save them from harm.
In a city where to be a woman is to be honoured, and to be young is to
be loved."

"And you, young seer, that are of the moorland and the heather," she
said, "where would you be in such a city?"

"As for me," I said, "I would stand far off and watch you as you passed
by."

"Ah, Messer Dante Alighieri, do not make a mistake. I am no Beatrice. I
love not chill aloofness. I am but Lucia, here to-day and gone
to-morrow. But rather than all rhapsodies, I would that you were just my
friend, and no further off than where I can reach you my hand and you
can take it."

So saying, because we came to the little bridge where the pines meet
overhead, she reached me her hand at the word; and as it lay in mine I
stooped and kissed it, which seemed the most natural thing in the world
to do.

She looked at me earnestly, and I thought there was a reproachful pity
in her eyes.

"Friend of mine, you will keep your promise," she said. I knew well
enough what promise it was that she meant.

"Fear not," I replied; "I promise and I keep."

Yet all the while my heart was busy planning how through all the future
I might abide near by her side.

We turned and walked slowly back. The hotel stood clear and sharp in the
morning sunshine, and a light wind was making the little waves plash on
the pebbles with a pleasant clapping sound.

"See," she said, "here is my brother coming to meet us. Tell me if you
have been happy this morning?"

"Oh," I said quickly, "happy!--you know that without needing to be
told."

"No matter what I know," the Countess said, with a certain petulance,
swift and lovable--"tell it me."

So I said obediently, yet as one that means his words to the full--

"I have been happier than ever I thought to be this morning!"

"Lucia!" she said softly--"say Lucia!"

"Lucia!" I answered to her will; yet I thought she did not well to try
me so hard.

Then her brother came up briskly and heartily, like one who had been
a-foot many hours, asking us how we did.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CRIMSON SHAWL

Henry Fenwick and the Count went shooting. He came and asked my leave as
one who is uncertain of an answer. And I gave it guiltily, saying to
myself that anything which took his mind off Madame Von Eisenhagen was
certainly good. But there leaped in my heart a great hope that, in what
remained of the day, I might again see the Countess.

I was grievously disappointed. For though I lounged all