ascend the steps--'will you promise me not to go to the Villa Medici
without me? Give it up for to-day--please do.'

For a moment she seemed preoccupied by sad thoughts, then she answered:
'Very well, I will give it up.'

'Thanks!'

Before them the great stairway rose triumphantly, its sun-warmed steps
giving out a gentle heat, the stone itself having the polished gleam of
old silver like that of the fountains at Schifanoja. Delfina ran on in
front with her almond-branch and, caught by the breeze of her movement,
some of its faint pink petals fluttered away like butterflies.

A poignant regret pierced the young man's heart. He pictured to himself
the delights of a sentimental walk through the quiet glades of the Villa
Medici in the early hours of the sunny afternoon.

'With whom do you lunch?' asked Donna Maria, after an interval of
silence.

'With the old Princess Alberoni,' he replied.

He lied to her once more, for some instinct warned him that the name
Ferentino might arouse some suspicion in Donna Maria's mind.

'Good-bye, then,' she said, and held out her hand.

'No--I will come up to the Piazza. My carriage is waiting for me there.
Look--that is where I live,' and he pointed to the Palazzo Zuccari, all
flooded with sunshine.

Donna Maria's eyes lingered upon it.

'Now there you have seen it, will you come there sometimes--in spirit?'

'In spirit always.'

'And shall I not see you before Saturday evening?'

'I hardly think so.'

They parted--she turning with Delfina into the avenue, Andrea jumping
into his brougham and driving off down the Via Gregoriana.

He arrived at the Ferentinos' a few minutes late. He made his apologies.
Elena was already there with her husband.

Lunch was served in a dining room gay with tapestries representing
scenes after the manner of Peter Loar. In the midst of these beautiful
seventeenth-century grotesques, a brisk fire of wit and sarcasm soon
began to flash and scintillate. The three ladies were in high spirits
and prompt at repartee. Barbare la Viti laughed her sonorous masculine
laugh, throwing back her handsome boyish head and making free play with
her sparkling black eyes. Elena was in a more than usually brilliant
vein, and impressed Andrea as being so far removed from him, so
unfamiliar, so unconcerned, that he almost doubted whether yesterday's
scene had not been all a dream. Ludovico Barbarisi and the Prince of
Ferentino aided and abetted the ladies; Lo