he bottom of my saying
to her that I hoped that, unlike her mother's, her own brief married life
had been happy.

"If it was not," she said, "I have forgotten it now."--I wonder if the
late Count Scarabelli was also killed in a duel, and if his adversary . . .
Is it on the books that his adversary, as well, shall perish by the
pistol? Which of those gentlemen is he, I wonder? Is it reserved for
poor little Stanmer to put a bullet into him? No; poor little Stanmer, I
trust, will do as I did. And yet, unfortunately for him, that woman is
consummately plausible. She was wonderfully nice last evening; she was
really irresistible. Such frankness and freedom, and yet something so
soft and womanly; such graceful gaiety, so much of the brightness,
without any of the stiffness, of good breeding, and over it all something
so picturesquely simple and southern. She is a perfect Italian. But she
comes honestly by it. After the talk I have just jotted down she changed
her place, and the conversation for half an hour was general. Stanmer
indeed said very little; partly, I suppose, because he is shy of talking
a foreign tongue. Was I like that--was I so constantly silent? I
suspect I was when I was perplexed, and Heaven knows that very often my
perplexity was extreme. Before I went away I had a few more words _tete-
a-tete_ with the Countess.

"I hope you are not leaving Florence yet," she said; "you will stay a
while longer?"

I answered that I came only for a week, and that my week was over.

"I stay on from day to day, I am so much interested."

"Eh, it's the beautiful moment. I'm glad our city pleases you!"

"Florence pleases me--and I take a paternal interest to our young
friend," I added, glancing at Stanmer. "I have become very fond of him."

"_Bel tipo inglese_," said my hostess. "And he is very intelligent; he
has a beautiful mind."

She stood there resting her smile and her clear, expressive eyes upon me.

"I don't like to praise him too much," I rejoined, "lest I should appear
to praise myself; he reminds me so much of what I was at his age. If
your beautiful mother were to come to life for an hour she would see the
resemblance."

She gave me a little amused stare.

"And yet you don't look at all like him!"

"Ah, you didn't know me when I was twenty-five. I was very handsome!
And, moreover, it isn't that, it's the mental resemblance. I was
ingenuous, candid, trusting, like him."

"Trusting?