lp us!'

She talked and gesticulated with much vivacity and looked very girlish
in a close-fitting jacket of dark-blue cloth, trimmed round the high
collar and the cuffs with black astrachan and fine black braiding. She
kept one hand in her pocket in a graceful attitude, and with the other
pointed out the various wall-hangings, the pictures, the furniture,
asking his advice as to their most advantageous disposal.

'Where would you put these two chests? Look--Mumps picked them up at
Lucca. These pictures are your beloved Botticelli's.--Where would you
hang these tapestries?'

Andrea recognised the four pieces of tapestry from the Immenraet sale
representing the Story of Narcissus. He looked at Elena, but could not
catch her eye. A profound sense of irritation against her, against her
husband, against all these things took possession of him. He would have
liked to go away, but politeness demanded that he should place his good
taste at the service of the Heathfields; it also obliged him to submit
to the archaeological erudition of 'Mumps,' who was an ardent collector
and was anxious to show him some of his finds. In one cabinet Andrea
caught sight of the Pollajuolo helmet, and in another of the
rock-crystal goblet which had belonged to Niccolo Niccoli. The presence
of that particular goblet in this particular place moved him strangely
and sent a flash of mad suspicion through his mind.

So it had fallen into the hands of Lord Heathfield! The famous
competition between the Countesses having come to nothing, nobody
troubled themselves further about the fate of the goblet, and none of
the party had returned to the sale after that day. Their ephemeral zeal
had languished and finally died out and passed away, like everything
else in the world of fashion, and the goblet had been abandoned to the
competition of other collectors. The thing was perfectly natural, but
at that moment it appeared to Andrea most extraordinary.

He purposely stopped before the cabinet and gazed long at the precious
goblet on which the story of Venus and Anchises glittered as if cut in a
pure diamond.

'Niccolo Niccoli!' said Elena, pronouncing the name with an indefinable
accent in which the young man seemed to catch a note of sadness.

The husband had just gone into another room to open a cabinet.

'Remember--remember!' murmured Andrea, turning towards her.

'I do remember.'

'Then when may I see you?'

'Ah, when?'

'But you promised me-