sk-weary men poured out of the Capitoline offices. Many turned to
look at the English girl as they hurried by, and one passing close to
her muttered "bella" in her ear. She drew back as though she had been
stung. Filippo laughed again.

"I only ask to be let alone," she said. "Can't you understand that you
remind me of things I want to forget. I am ashamed, oh, can't you
understand!"

She left him and went to stand on the outskirts of the crowd that had
collected in front of the cage in which the wolves are kept. Evidently
she hoped that he would go on, but he meant to disappoint her, and
when she went down the steps he was close beside her.

"Why are you so unkind to me?" he said, and as they crossed the road
he held her arm.

She wrenched herself away, went up to the _carabiniere_, who stood at
the corner, and spoke to him. The man smiled tolerantly as he glanced
from her to Filippo. "Signorina, I cannot help you."

She passed on down the street, knowing that she was being followed,
crossed the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and took a tram in the Piazza
della Minerva. Tor di Rocca got in too and sat down opposite to her.
The conductor turned to him first, and when she proffered her four
soldi she found that he had paid for both. Her hand shook as she put
the money back in her purse, and her colour rose. Filippo, quite at
his ease, leisurely, openly observant of her, whistled "Lucia" softly
to himself. Roses, roses all the way, and all for him, he thought
amusedly. And yet she bore the ordeal well, betraying no restlessness,
keeping her eyes unswervingly fixed on the two lions of the
advertisement of Chinina Migone pasted on the glass over his head. At
the Ripetta bridge she got out. He followed, saw her go into a house
farther down the street, and paused on the threshold to take the
number before he went up the stairs after her. She heard him coming.
He turned the handle of the door, but she had locked it and it held
fast. He knocked once and called to her. Evidently he was not sure of
her being within. There was another room on the same landing, and
after a while he tried that.

"Are you in there? _Carissima_, you are wasting time. To-day or
to-morrow, sooner or later. Why not to-day, and soon?"

A silence ensued. The girl had taken off her hat and thrown it down
upon the table. She stood very still in the middle of the room
listening, waiting for him to go away again. Her breath came quickly,
and little pearls of