trust I do not interrupt you?"

"You never interrupt me, Nino," she said, "except--except when you go
away."

"You are very good, signora."

"For heaven's sake, no pretty speeches," said she, with a little
laugh.

"It seems to me," said Nino, seating himself, "that it was you who
made the pretty speech, and I who thanked you for it." There was a
pause.

"How do you feel!" asked the baroness at last, turning her head to
him.

"Grazie--I am well," he answered, smiling.

"Oh, I do not mean that,--you are always well. But how do you enjoy
your first triumph?"

"I think," said Nino, "that a real artist ought to have the capacity
to enjoy a success at the moment, and the good sense to blame his
vanity for enjoying it after it is passed."

"How old are you, Nino?"

"Did I never tell you?" he asked innocently. "I shall be twenty-one
soon."

"You talk as though you were forty, at least."

"Heaven save us!" quoth Nino.

"But really, are you not immensely flattered at the reception you
had?"

"Yes."

"You did not look at all interested in the public at the time," said
she, "and that Roman nose of yours very nearly turned up in disdain of
the applause, I thought. I wonder what you were thinking of all the
while."

"Can you wonder, baronessa?" She knew what he meant, and there was a
little look of annoyance in her face when she answered.

"Ah, well, of course not, since _she_ was there." Her ladyship rose,
and taking a stick of Eastern pastil from a majolica dish in a corner
made Nino light it from a wax taper.

"I want the smell of the sandal-wood this morning," said she; "I have
a headache." She was enchanting to look at as she bent her
softly-shaded face over the flame to watch the burning perfume. She
looked like a beautiful lithe sorceress making a love spell,--perhaps
for her own use. Nino turned from her. He did not like to allow the
one image he loved to be even for a moment disturbed by the one he
loved not, however beautiful. She moved away, leaving the pastil on
the dish. Suddenly she paused, and turned back to look at him.

"Why did you come to-day?" she asked.

"Because you desired it," answered Nino, in some astonishment.

"You need not have come," she said, bending down to lean on the back
of a silken chair. She folded her hands and looked at him as he stood
not three paces away. "Do you not know what has happened?" she asked,
with a smile that was a little sad.

"I do not understand,