ch of
the Carmelites at Borgo San Liberale. One might distinguish at the
extreme right of the five compartments a willowy St. Michael in armour,
like Chaucer's Squire in a black-letter folio, or if the identification
had been doubtful, there was the name below in all letters.

When the print was shown to the scheming Harwood over the afternoon
vermouth, he suspended a long discourse on the contemptible fate of being
born an Anglo-Saxon, and it came over him with a blessed shock that Emma
had the missing St. Michael. Penetrated by the joy of the situation, he
hesitated for a moment whether to give the initiative to the man or the
woman. A glance at Crocker's uncompromising sturdiness convinced him that
on that side the situation might be quickly exhausted. Emma he could
trust to do it full justice. Excusing himself abruptly, he made for Frau
Stern's lodgings, and with the taste of Crocker's vermouth still in his
faithless mouth, told her that Emma's Crivelli was no other than the
missing St. Michael. To make matters sure he solemnly bound Frau Stern to
secrecy. That accomplished, he strode whistling down through the purple
twilight to his well-earned _fritto_ at Paoli's. The next day began our
wondering what Emma would do. She did, as is known, a thing that her
simple Knickerbocker ancestresses would have approved--presented Crocker
to the St. Michael and left the decision modestly to the men. Behind the
frankness of her procedure lay, perhaps, a curiosity to see how Crocker
would bear himself in a delicate emergency. It was to be in some fashion
his ordeal. Thus she might at least shake the appalling equanimity with
which he had passed from the stage of comrade to that of suppliant. Not
that she doubted him; nobody did that, but she resented a little in
retrospect his silence on the subject of the great quest. Was it possible
that for these five years he had chatted only about his college pranks,
his fishing trips, his orchards and vineyards, and the views? As she
reviewed their countless walks and teas, it really seemed as if he had
never paid her the compliment of being impersonal. Well, that was ended
now at any rate. A little misgiving filled her that she had never
revealed the presence of the St. Michael to so good a play-fellow. A
delicacy, knowing his incorrigible zeal as a collector, had restrained
her, and then, as Dennis had guessed, her den was her sanctuary,
admission to which implied an intimacy difficult to