tell me what to
do."

The dress she wore was of pale green, like the light seen in thin woods;
out of it shone her white shoulders, and her young face, as if rising
through the verdurous light. The artists, to a man and woman, wished to
paint her, and severally told her so, during the evening which lasted
till morning. She was not surprised when Lord Lioncourt appeared, toward
midnight, and astonished Miss Milray by claiming acquaintance with
Clementina. He asked about Mrs. Lander, and whether she had got to
Florence without losing the way; he laughed but he seemed really to
care. He took Clementina out to supper, when the time came; and she
would have topped him by half a head as she leaned on his arm, if she
had not considerately drooped and trailed a little after him.

She could not know what a triumph he was making for her; and it was
merely part of the magic of the time that Mr. Ewins should come in
presently with one of the ladies. He had arrived in Florence that day,
and had to be brought unasked. He put on the effect of an old friend
with her; but Clementina's curiosity was chiefly taken with a tall
American, whom she thought very handsome. His light yellow hair was
brushed smooth across his forehead like a well-behaving boy's; he was
dressed like the other men, but he seemed not quite happy in his evening
coat, and his gloves which he smote together uneasily from time to time.
He appeared to think that somehow the radiant Clementina would know how
he felt; he did not dance, and he professed to have found himself at the
party by a species of accident. He told her that he was out in Europe
looking after a patent right that he had just taken hold of, and was
having only a middling good time. He pretended surprise to hear her say
that she was having a first-rate time, and he tried to reason her out of
it. He confessed that from the moment he came into the room he had made
up his mind to take her to supper, and had never been so disgusted in
his life as when he saw that little lord toddling off with her, and
trying to look as large as life. He asked her what a lord was like,
anyway, and he made her laugh all the time.

He told her his name, G. W. Hinkle, and asked whether she would be
likely to remember it if they ever met again.

Another man who interested her very much was a young Russian, with
curling hair and neat, small features who spoke better English than
she did, and said he was going to be a writer, bu