ike
shuttlecocks, his battledore should be ready to catch the Contessa's.

Our road from Chamounix to Annecy led us past gorges and over high
precipices and among noble mountains, but my mind was no longer in a
condition to receive or retain strong impressions of natural beauty. I
was irritable and "out of myself," vainly wishing back the days when
the Boy and I, undisturbed by feminine society, had travelled
tranquilly, side by side, giving each other thought for thought.

"Nothing can be as it has been;
Better, so call it, only not the same,"

Browning said; and so, I feared, it would be after this with me.

We were all to stay at Annecy for a night and a day, the Contessa
having announced that she and her friends would stop too; then Gaeta
and the others were to go on to Aix-les-Bains by rail, and the Boy and
I were to follow on foot, attended by our satellites. Later, we were
to spend a few days at the Contessa's villa and get upon our way
again, journeying south. But it did not seem to me that my little Pal
and I would ever be as we had been before, even though we walked from
Aix-les-Bains all the way down to the Riviera shoulder to shoulder. I
had the will to be the same, but he was different now; and though we
left Gaeta in the flesh at her villa, entertaining guests, Gaeta in
the spirit would still flit between us as we went. The Boy would be
thinking of her; I should know that he was thinking of her, and--there
would be an end of our confidences.

The way, though kaleidoscopic with changing beauties, seemed long to
Annecy. By the time that we arrived, after two days' going, the
Contessa had eyes or dimples or laughter for no one but the Boy.
Sometimes he was seized with sudden moods of rebellion against his new
slavery, and was almost rude to her, saying things which she would not
have forgiven readily from another, but the child-woman appeared to
find a keen delight in forgiving him. Seeing the preference bestowed
upon the young American, Paolo's brother and sister were inclined to
make common cause with me.

In the garden of the old-fashioned hotel at Annecy where we all took
up our headquarters, they came and encamped beside me, at a table near
which I sat alone, smoking, after our first dinner in the place. A
moment later Gaeta passed with the Boy, pacing slowly under the
interlacing branches of the trees.

"I believe that youth to be a fortune-hunter!" exclaimed the thin,
dark Baron.

"