an driven to bay by
a crowd to argue a question in which he had no conviction, but which
concerns his life. He stopped speaking when she interrupted him, and he
seemed to be waiting for her to say more. She had drawn herself up a
little proudly, with her head high.

"You hurt me," she said, breaking the silence, and hardly knowing why
she said the words.

"Do you think it costs me nothing?" he asked, in a low voice.

His eyes burned strangely in the lamp-light. But he turned away quickly,
to resume his walk. She could not help asking him a question.

"Why should it cost you anything? You are speaking for your friend--but
I--"

She did not finish the sentence, for it seemed to her selfish to throw
her right to happiness into the scale against Gianluca's life. But she
could not understand him.

"It is hard to do, for all that," he answered indistinctly. "I have said
too much," he continued, stopping before her. "I meant to do the best I
could. Perhaps I should have said nothing. This is no time to stop at
trifles. The man is dying, and I have a right to say that I believe you
might save his life--and a right to beg you to try. You have the right
to refuse, to question, to doubt--all rights that are a woman's in such
a case. As for me--there is no question of me in all this. Since I must
be here for him, since I have displeased you from the first, since you
do not like me, look upon me as a necessary evil, do not consider my
existence, think of me as a man who loves your best friend and is giving
all he has--to save him."

"All you have," repeated Veronica, thoughtfully, but without a question.

"Yes!" he exclaimed.

The single word was spoken with a sort of passion, as though it meant
much to him. She liked him better now than when he walked up and down,
giving her incoherent advice. Whatever he might mean, it was something
which had power to move him.

"You are mistaken," she said. "I like you very much."

"You--Princess!" His surprise was genuine. "You have not made me think
so," he added in a tone of wonder.

"Nor have you made me think that you liked me," she answered.

"Gianluca thought I did not," said Taquisara, slowly, as though speaking
to himself.

Veronica smiled.

"When I first knew you, when we talked together at the villa on that
morning before Christmas, I liked you better than him," she said.

He started sharply.

"Please--" He checked himself almost before the one word had escaped hi