hand; a lock of her
baby's hair and a withered leaf from her father's grave. At the back of
the drawer was a miniature portrait of Arthur at ten years old--the only
existing likeness of him.

She sat down with it in her hands and looked at the beautiful childish
head, till the face of the real Arthur rose up afresh before her. How
clear it was in every detail! The sensitive lines of the mouth, the
wide, earnest eyes, the seraphic purity of expression--they were graven
in upon her memory, as though he had died yesterday. Slowly the blinding
tears welled up and hid the portrait.

Oh, how could she have thought such a thing! It was like sacrilege even
to dream of this bright, far-off spirit, bound to the sordid miseries of
life. Surely the gods had loved him a little, and had let him die young!
Better a thousand times that he should pass into utter nothingness than
that he should live and be the Gadfly--the Gadfly, with his faultless
neckties and his doubtful witticisms, his bitter tongue and his ballet
girl! No, no! It was all a horrible, senseless fancy; and she had vexed
her heart with vain imaginings. Arthur was dead.

"May I come in?" asked a soft voice at the door.

She started so that the portrait fell from her hand, and the Gadfly,
limping across the room, picked it up and handed it to her.

"How you startled me!" she said.

"I am s-so sorry. Perhaps I am disturbing you?"

"No. I was only turning over some old things."

She hesitated for a moment; then handed him back the miniature.

"What do you think of that head?"

While he looked at it she watched his face as though her life depended
upon its expression; but it was merely negative and critical.

"You have set me a difficult task," he said. "The portrait is faded,
and a child's face is always hard to read. But I should think that child
would grow into an unlucky man, and the wisest thing he could do would
be to abstain from growing into a man at all."

"Why?"

"Look at the line of the under-lip. Th-th-that is the sort of nature
that feels pain as pain and wrong as wrong; and the world has no
r-r-room for such people; it needs people who feel nothing but their
work."

"Is it at all like anyone you know?"

He looked at the portrait more closely.

"Yes. What a curious thing! Of course it is; very like."

"Like whom?"

"C-c-cardinal Montan-nelli. I wonder whether his irreproachable Eminence
has any nephews, by the way? Who is it, if I may ask?