what relation they stand to each other,
but I think Miss St. Clair would if she found an opportunity to speak
with you."

"You do not know how I have tried to make opportunities. I go
everywhere, hoping to see you, and I have never met you--not once. Won't
you ask her to come down to-night?" coaxingly, like a child.

"Not to-night: it is too late."

"I _must_ see Miss St. Clair to-night."

"Impossible."

"I _must_ see Miss St. Clair. Find out for me when I can see her. I
will go with you," in a white heat of passion. (We had been alone for
some little time.)

I took the arm which he held out, not a little agitated by the excess of
emotion which thrilled and quivered through his youthful frame, as he
hurried me up the broad stone staircase and along the wide corridors
that led to our rooms. What business had I to meddle? How should an old
fogy like me know anything of the love-affairs of this generation? The
girl would have managed more wisely than I, I reflected, by no means
jubilant over the result.

"Wait here;" and I walked on to Miss St. Clair's door, opened it, and
there sat Helen in her pretty white wrapper, bathed in the moonlight,
serene as a star, as if there were no passionate young heart breaking in
waves of anguish at her feet. "Helen, the count is in the corridor, and
he will not go till I have told him when you will see him."

"How can I? You must think for me."

A hasty consultation. The count was standing where I had left him: "We
shall be at the Sistine Chapel to-morrow at two o'clock."

He bowed and was gone.

I did not sleep well that night. A pretty person I am to take charge of
a young girl! I wonder what Mr. St. Clair would think if he knew I had
made an appointment for his daughter to meet a young Spaniard? On the
way, however, I admonished Helen, as if no misgiving of my own wisdom
had ever crossed my mind: "You must be firm with him. Tell him so
decidedly that he cannot doubt you really mean it."

"Yes," said she, "but I do dread it so. I can't bear his thinking that I
encouraged him."

"Then you _did_?"

"I didn't mean to, but I do like him; and I didn't think of his taking
it so to heart. Men are so strange! You think you have a charming
friend, and then they _will_ go on just so, boys and all, and you
have to take them or lose them; and you can't take them. It is too bad!"

We were at the door. The keeper opened it, and there stood the count
waiting for us. It was not the