ning and waving great bundles of newspapers. Through all the clamour,
the one word Africa rang distinctly.

'And all this for four hundred brutes who had died the death of brutes!'
murmured Andrea, withdrawing his head from the carriage window.

'What are you saying!' cried the Princess.

At the corner of the Chigi palace the commotion assumed the aspect of a
riot. The carriage had to stop. Elena leaned forward to look out, and
her face emerging from the shadows and lighted up by the glare of the
gas and the reflection of the sunset seemed of a ghastly whiteness, an
almost icy pallor, reminding Andrea of some head he had seen before, he
could not say where or when--in some gallery or chapel.

'Here we are,' said the Princess, as the carriage drew up at last at the
Palazzo Fiano. 'Good-bye--we shall meet again at the Angelieris' this
evening. Ugenta will come and lunch with us to-morrow? You will find
Elena and Barbarella Viti and my cousin there----'

'At what time?'

'Half-past twelve.'

'Thanks, I will.'

The Princess got out. The footman stood at the carriage door awaiting
further orders.

'Where shall I take you?' Elena asked Sperelli, who had promptly taken
the place of the Princess beside her.

'Far, far away----'

'Nonsense--tell me now,--home?' And without waiting for his answer she
said--'To the Palazzo Zuccari, Trinita de' Monti.'

The footman closed the carriage door and they drove off down the Via
Frattina leaving all the turmoil of the crowd behind them.

'Oh, Elena--after so long----' Andrea burst out, leaning down to gaze
at the woman he so passionately desired and who had shrunk away from him
into the shadow as if to avoid his contact.

The brilliant lights of the shop windows pierced the gloom in the
carriage as they passed, and he saw on Elena's white face a slow
alluring smile.

Still smiling thus, with a rapid movement she unwound the boa from her
neck and cast it over Andrea's head like a lasso, and with that soft
loop, all fragrant with the same perfume he had noticed in the blue fox
of her coat, she drew the young man towards her and silently held up her
lips to his.

Well did those two pairs of lips remember the rapture of by-gone days,
those terrible and yet deliriously sweet meetings prolonged to anguish.
They held their breath to taste the sweetness of that kiss to the full.

Passing through the Via due Macelli the carriage drove up the Via dei
Tritone, turned into the Vi