to have such a delicious plunge. See--to-night I have put
on pearls, and diamonds, and rings, that the Baronessa would never let
me wear. And I 've got a whole bagful of books, to read in the
train--Anatole France, and Shakespeare, and Gyp, and Pierre Loti, and
Moliere, and Max Beerbohm, and everybody: all the books the Baronessa
would have died a thousand deaths rather than let me look at. That's
the nuisance of being a woman of position--you 're brought up never to
read anything except the Lives of the Saints and the fashion papers. I
've had to do all my really important reading by stealth, like a thief
in the night. Ah," she sighed, "if I were only a man, like you! But
as for observing the decencies," she continued briskly, "you need have
no fear. I 'm going to the land of all lands where (if report speaks
true) one has most opportunities of observing them--I 'm going to
England, and I 'll observe them with both eyes. And I 'm not
travelling alone." She spurned the imputation. "There are Rosina and
Serafino; and at the end of my journey I shall have Miss Sandus. You
remember that nice Miss Sandus?" she asked, smiling up at him. "She is
my fellow-conspirator. We arranged it all before she went away last
autumn. I 'm to go to her house in London, and she will go with me to
Craford. She 's frantically interested about my cousin. She thinks
it's the most thrilling and romantic story she has ever heard. And she
thoroughly sympathises with my desire to make friends with him, and to
offer him some sort of reparation."

The Commendatore was pacing nervously backwards and forwards, being, I
suppose, too punctilious an old-school Latin stickler for etiquette to
interrupt.

But now, "Curse her for a meddlesome Englishwoman," he spluttered
violently. "To encourage a young girl like you in such midsummer
folly. A young girl?--a young hoyden, a young tom-boy. What? You
will travel from here to London without a chaperon? And books--French
novels--gr-r-r! I wish you had never been taught to read. I think it
is ridiculous to teach women to read. What good will they get by
reading? You deserve--upon my word you deserve . . . Well, never
mind. Oh, body of Bacchus!"

He wrung his hands, as one in desperation.

"A young girl, a mere child," he cried, in a wail to Heaven; "a
mere"--he paused, groping for an adequate definition--"a mere
irresponsible female orphan! And nobody with power to interfere."

S