wly.

"You have lived in the Orient, haven't you, Mr. Corliss?" she said
in an ordinary tone.

"Not lived. I've been East once or twice. I spend a greater part
of the year at Posilipo."

"Where is that?"

"On the fringe of Naples."

"Do you live in a hotel?"

"No." A slight surprise sounded in his voice. "I have a villa
there."

"Do you know what that seems to me?" Cora asked gravely, after a
pause; then answered herself, after another: "Like magic. Like a
strange, beautiful dream."

"Yes, it is beautiful," he said.

"Then tell me: What do you do there?"

"I spend a lot of time on the water in a boat."

"Sailing?"

"On sapphires and emeralds and turquoises and rubies, melted and
blown into waves."

"And you go yachting over that glory?"

"Fishing with my crew--and loafing."

"But your boat is really a yacht, isn't it?"

"Oh, it might be called anything," he laughed.

"And your sailors are Italian fishermen?"

Hedrick slew a mosquito upon his temple, smiting himself hard.
"No, they're Chinese!" he muttered hoarsely.

"They're Neapolitans," said Corliss.

"Do they wear red sashes and earrings?" asked Cora.

"One of them wears earrings and a derby hat!"

"Ah!" she protested, turning to him again. "You don't tell me. You
let me cross-question you, but you don't tell me things! Don't you
see? I want to know what _life_ is! I want to know of strange
seas, of strange people, of pain and of danger, of great music, of
curious thoughts! What are the Neapolitan women like?"

"They fade early."

She leaned closer to him. "Before the fading have you--have you
loved--many?"

"All the pretty ones I ever saw," he answered gayly, but with
something in his tone (as there was in hers) which implied that
all the time they were really talking of things other than those
spoken. Yet here this secret subject seemed to come near the
surface.

She let him hear a genuine little snap of her teeth. "I _thought_
you were like that!"

He laughed. "Ah, but you were sure to see it!"

"You could 'a' seen a Neapolitan woman yesterday, Cora," said
Hedrick, obligingly, "if you'd looked out the front window. She
was working a hurdy-gurdy up and down this neighbourhood all
afternoon." He turned genially to face his sister, and added: "Ray
Vilas used to say there were lots of pretty girls in Lexington."

Cora sprang to her feet. "You're not smoking," she said to Corliss
hurriedly, as upon a sudden discovery. "Let me