age. It was
all a vile trick meant to save his feelings and help him to get well,
and she hated and despised it.

She was playing a part with Lamberti, too, and that was no better. She
had fallen low enough to love a man who did not care a straw for her,
and it needed all the energy of character she had left to keep him from
finding it out. Nothing could be more contemptible. If any one but he
had told her that she ought to go back to the appearance of an
engagement with Guido, she would have refused to do it. But Lamberti
dominated her; he had only to say, "Do this," and she did it, "Say
this," and she said it, whether it were true or not. She complained
bitterly in her heart that if he had bidden her lie to her mother, she
would have lied, because she had no will of her own when she was with
him.

And this was the end of her inspired visions, of her lofty ideals, of
her magnificent rules of life, of her studies of philosophy, her
meditations upon religion, and her dream of the last Vestal. She was
nothing but a weak girl, under the orders of a man she loved against her
will, and ready to do things she despised whenever he chose to give his
orders. He cared for no human being except his one friend. He was not to
be blamed for that, of course, but he was utterly indifferent to every
one else where his friend was concerned; every one must lie, or steal,
or do murder, if that could help Guido to get well. She was only one of
his instruments, and he probably had others. She was sure that half the
women in Rome loved Lamberto Lamberti without daring to say so. It was a
satisfaction to have heard from every one that he cared for none of
them. People spoke of him as a woman-hater, and one woman had said that
he had married a negress in Africa, and was the father of black savages
with red hair. That accounted for his going to Somali Land, she said,
and for his knowing so much about the habits of the people there.
Cecilia would have gladly killed the lady with a hat pin.

She was very unhappy, sitting alone on the steps after the sun had sunk
out of sight. The comedy was all to begin over again in an hour, for she
must go home and defend her conduct when her mother reproached her with
not acting fairly, and laughed at the idea that Guido was in danger of
his life. To-morrow she would have to write the daily note to him, she
would be obliged to compose affectionate phrases which would have come
quite naturally if she could ha