don't deny it," he responded. "Only the inferences you draw are not
correct." And turning towards Benedetta, who, without a thought of
jealous anxiety, wore as gay a look as himself, as though delighted that
he should have enjoyed that passing pleasure of the eyes, he went on: "It
was the girl, you know, whom I found in tears six weeks ago. Yes, that
bead-worker who was sobbing because the workshop was shut up, and who
rushed along, all blushing, to conduct me to her parents when I offered
her a bit of silver. Pierina her name is, as you, perhaps, remember."

"Oh! yes, Pierina."

"Well, since then I've met her in the street on four or five occasions.
And, to tell the truth, she is so very beautiful that I've stopped and
spoken to her. The other day, for instance, I walked with her as far as a
manufacturer's. But she hasn't yet found any work, and she began to cry,
and so, to console her a little, I kissed her. She was quite taken aback
at it, but she seemed very well pleased."

At this all the others began to laugh. But suddenly Celia desisted and
said very gravely, "You know, Dario, she loves you; you must not be hard
on her."

Dario, no doubt, was of Celia's opinion, for he again looked at
Benedetta, but with a gay toss of the head, as if to say that, although
the girl might love him, he did not love her. A bead-worker indeed, a
girl of the lowest classes, pooh! She might be a Venus, but she could be
nothing to him. And he himself made merry over his romantic adventure,
which Narcisse sought to arrange in a kind of antique sonnet: A beautiful
bead-worker falling madly in love with a young prince, as fair as
sunlight, who, touched by her misfortune, hands her a silver crown; then
the beautiful bead-worker, quite overcome at finding him as charitable as
handsome, dreaming of him incessantly, and following him everywhere,
chained to his steps by a link of flame; and finally the beautiful
bead-worker, who has refused the silver crown, so entreating the handsome
prince with her soft, submissive eyes, that he at last deigns to grant
her the alms of his heart. This pastime greatly amused Benedetta; but
Celia, with her angelic face and the air of a little girl who ought to
have been ignorant of everything, remained very grave and repeated sadly,
"Dario, Dario, she loves you; you must not make her suffer."

Then the Contessina, in her turn, was moved to pity. "And those poor
folks are not happy!" said she.

"Oh!" exclai