ssions, and that she must reside here in order to induce Raphael to
follow her."

The scheme seemed to me likely to succeed, and one morning, when I
shrewdly suspected that Raphael would be busied at the Vatican, I took
Imperia with me to his studio to try her powers of persuasion upon
Margherita.

Even then she could not have succeeded but for my help, for Margherita,
trusting in my friendship for Raphael, appealed to me. "It is for his
good," I assured her.

"Then I will not refuse," she replied, "but will go with you at once. So
write for me to my master that if he wishes to paint from me, he will
find me when he is prepared to fulfil his promises to his patron."

Thus, without giving her time to reflect, we carried Margherita in
Imperia's carriage to Chigi's villa. I guessed that she had no intention
of sending the girl's message to her lover; that she planned to keep
Margherita hidden until Raphael, believing her false or losing all hope
of finding her, would return to his allegiance to Maria.

But there were other forces at work on which I had not counted, and the
first of these was Chigi.

Something like the same chain of reasoning had been started in his mind
by my mention of Margherita, but he had reached the conclusion that
Raphael's infatuation for his pretty model must be encouraged. He
therefore privately requested me to induce her, by exactly the same
arguments which we had already employed, to do precisely what she had
already done.

The humour of the situation was so great that I burst into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter.

This so angered the unsuspecting man that I managed to ejaculate between
my paroxysms: "Margherita in this villa! And what pray you would the
Signora Imperia say to that?"

At this question Chigi whistled. "I had forgotten Imperia," he admitted,
and then to my utter confusion that lady entered the room with her arm
about the waist of Margherita.

Never before had I seen Imperia unable to give a plausible account of a
situation, but while she hesitated, Margherita did her good service by
telling the simple truth. She thanked Chigi warmly for his patronage of
Raphael, and explained how Imperia and she had plotted to induce him to
complete the frescoes.

"And you did this to give me pleasure?" Chigi asked, regarding Imperia
with wonder and admiration. She felt her advantage and found her tongue.
"You little know your Imperia," she said, sweetly; and true though the
words