I remember my mother once telling me that you were the most
suspicious and jealous of men!"

"I fell into a suspicious mood, but I was, fundamentally, not in the
least addicted to thinking evil. I couldn't easily imagine any harm of
any one."

"And so you mean that Mr. Stanmer is in a suspicions mood?"

"Well, I mean that his situation is the same as mine."

The Countess gave me one of her serious looks. "Come," she said, "what
was it--this famous situation of yours? I have heard you mention it
before."

"Your mother might have told you, since she occasionally did me the
honour to speak of me."

"All my mother ever told me was that you were--a sad puzzle to her."

At this, of course, I laughed out--I laugh still as I write it.

"Well, then, that was my situation--I was a sad puzzle to a very clever
woman."

"And you mean, therefore, that I am a puzzle to poor Mr. Stanmer?"

"He is racking his brains to make you out. Remember it was you who said
he was intelligent."

She looked round at him, and as fortune would have it, his appearance at
that moment quite confirmed my assertion. He was lounging back in his
chair with an air of indolence rather too marked for a drawing-room, and
staring at the ceiling with the expression of a man who has just been
asked a conundrum. Madame Scarabelli seemed struck with his attitude.

"Don't you see," I said, "he can't read the riddle?"

"You yourself," she answered, "said he was incapable of thinking evil. I
should be sorry to have him think any evil of _me_."

And she looked straight at me--seriously, appealingly--with her beautiful
candid brow.

I inclined myself, smiling, in a manner which might have meant--"How
could that be possible?"

"I have a great esteem for him," she went on; "I want him to think well
of me. If I am a puzzle to him, do me a little service. Explain me to
him."

"Explain you, dear lady?"

"You are older and wiser than he. Make him understand me."

She looked deep into my eyes for a moment, and then she turned away.

26th.--I have written nothing for a good many days, but meanwhile I have
been half a dozen times to Casa Salvi. I have seen a good deal also of
my young friend--had a good many walks and talks with him. I have
proposed to him to come with me to Venice for a fortnight, but he won't
listen to the idea of leaving Florence. He is very happy in spite of his
doubts, and I confess that in the perception of his happines