched them expectantly as they
came towards her, and she brightened as she saw the man's hand go to
his pocket. He threw her a piece of silver as they passed out. He was
in a good humour, his fine lips smiling, a glinting zest in his
insolent eyes. He thought he understood women, and he had in fact made
a one-sided study of the sex. He had seen their ways of loving, he had
listened to the beating of their hearts; but of their endurance, their
long patience, their daily life he knew nothing. He was like a man who
often wears a bunch of violets in his coat until they fade, and yet
has never seen, or cared to see them, growing sparsely, small and
sweet, half hidden in leaves on a mossy bank by the stream.

Women amused him. He was seldom much moved by them, and he pursued
them without haste or flurry, treading delicately like Agag of old. He
had little intrigues everywhere, in Florence, in Naples, in Rome.
Young married women, girls walking demurely with their mothers. He
liked to know that it was he who brought the colour to their cheeks
and that their eyes sought him among the crowd of men standing outside
Aragno's in the Corso or on the steps of the club in the Via
Tornabuoni. Very often the affair would be one of the eyes only, but
sometimes it went farther. Filippo's procedure varied. Sometimes he
put advertisements in the personal column of the Popolo Romano, and
sometimes he wrote notes. It was always very interesting while it
lasted. Occasionally affairs overlapped, as when an appeal to F. to
meet Norina once more in the Borghese appeared in print above F.'s
request that the signorina in the pink hat would write to him at the
Poste Restante.

Olive had nearly yielded to him in Florence, and then she had run
away, she had sought safety in flight. Evidently then his battle had
been nearly won. But she had reassembled her forces, and he saw that
it would be all to fight over again, and that the issue was doubtful.

As they came into