an expression Guido had never seen. For a
moment there was something between a question and an appeal in her face.

"It is very becoming," he said gravely. "It is a pleasure to see
anything so faultless."

"I am glad you really like it," she answered. "I always want you to like
my things."

Everything happened exactly as she had expected and wished, and the
Countess, when she had sipped her cup of coffee after luncheon, went to
the writing table in the boudoir, and though the door was open into the
great drawing-room, she was out of sight, and out of hearing too.

Cecilia did not sit down again at once, but moved slowly about, went to
one of the windows and looked down at the white street through the slats
of the closed blinds, turned and met Guido's eyes, for he was watching
her, and at last stood still not far from him, but a little further from
the open door of the boudoir than he was. At the end of the room a short
sofa was placed across the corner; before it stood a low table on which
lay a few large books, of the sort that are supposed to amuse people who
are waiting for the lady of the house, or who are stranded alone in the
evening when every one else is talking. They are always books of the
type described as magnificent and not dear; if they were really
valuable, they would not be left there.

"How you watch me!" Cecilia smiled, as if she did not object to being
watched. "Come and sit down," she added, without waiting for an answer.

She established herself in one corner of the short sofa behind the
table, Guido took his place in the other, and there would not have been
room for a third person between them. The two had never sat together in
that particular place, and there was a small sensation of novelty about
it which was delightful to them both. There was not the least
calculation of such a thing in Cecilia's choice of the sofa, but only
the unerring instinct of woman which outwits man's deepest schemes at
every turn in life.

"Yes," Guido said, "I was watching you. I often do, for it is good to
look at you. Why should one not get as much aesthetic pleasure as
possible out of life?"

The speech was far from brilliant, for Guido was beginning to feel the
spell, and was not thinking so much of what he was saying as of what he
longed to say. Most clever men are dull enough to suppose that they bore
women when they suddenly lose their cleverness and say rather foolish
things with an air of conviction, i