"Drive? I don't know. Where? There
are no drives!"

"I want to go to Florence."

"To Florence!"

"You know you said I should do so,
some day. I have never seen it. When
we passed through from the railway station,
it was dark. It is so dull here. Besides,"
she added, as if angry with herself for
having assumed a pleading tone, "I want
to go."

"'There can be no necessity, Veronica.
The servants will procure you anything
you want."

"But I wish to see the city! Why should
you not come?"

"What is the use of making me recapitulate
my reasons? I am known there. You
would be exposed to—to—disagreeable
rencontres—in short, it is better not to go
into Florence at present."

He spoke in an imperious tone of masterhood,
and then sank back on his couch as
though the discussion were closed.
Veronica sat quite still for a minute or so.
The minute seemed very long to her. She
was trying to school herself to be politic,
and to answer calmly. But self-control is
not to be acquired in an instant.

Her own impulse of the moment, her
own likes and dislikes, caprices, and
whims, had been paramount with
Veronica all her life. Now, after telling
herself sternly, that it would not do to
be hasty, and that everything depended
on her power of self-command, she broke
out on a sudden with childish vehemence;
declaring that she was moped to death;
that she was dull, wretched, bored, all day
long; that if there were any reason for
Sir John's shrinking from being seen in
Florence, it rested with himself to remove
that reason; that she was sick and weary
of the delays and disappointments; finally
that she would go to the city that evening.

At first Sir John listened to her petulant
broken speech with the detestable enjoyment
of a cruel school-boy, who watches
his newly-caged bird fluttering in terror
and impotent anger against the wires. But
some word she said, touched on a theme
which threatened to give him trouble.

That prospect was not amusing. Besides,
Veronica looked very handsome so
long as she was merely passionate and
angry. But after the first outburst, symptoms
of rising tears became apparent, and
that prospect also was not amusing.

"Good Heavens, Veronica!" exclaimed
Sir John. "How can you be such a baby?
Go, go, if you like. If you care about it so
much, order the carriage at any hour you
please. Only let me suggest that it be not
before the sun has begun to lose some of
his power. It will be hot enough in any
case in those narrow stuffy streets. Ouf!"

"And you?" said Veronica, standing
looking at him irresolutely.

"Oh, I shall not go. You can take
your maid, and Paul will attend you."

"I don't want Paul," muttered Veronica,
but in so low and indistinct a tone
that Sir John might plausibly affect not to
hear it if he chose. And he did choose.

"Of course Paul will attend you," he
repeated, quietly. "You will find Paul
indispensable. That lout of a Tuscan coachman
would get you into some scrape to a
certainty."

All Sir John Gale's servants, with the
exception of Paul and the cook, were
Tuscans: not town-bred Florentines, but
country people. Their service was clumsily
rendered, but Sir John had known what
he was about when he charged Paul to see
that no servant accustomed to wait on
foreigners, and to flit from house to house
gossip-laden, was engaged among his
domestics.

When the carriage was announced, there
stood Paul, bare-headed, to hand "miladi"
in. Her maid placed herself on the back
seat, and Paul climbed up to the box beside
the coachman.

"Where to, miladi?" asked Paul, leaning
down, hat in hand.

"To Florence. Anywhere. I don't
know. Stay; I want to buy a—a fan.
Drive first to a place where they sell fans."

The carriage had not gone a quarter of
a mile down the steep incline that led from
Villa Chiari—it was down hill thence in
every direction—when she called to Paul,
and bade him make the coachman stop.

"I think," said she, with a not quite
successful assumption of being an
independent agent, "I think I will take a drive in
the park—the Cascine they call it, don't
they? Go there first."

Paul bent down lower into the carriage,
and said, in English, "At the hour
when we should arrive there, miladi, the
Cascine would be terribly unwholesome.
Sunset is a bad time, or even the hour
before sunset. There is a mist. It is damp.
You get colds—oh, very dangerous colds.
Does miladi care which fan-shop she goes
to?"

Veronica drew from her pocket a delicate
gold watch encrusted with jewels, and