aiety of her party of admirers,
tempered as their talk was by the occasional tonic of some outrageous
cynicism from the melancholy Spicca. Del Ferice smiled, and talked, and
smiled again, seeking to flatter and please Donna Tullia, as was his
wont. By-and-by the clear north wind and the bright sun dried the ground,
and Madame Mayer proposed that the party should walk a little on the road
towards Rome--a proposal of such startling originality that it was
carried by acclamation. Donna Tullia wanted to walk with Giovanni; but
on pretence of having left something upon the drag, he gave Valdarno time
to take his place. When Giovanni began to follow the rest, he found that
Del Ferice had lagged behind, and seemed to be waiting for him.

Giovanni was in a bad humour that day. He had suffered himself to be
persuaded into joining in a species of amusement for which he cared
nothing, by a mere word from a woman for whom he cared less, but whom he
had half determined to marry, and who had wholly determined to marry him.
He, who hated vacillation, had been dangling for four-and-twenty hours
like a pendulum, or, as he said to himself, like an ass between two
bundles of hay. At one moment he meant to marry Donna Tullia, and at
another he loathed the thought; now he felt that he would make any
sacrifice to rid the Duchessa d'Astrardente of himself, and now again he
felt how futile such a sacrifice would be. He was ashamed in his heart,
for he was no boy of twenty to be swayed by a woman's look or a fit of
Quixotism; he was a strong grown man who had seen the world. He had been
in the habit of supposing his impulses to be good, and of following them
naturally without much thought; it seemed desperately perplexing to be
forced into an analysis of those impulses in order to decide what he
should do. He was in a thoroughly bad humour, and Del Ferice guessed that
if Giovanni could ever be induced to speak out, it must be when his
temper was not under control. In Rome, in the club--there was only one
club in those days--in society, Ugo never got a chance to talk to his
enemy; but here upon the Appian Way, with the broad Campagna stretching
away to right and left and rear, while the remainder of the party walked
three hundred yards in front, and Giovanni showed an evident reluctance
to join them, it would go hard indeed if he could not be led into
conversation.

"I should think," Del Ferice began, "that if you had your choice, you
would wal