's
difficult enough to know myself now. But I know----"

"Come on, do, like the dear Little Old Pal you really are," I cut in.
"You don't want to put me in a false position, do you? Besides, I'd
like particularly to get your opinion on the Contessa. I may have to
ask your advice about something connected with her, later."

This fetched him, though with not too good a grace. "You don't know my
name," he said, with a return of impishness, as we walked together
towards the Contessa.

"I think that you have the advantage of me in that way, now."

"If you call it an advantage. I had a presentiment you weren't plain
mister, so I'm not surprised. You may tell your Countess that my name
is Laurence."

"Christian name or 'Pagan' name?"

"Make the Christian name Roy."

In another moment I was introducing Mr. Roy Laurence to the Contessa
di Ravello; and as they stood eyeing each other, the fairy Gaeta
pulsing with coquetry through all her hot-blooded Italian veins, the
Boy aloof and critical, I was struck with the picture that the two
figures made.

The Boy had three or four inches more of height than the Contessa, and
looked almost tall beside her, though I had thought of him as small.
Her round, dimpled face seemed no older than his oval brown one, in
this moment of his gravity, and the haughty air of a young prince
which he wore now, consciously or unconsciously, had a certain
provoking charm for a spoiled beauty used to conquest. The big blue
stars which lit his face expressed a resolve not to yield to any
blandishment, and this no doubt piqued Gaeta, before whom all the boys
and youths at Davos had gone down like grass before the scythe. Helen
Blantock came after she had left the place, otherwise she might have
had to fight for her rights as queen; but as it was, she had been
without rivals and probably had known few dangerous ones elsewhere.
Never had I seen her take as much real pains to be charming to a grown
man, as she took with this silent boy, during the few moments that her
friends spent in wrestling with the landlord. What lamps she lit in
the windows of her eyes, suddenly raising their curtains on dazzling
glances! What rosy flags she hung out in his honour, on dimpled
cheeks; what rich display of pearls and coral her cupid-mouth gave
him! but all in vain, so far as any change in his cold young face
showed. I had seen it warm for a gleam of light on the wing of a
swooping bird, or an effect of cloud-shado