yet you throw your money away--yes, you
throw it to poor Europe as if to a beggar!"

"No, no," he protested with an indulgent laugh which confessed that the
truth was really "Yes, yes."

"Your smile betray' you!" she cried triumphantly. "More than jus' bein'
guilty of that fault, I am goin' to tell you of others. You are not the
ole-time--what is it you say?--Ah, yes, the 'goody-goody.' I have
heard my great American frien', Honor-able Chanlair Pedlow, call it the
Sonday-school. Is it not? Yes, you are not the Sonday-school yo'ng men,
you an' your class!"

"No," he said, bestowing a long glance upon a stout nurse who
was sitting on a bench near the drive and attending to twins in a
perambulator. "No, we're not exactly dissenting parsons."

"Ah, no!" She shook her head at him prettily. "You are wicked! You are
up into all the mischief! Have I not hear what wild sums you risk at
your game, that poker? You are famous for it."

"Oh, we play," he admitted with a reckless laugh, "and I suppose we do
play rather high."

"High!" she echoed. "_Souzands!_ But that is not all. Ha, ha, ha,
naughty one! Have I not observe' you lookin' at these pretty creature',
the little contadina-girl, an' the poor ladies who have hire' their
carriages for two lire to drive up and down the Pincio in their bes'
dress an' be admire' by the yo'ng American while the music play'? Which
one I wonder, is it on whose wrist you would mos' like to fasten a
bracelet of diamon's? Wicked, I have watch' you look at them--"

"No, no," he interrupted earnestly. "I have not once looked away from
you, I _could n't_." Their eyes met, but instantly hers were lowered;
the bright smile with which she had been rallying him faded and there
was a pause during which he felt that she had become very grave. When
she spoke, it was with a little quaver, and the controlled pathos of
her voice was so intense that it evoked a sympathetic catch in his own
throat.

"But, my frien', if it should be that I cannot wish you to look so at
me, or to speak so to me?"

"I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed, almost incoherently. "I didn't mean
to hurt your feelings. I wouldn't do anything you'd think ungentlemanly
for the world!"

Her eyes lifted again to his with what he had no difficulty in
recognizing as a look of perfect trust; but, behind that, he perceived a
darkling sadness.

"I know it is true," she murmured--"I know. But you see there are time'
when a woman has sorrow--s