he would have considered a sufficient fee
from any of his compatriots—it was, indeed,
ostentatiously excessive. Sir John had some
vaguely vindictive notion in his head that
the beggarly Italian would repent not having
been more civil to a man who could
afford to pay such a fee. But he was wrong.
The doctor was pondering upon the extraordinary
and absurd constitution of an universe
in which so anomalous a nation as the
English was permitted to exist.

It would be difficult to decide whether or
not the medicines sent by Dr. Maffei did
the patient any good; but the fact was,
that Sir John did not get worse, and was
able to keep his resolution of going to
Naples on the nineteenth of October.

Between the day of his tête-à-tête dinner
with Veronica, and that date, Cesare de'
Barletti had to undergo many buffettings
of fortune. He was tossed backward and
forward from sunshine to shade, by the
selfish caprice of a little white hand—and
these little white hands can strike hard
sometimes. A man who has nothing to do
from morning to night is glad of a habit
which saves him the fatigue of deciding how
he shall bestow himself at a given hour. He
likes to say, " I must be with So-and-so this
evening." It has a cheap air of duty.
Thus mere habit had caused the Neapolitan
princeling to bo a regular visitor to the
English baronet in the old days at Naples,
when the latter was bound to his room by
a fit of the gout.

The visits had been begun at the promptings
of good-nature, combined with a
natural taste for a superior cuisine. Sir
John, at that time, employed a very
accomplished cook.

Then in Florence it must be admitted
that curiosity had been the chief spur which
at first induced the prince to undergo the
fatigue of sitting behind a cab-horse, and
seeing him struggle up the steep road to
Villa Chiari. He wanted to see the interior
of the ménage, whose master and
mistress seemed so ill-assorted. But very
soon it began to appear to him a necessity
of existence that he should pay
his evening visit to the villa. He even
found some satisfaction in his game of
picquet. An Italian is usually amazingly
patient of boredom: or, it may be, is
unconscious of it, which is pleasanter for
himself. Barletti admired Veronica extremely.
And her presence was a strong attraction
to him. By-and-bye it began to occur to
him that it might be worth his while to
pay his court to this beautiful woman, after
a more serious fashion than he had at first
contemplated. Sir John was failing. He
might die and leave a rich widow, who
would become a prey to needy fortune-
hunters: to fortune-hunters who would not
have the same advantages to offer in exchange
for wealth, as could be found in an
alliance with Cesare dei Principi Barletti!
It would be a pity to see her sacrificed
to such men as he had seen and known
engaged in the chase after a wife with
money. He made no definite plan, but
suffered himself to drift on lazily, with just
so much intention as sufficed to modify his
behaviour in many subtle, nameless ways.
But after the incident of Sir John's indisposition,
there arose a different feeling
in his breast towards her.

Barletti really had a fund of kindliness
in him. He was becoming fond—with a
fondness truer and more tender than that
inspired by the fine contrast of diamonds
on a satin skin—of this girl, so young, so
beautiful, and so lonely! From the moment
when she had appealed to him in some
sort for advice and support, a fibre of
manhood was stirred in him on her behalf.
He would have even made some kind of
active sacrifice for her. So, despite Sir
John's irritability and insolence, Barletti
continued to endure seeing his cab-horse
toil up the hill overhanging the Ema,
evening after evening.

And Sir John Gale did not scruple to
make use of Barletti. He would give him
little commissions to execute in the city,
and expected him to read up the news of
the day and retail the gossip of the hour for
his amusement.

One afternoon, in search of this latter
commodity, Barletti was standing at the
door of the club with a knot of others.

"I remember him. at Rome," said a
portly man with dyed whiskers, continuing
a desultory conversation with Barletti. "A
red-haired man who hunted. Quite the
type of an Englishman."

"That's a mistake you all make," observed
a languid, spindle-legged young
nobleman with a retreating chin. "I believe
there are as many red-haired people in
Italy as in England."

The spindle-legged young nobleman had
married an English wife, and had been in
England, and spoke with authority.

"No, no, it's the Irish that have red
hair!" exclaimed a third. "Or the Scotch.
I forget which."

"Zitto!" whispered the first portly
speaker, as a tall old man appeared at the
club door, "the captain won't hear you
assert that the Irish have red hair!"