the men who were sitting there seemed very civil and
intelligent; one of them was a major of engineers, who offered me a
profusion of information upon the new organisation of the Italian army.
While he talked, however, I was observing our hostess, who was talking
with the others; very little, I noticed, with her young Inglese. She is
altogether charming--full of frankness and freedom, of that inimitable
_disinvoltura_ which in an Englishwoman would be vulgar, and which in her
is simply the perfection of apparent spontaneity. But for all her
spontaneity she's as subtle as a needle-point, and knows tremendously
well what she is about. If she is not a consummate coquette . . . What
had she in her head when she said that I should not have gone away?--Poor
little Stanmer didn't go away. I left him there at midnight.

12th.--I found him today sitting in the church of Santa Croce, into which
I wandered to escape from the heat of the sun.

In the nave it was cool and dim; he was staring at the blaze of candles
on the great altar, and thinking, I am sure, of his incomparable
Countess. I sat down beside him, and after a while, as if to avoid the
appearance of eagerness, he asked me how I had enjoyed my visit to Casa
Salvi, and what I thought of the _padrona_.

"I think half a dozen things," I said, "but I can only tell you one now.
She's an enchantress. You shall hear the rest when we have left the
church."

"An enchantress?" repeated Stanmer, looking at me askance.

He is a very simple youth, but who am I to blame him?

"A charmer," I said "a fascinatress!"

He turned away, staring at the altar candles.

"An artist--an actress," I went on, rather brutally.

He gave me another glance.

"I think you are telling me all," he said.

"No, no, there is more." And we sat a long time in silence.

At last he proposed that we should go out; and we passed in the street,
where the shadows had begun to stretch themselves.

"I don't know what you mean by her being an actress," he said, as we
turned homeward.

"I suppose not. Neither should I have known, if any one had said that to
me."

"You are thinking about the mother," said Stanmer. "Why are you always
bringing _her_ in?"

"My dear boy, the analogy is so great it forces itself upon me."

He stopped and stood looking at me with his modest, perplexed young face.
I thought he was going to exclaim--"The analogy be hanged!"--but he said
after a moment--

"Well,