u can see me. Or ask our two mysterious friends to guard
me, for they would overmatch a dozen of Don Alberto's sort!'

She laughed, though with a slight effort; but she saw that he was
inclining to the side of discretion, at least for the present.

'And if worse comes to the worst,' she added, 'we must leave Rome and
live in the South, in your own country. I have always longed to go
there.'

'Even to starve with me, love?' Stradella smiled. 'It is not in Naples
that I shall be offered three or four hundred crowns for writing a mass!
Thirty or forty will be nearer the price! Instead of living in a palace
we shall take up our quarters in some poor little house over the sea, at
Mergellina or Posilippo, with three rooms, a kitchen, and a pigsty at
the back, and we shall eat macaroni and fried cuttle-fish every day,
with an orange for dessert, and a drive in a curricolo on Sunday
afternoons! How will that suit the delicate tastes of the Lady Ortensia
Grimani?'

'It sounds delicious,' Ortensia said, rubbing her cheek against his
coat. 'I delight in macaroni and oranges as it is, and I can think of
nothing I should like better than to have you to myself in a little
house with three rooms looking over the sea! We will give Pina a present
and send her away, and Cucurullo shall cook for us. I am sure he can,
and very well, and why should I need a maid? Let us go, Alessandro;
promise that we shall! When can we start?'

'Not till after Saint Peter's Day, at all events since I have that mass
to finish and conduct,' Stradella answered, humouring her. 'But it is
impossible,' he added, almost at once. 'You could not live in that way,
and I have no right to let you try it.'

'We shall be happier than we ever were before!'

'For a few days, perhaps. But the plain truth is, that I am only a poor
artist, and all I have saved is a matter of a thousand crowns in Chigi's
bank. I must earn money for us both, and there is no place where I can
earn as much as I can here, under the patronage of the Pope----'

'--and his nephews,' said Ortensia, completing the sentence as he
hesitated; 'and one of those nephews is Don Alberto Altieri, who pays
himself for his patronage by forcing himself upon my privacy when you
are gone out! That is the short of a very long story!'

Stradella stood still, struck by what she said, and he looked into her
eyes; they met his a little timidly, for she feared that she had hurt
him.

'You are right,' he said