ink I would
permit any preoccupation of mine to interfere with the well-being of
Finois?"

"Even saving a pretty woman's soul? No, Joseph, to do you justice, I
don't. But I warn you, you may not have much more time before you to
finish your good work. Innocentina's employer and I may part company
before long." Though I smiled, I spoke heavily.

Joseph's melancholy dark face flushed, and the light died out of his
eyes. "Thank you, Monsieur, I will do my best to be quick," said he,
as if it had been a question of saddling Finois, instead of rescuing a
young lady from the clutches of the Scarlet Woman. Whatever progress
he had really been making with Innocentina's soul, it was clear that
she had been getting in some deadly work upon his honest heart.

CHAPTER XX

The Great Paolo

"Condescension is an excellent thing; but it is strange how
one-sided the pleasure of it is."--R.L. STEVENSON.

After I went to bed that night, I thought long and bitterly of the
Little Pal's defection. Mentally I addressed him as a young gazelle
who had gladdened me with his soft dark eye, only to withdraw the
light of that orb when it was most needed. As he apparently wished me
to understand that, now he was on with Gaeta, he would fain be off
with me, I would take him not only at his word, but before it. I would
make an excuse to avoid stopping at the Contessa's villa, but would
let him revel there alone in his glory; if one did not count the Di
Nivolis.

Next morning we met by appointment at eight o'clock, and tried to
behave as if nothing had happened; but I realised that I would have
been a dead failure as an actor. I was grumpy and glum, and the
coaxing, child-like ways which the Boy used for my beguiling were in
vain. I did not say anything about my change of plans for Aix, but I
brooded darkly upon them throughout the day, my mood eating away all
pleasure in the charming scenery through which we passed, as a black
worm eats into the heart of a cherry.

We had about twenty-nine kilometres to go, and by the time that the
shadows were growing long and blue, we were approaching Aix-les-Bains.
Nature had gone back to the simple apparel of her youth, here. She
was idyllic and charming, but we were not to ask of her any more
sensational splendours, by way of costume, for she had not brought
them with her in her dress-basket. There were near green hills, and
far blue mountains, and certain rocky eminences in the middl