e sat up, took a cigarette from his pocket, put it between
his lips, searched in both pockets for a match, and, failing to find
one, sat with the unlighted cigarette between his lips, sulkier than
ever.

He felt her looking at him, and swayed his shoulders exactly as though
some one were trying to hold him. "Really, Leonora," he burst out, "this
question of money all the time is far from pleasant!"

A helpless, frightened look came into her face. It grew suddenly
pinched; instinctively she put her hand over her heart.

"I have not mentioned money." She made an effort to speak lightly, but
there was a vibration in the tone. Then, as though gathering her
strength together, she made a direct demand:

"Alessandro, tell me at once, what have you done?"

For a moment he looked defiant, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well,
since you will know----" he sprang from the bed, pulled a letter out of
his pocket, and, quite as a small boy hands over the note that his
teacher has caught him passing in school, he tossed her the envelope,
and left the room.

Her fingers trembled a little in unfolding the paper; and she breathed
quickly as she read. For some time she sat staring at the few lines of
writing before her. Then suddenly thrusting her feet into fur slippers,
she ran into the next room. "Sandro," she said, "come into my
sitting-room; I must speak with you."

He followed her through her bedroom into an apartment much smaller and,
unlike the other two rooms, quite warm. Just now, all the articles of a
woman's toilet were spread out on a table upon which a dressing-mirror
had been placed; and close beside a brazier of glowing coals was a
portable English tub; the water for the bath was heating in the kitchen.

Seeing that there was no means of avoiding the inevitable, he said
doggedly: "I thought to make, of course, or I would not have gone into
the scheme." Then something in her face held him, and at the same time
his impulsive boyishness--a little dramatic, perhaps, but only so much
as is consistent with his race--carried him into a new mood.

"Leonora, I suppose I am in the wrong--indeed I am sure I am utterly at
fault; but help me. Don't you see, _carissima_, this time I did not
_wager_--it was a business venture!"

In the midst of her distress she could not help but smile at the
absurdity.

"Scorpa is doing it all," he continued--"not I. You know what a clever
business man _he_ is! He assured me that it was a rare