your father, or if any evil threatened him
even, you would not fail to hear of it.
There are plenty of kind, pious people in
that Arcadian village who would cheerfully
take on themselves the duty of imparting
anything disagreeable."

She was willing to be put on good terms
with herself at anybody's expense—save
Maud's—and she smiled contemptuously at
the recollection of the Shipley people.

"Can't you fancy their gloating over
such a chance of punishing you for having
had the courage to escape from among
them?"

"II Principe Cesare de' Barletti,"
announced a servant at this moment, and the
tête-à-tête interview was at an end.

The prince was a constant, and nearly
the only, visitor at Villa Chiari throughout
the summer. One or two other men came
occasionally; a stray attaché, left behind in
solitary responsibility during the absence of
his chief, and bewailing his fate; a belated
Prussian grandee, passing through on his
way from the sea-baths at Leghorn to the
northern side of the Alps. No English
came, and no ladies.

Early in September people began to
return to Florence. Veronica made various
indirect attempts to see and to be seen by
such of the fashionable world as were
already to be found driving in the Cascine
towards the sunset hour, and inhaling the
evening miasma heroically. But Sir John
opposed her desire in this particular. And
had it not been for a hope which never
abandoned her altogether (though it flickered
low at times), and for Prince Cesare de'
Barletti, she would, she told herself, have
found the ennui of her secluded life
intolerable.

Sir John encouraged Barletti to come.
If he had not desired Barletti's presence
at the villa, Sir John would unquestionably
have been restrained by no delicacy from
making his sentiments manifest.

There were several causes which made
Sir John willing to receive Barletti. The
first was, that the Neapolitan amused him,
played picquet fairly well (in truth, he
could play much better than his host, but
had tact and temper enough never to hint
at the fact), and brought up from the city
little gossiping stories which Sir John
relished. The second was, that Veronica was
either pleasantly gay and good-tempered
under the excitement of the stranger's
presence, or, if she were otherwise, vented the
haughty self-asserting humour of the hour
on Barletti, whom she treated at times with
absolute insolence. Both these moods of
hers were agreeable to Sir John: the latter
especially so. Then there was the
circumstance that Barletti, with all his poverty
and pliancy, was undoubtedly the scion of
an illustrious race. Now, Sir John was
not the scion of an illustrious race. He
would not have openly admitted the fact,
but he knew it. And it was ineffably
soothing to any irritating doubts which he
might occasionally entertain as to his own
importance in the world, and as to the
supremacy of wealth, to contemplate a
penniless prince nattering him for a dinner.

As we are all apt to believe what we
wish, Sir John rather over-estimated the
attractions of his dinners, and the impression
that his riches made on Barletti.

Early in October Sir John announced
his intention of going to Naples for the
winter. Veronica was genuinely delighted
at the news. But, with a petty perversity
which she sometimes indulged in towards
Sir John, she received it very coldly. He
had made her summer pass in inexpressible
boredom; and she was resolved not to
gratify him by any too great readiness to be
amused, the moment it suited him to
amuse her.

"We shall be able to have a little gaiety
and society in Naples," said Sir John.
"You deserve some compensation, poverina,
for the dulness of the summer."

This provoked Veronica, and she
answered without deigning to turn her eyes
towards him: "I doubt the power of
Naples to give me compensation."

Sir John happened to be in a good
temper. His dinner had been varied,
savoury, and digestible—three conditions
not often combined—and he humoured her
with an exasperating ostentation of
forbearance.

"Méchante! Did you in truth find the
summer spent alone with me so dull?"

"Very!"

"Ha! I wonder, then, that you do not
show more pleasure at the prospect of a
change."

"I see no prospect of a change."

The words were barely uttered before
she repented them. Sir John's good temper,
too roughly strained, had snapped. It was
at all times brittle and untrustworthy.

He growled out an inarticulate oath. It
was not the first she had heard from his
lips addressed to herself.

"What a fool I am!" she thought; "I
never take advantage of his good moods.
Oh, if I could but command myself!"