attempts with pleasure. Should you find anything among them to gratify
your taste, I shall of course be honored. But, thank Heaven! I am not
as greedy of patronage as I used to be--in fact I intended resigning
the profession altogether in about six months or so."

"Indeed! Are you coming into a fortune?" I asked, carelessly.

"Well--not exactly," he answered, lightly. "I am going to marry
one--that is almost the same thing, is it not?"

"Precisely! I congratulate you!" I said, in a studiously indifferent
and slightly bored tone, though my heart pulsed fiercely with the
torrent of wrath pent up within it. I understood his meaning well. In
six months he proposed marrying my wife. Six months was the shortest
possible interval that could be observed, according to social
etiquette, between the death of one husband and the wedding of another,
and even that was so short as to be barely decent. Six months--yet in
that space of time much might happen--things undreamed of and
undesired--slow tortures carefully measured out, punishment sudden and
heavy! Wrapped in these sombre musings I walked beside him in profound
silence. The moon shone brilliantly; groups of girls danced on the
shore with their lovers, to the sound of a flute and mandoline--far off
across the bay the sound of sweet and plaintive singing floated from
some boat in the distance, to our ears--the evening breathed of beauty,
peace and love. But I--my fingers quivered with restrained longing to
be at the throat of the graceful liar who sauntered so easily and
confidently beside me. Ah! Heaven, if he only knew! If he could have
realized the truth, would his face have worn quite so careless a
smile--would his manner have been quite so free and dauntless?
Stealthily I glanced at him; he was humming a tune softly under his
breath, but feeling instinctively, I suppose, that my eyes were upon
him, he interrupted the melody and turned to me with the question:

"You have traveled far and seen much, conte!"

"I have."

"And in what country have you found the most beautiful women!"

"Pardon me, young sir," I answered, coldly, "the business of life has
separated me almost entirely from feminine society. I have devoted
myself exclusively to the amassing of wealth, understanding thoroughly
that gold is the key to all things, even to woman's love; if I desired
that latter commodity, which I do not. I fear that I scarcely know a
fair face from a plain one--I never was attra