determined way out of the room. Even in his walk the determination of
his character declared itself. He was strong and square and firm,
but within very gentle. Oh, you English! you English! you are a great
people! Great in your stolidity and solidity, before which I, who
know what lives beneath them, can only bow in a fluttering, butterfly
respect! Great in your passions, which you repress so splendidly that
to the superficial eye they look only like affections! Solid, stolid,
much-enduring people, with corners all over you, accept my profoundest
veneration!

Now it befalls me that I am impelled to tell why, with a reputation
already considerable and fast increasing, and with a balance at the
banker's in the same beautiful conditions, I yet remained in that poor
studio of mine, and in those unfashionable apartments. It was not that
I am penurious, although I have changed my old harum-scarum habits with
regard to money.

It was not--but why should I go on saying what it was not to pave the
way to saying what it was? It was, then, that in that house had lived
that little English angel who is a woman, and Cecilia. I will set it
down in one line. She is all the joy I have and all the sorrow. And
now I will set down one thing more that I may see it in plain black and
white, and study it there until I drive its meaning into my thick head
and my sore heart, and can at last smoke calm pipes over it, and be once
more contented. There is no hope for me--there is no hope for me: none
in the world. For my little Cecilia is in love already, and I would not
for twenty thousand times my own sake have her in one thought untrue.

I was walking upstairs one night a month before the events I have just
related, when I met a man coming down in the dark. I did not at all
know who he was, but I knew that he had been to Miss Grammont's rooms,
because I was already near my own door, and nobody but Miss Grammont
lived above me. The stranger said Good-night as he passed me, and I
returned his salutation. He stopped short.

'Have I the honour to address Mr. Calvotti?' he asked.

'That is my name,' I answered, in some astonishment.

'Ah, then,' he said, turning back again, 'if you can spare me just a
minute, I will deliver a letter I have for you.'

We went upstairs together, and into my studio. I lighted the gas and
took the letter. It came from Miss Grammont, and introduced Mr. Arthur
Clyde, an old friend who had found them out by acciden