latrix_, the friend who can hold out both comfort and
pardon. Though she had marked those sorrowful lines in the volume of
Shelley, she had, most assuredly, said very different words in her
heart. 'I can never be thine!' Why _never_? Ah, there had been too much
passionate intensity for that in the voice in which she answered him
that day in the wood at Vicomile--'I love you! I love you! I love you!'

He could hear her voice now, that never-to-be-forgotten voice!

Stephen knocked at the door. 'May I remind the Signor Conte that it is
three o'clock?'

Andrea rose and passed into the octagonal room to dress. The sun shone
through the lace window screens and sparkled on the Hispano-Mauresque
tiles, the innumerable toilet articles of crystal and silver, the
bas-reliefs on the antique sarcophagus; its dancing reflections
imparting a delightful sense of movement to the air. He felt in the best
of spirits, completely cured, full of the joy and the vivacity of life.
He was inexpressibly happy to be back in his home once more. All that
was most frivolous, most capricious, most worldly in him awoke with a
bound. It was as if the surrounding objects had the power to evoke in
him the man of former days. His sensual curiosity, his elasticity, his
ubiquity of mind reappeared. He already began to feel the necessity of
expansion, of mixing in the world of pleasure and with his friends.

He discovered that he was very hungry, and ordered the servant to bring
the lunch at once. He rarely dined at home, but for special
occasions--some _recherche_ lunch or private little supper--he had a
dining-room decorated with eighteenth century Neapolitan tapestries
which Carlo Sperelli had ordered of Pietro Dinanti in 1766 from designs
by Storace. The seven wall panels represented episodes of Bacchic love,
the portieres and the draperies above the doors and windows having
groups of fruit and flowers. Shades of gold--pale or
tawny--predominated, and mingling with the warm, pearly flesh-tints and
sombre blues, formed a harmony of colour that was both delicate and
sumptuous.

'When the Duke of Grimiti comes back, show him up,' he said to the
servant.

Into this room too, the sun, sinking towards the Monte Mario, shot his
dazzling rays. You could hear the rumble of the carriages in the piazza
of the Trinita de' Monti. The rain over, it looked as if all the
luminous gold of the Roman October were spread out over the city.

'Open the window,' he sai