e way for him to seat himself next to Minnie his cup of
joy was full. Mrs. Willoughby's only idea at that moment was to throw
some obstacle between Minnie and that "dreadful person" who claimed
her as his own, and had taken such shocking liberties. She did not
know that Girasole was in Rome, and now accepted his arrival at that
opportune moment as something little less than providential.

And now, actuated still by the idea of throwing further obstacles
between Minnie and the Baron, she herself went over to the latter, and
began a series of polite remarks about the weather and about Rome;
while Girasole, eager to avail himself of his unexpected privilege,
conversed with Minnie in a low voice in his broken English.

This arrangement was certainly not very agreeable to the Baron. His
flow of spirits seemed to be checked at once, and his volubility
ceased. He made only monosyllabic answers to Mrs. Willoughby's
remarks, and his eyes kept wandering, over beyond her to Minnie, and
scrutinizing the Italian who was thus monopolizing her at the very
moment when he was beginning to have a "realizing sense" of her
presence. He looked puzzled. He could not understand it at all. He
felt that some wrong was done by somebody. He fell into an ungracious
mood. He hated the Italian who had thus come between him and his
happiness, and who chatted with Minnie, in his abominable broken
English, just like an old acquaintance. He couldn't understand it. He
felt an unpleasant restraint thrown over him, and began to meditate a
departure, and a call at some more favorable time later in the
evening. But he wanted to have a few more words with "Min," and so he
tried to "sit out" the Italian.

But the Italian was as determined as the American. It was the first
chance that he had had to get a word with Minnie since he was in
Milan, and he was eager to avail himself of it. Mrs. Willoughby, on
her part, having thus discomfited the Baron, was not unmindful of the
other danger; so she moved her seat to a position near enough to
overlook and check Girasole, and then resumed those formal, chilling,
heartless, but perfectly polite remarks which she had been
administering to the Baron since Girasole's arrival.

At length Mrs. Willoughby began to be dreadfully bored, and groaned in
spirit over the situation in which Minnie had placed herself, and
racked her brains to find some way of retreat from these two
determined lovers, who thus set at naught the us