not need to peer through the curtains to know
from whom it came. First he sang a song of Tosti's, and then the
serenade from "Don Pasquale:"

'Com' e gentil, la notte in mezz' Aprile.

Poi quando saro morto, tu piangerai
Ma ritornarmi in vita, tu non potrai.'

"Sentimental? Yes, sentimental to the last degree. But on the Riviera, in
spring, and at night, one's fancy turns to that sort of thing with
astounding ease. I listened with unalloyed pleasure. It was like a
Boccaccian echo. And as I listened I wondered whether I should ever
learn what love might be. The idea of taking a course of lessons from a
man who strummed on a guitar in front of my window never entered my
head. The next day Fanny came to me in a state of great excitement. The
guitarist, it appeared, had, with all proper and due formality, asked
leave to place his coronet at my feet. _Ce que j'ai ri!_

"You can hear Fanny from here. She accused me of flirting with the man.
'You have no right,' she said, 'to treat him as though he were a college
boy at Mt. Desert.' What he had done to make her so vicious I never
discovered. It must have been the title, a title always went to her
head. Poor Fanny! That evening, when he came, she declined to be
present. I had to see him alone. My dear, he was too funny. He had
prepared a little speech which he got off very well, only at the end of
it he lapsed into English. 'We will loaf,' he said, 'we will be always
loafers.' He meant, of course, to assert that we should love and be
always lovers, but the intricacies of our pronunciation were too much
for him. I could have died, it was so amusing. I managed, however, to
keep a straight face. 'Marquis,' I said, 'I am deeply honored, but your
invitation is one that I am unable to accept.' A more astounded man you
never saw. He really thought that he had but to ask, and it would be
given. He declined to take No for an answer. He said he would wait.
Actually, he was so pertinacious that I had to drag Fanny up to Paris.
He followed us in the next train. There was no getting rid of him at
all. If he sent me one note he sent me a hundred, and notes ten pages
each, at the very least. Finally, as you heard, he tried the dramatic.
One afternoon, while I was out shopping, he bribed a waiter at the hotel
where we lodged. When I returned, there he was, waiting for me. 'At
last,' he cried, 'at last we are face to face. You think I do not love.
Cruel one, behold me! I love as