collars and cuffs, light-gray trousers, black caps with patent-leather vizors, swords. caught up, by the hilt, in the crook of the left arm. Occasionally they appeared in brazen helmets, the cross of Savoy emblazoned on the front. They belonged to the Magenta Cavalry, a regiment of lan

cers.

One day when Frossie passed alone only one of them was lounging in the doorway. She stole a glance at him.

Her own height, with the lean figure of an athlete, he seemed about twenty-eight years old. His skin was of a creamy pallor. Small black mustaches were brushed straight up from his lips. His eyes reminded one of ink-wells, with the sunlight shining into them. His hand poised a cigarette half-way to his lips; his face-the face of a young knight in a fourteenthcentury fresco-displayed a look of homage startling in its intensity.

Frossie's knees grew weak. No one had ever looked at her like that!

She found herself a block away, proceeding as sedately as before, but trembling all over. Mechanically she turned into the Lungarno, which extended northward toward the pension.

Why had he given her such a look, so passionate, yet so respectful? It was not the stare of a philanderer, but of one who took a serious, almost solemn, interest in her. It was not the expression of a stranger, but rather of one who had seen her many times, had thought about her still more often. Of course that was impossible.

Farther on, she paused, pretended to contemplate a show-case, glanced behind her. He was there, two hundred feet away, slowly sauntering now, and gazing innocently at the sky!

She felt frightened, then furious. "And I thought that he at least looked decent!" She marched all the way home without once turning her head. But safe in the pension, she peeped out through the curtains of the parlor window.

From the opposite corner he rapidly. scrutinized the house. Then, wheeling, he departed with a quick, lithe stride.

That night, in her dreams Frossie tramped innumerable miles of streets,through Florence, Milan, Geneva, Paris, New York, Zenasville,-all the while aware that his eyes were focused, like twin burning-glasses, on her back. Or was it the rays reflected from the silvered buttons of his tight blue-black coat, as if from a double row of tiny search-lights? If only he had n't worn them!

CHAPTER VI

A TOUCH OF THE SUN IN
VIA TORNABUONI

FOR a week Frossie avoided the neighborhood of the Nobles' Club. Even at the pension door she looked round her nervously. But at last, as her expectancy died away, she was aware of losing a certain stimulation. Life suddenly seemed so humdrum, her work so futile! One night, on impulse, she jumped out of bed and tore up her manuscript. When Thallie woke at the sound, she explained:

"It would never have been a success. Perhaps I was n't meant to succeed in literature or anything else."

"What wicked nonsense!" "Never mind, Babykins. Go back to sleep and forget it."

Euphrosyne had long been used to seeing admiration pass her by for Aglaia and Thallie. She had long believed that her time for romance would not come till the others were married, since simple flowers, that seem charming when viewed by themselves, may lose attractiveness if flanked by more vivid blossoms. But now a young man's expressive eyes had appeared to say, "There is something about. you that I have n't seen before-something so congenial to me that I must know who you are." It was hard for Frossie to give up that sensation of pride, to feel she had been mistaken.

"His idea of killing time on a dull afternoon! And, still, he seemed different from the rest."

The worst of it was that he had seemed different from the rest.

She scorned herself for having remem

bered his creamy pallor, his crisp, black hair, his muscular hand, his lithe figure. How had she ever noticed so much in a second's glance? Undoubtedly the novelist's eye for details.

Every morning Frossie sat down to work at nine o'clock sharp. She put on her horn spectacles, spread a sheet of paper, and poised her fountain-pen. Then for a long while she stared across the old writing-table, out of the open window, at the palmetto palm. Giannina, the maid, passing through to Aglaia's room for the breakfast-tray, made a grimace of pity, and cried in her loud, hoarse voice:

"Always studying, Signorina! It's not good for the young to labor so hard." "Better to labor than to think idle thoughts."

For Frossie was rapidly learning to speak Italian.

In the cool of the afternoon she often went out, exhausted by a long day of vain effort. She wandered down into the city. One day, in Vieusseux's Library, while looking over the catalogue, she read:

""The Six Cæsars,' six vols., John Holland, author of 'Primitive Latin Religions,' 'Roman Literature,' 'The Etruscan and Lydian Languages,' 'Mycenæan Excavations,' 'Baal, Dionysus, and Mars,' etc."

John Holland was a historian!

She took home a volume of "The Six Cæsars" and showed it to Mme. von Schwandorf. The latter, in her officeboudoir beside the vestibule, was sitting at ease, her yellow frizzes neatly arranged, her wrinkled face well powdered, her ample form arrayed in a mauve satin house-gown garnished all over with lace.

"Ah, yes, my dear. What a thorough, brilliant, valuable work that is! I've always meant to read it. But at my age, you know, one falls asleep less quickly when Pierre Louys is describing the ancients for instance, in 'Aphrodite.'

Madame threw her cigarette out of the window, laid down a yellow-backed novel entitled "Histoire Comique," and put the Florentine poodle off her lap. With her points of lace all scattering bergamot, she

crossed to a book-shelf which held a long row of ponderous volumes.

"Behold! They 're all here, including the one that captured the Nobel Prize. Now, you are young and strong; you shall read them from cover to cover, and tell me what they contain. I have made my door-porter, Domenico, cut all the pages. It's always best that the pages be cut, at least, in the books of our friends. Eh, little book-worm?"

She questioned Frossie satirically with her keen old eyes.

"I'm afraid I shall have too much work of my own to do."

"And I am afraid you'll never find time to play. But wait till the autumn! I'll see to it then that you play. Only yesterday, when I drove to church, three friends of mine stormed the carriage to ask when the dances are going to begin again at the Pension Schwandorf. Three young men as dashing as ever you saw in your life, and all aristocratic enough for even a stanch little democrat! In fact, the Magenta Cavalry gets all its officers from the from the aristocracy.' She cackled craftily at her thoughts. "Your work, indeed! I'll settle your work for you, Mlle. de Staël!"

Next day, while she and Aglaia were strolling far from the Nobles' Club, Frossie met him again, face to face.

Though she looked away at once, she felt that she had turned pale. This fault, however, was instantly remedied by a burning blush. Staring before her, she marched on faster and faster, while tears of mortification filled her eyes. Aglaia, who was wearing new shoes, inquired: "Are we catching a train?"

"That officer back there."

"That whipper-snapper in the tight little coat? If I bothered about every insect like him!"

Frossie pressed her lips together, then uttered coldly:

"I only suspected he might try flirting with you."

"Well, what if he did? I don't think he'll try it again."

"I suppose he gave you a long, solemn

look, as much as to say, 'Oh, how I respect you!'"

"You evidently saw him at work." "Not to-day," Frossie shot forth. "He 's tried it even on me when I 've been alone."

"Then perhaps that dying-calf expression was meant for you this time, too."

"Hardly, with you along."

They returned to the pension in silence. There they found Cyril Bellegram sitting with Bristles beneath the palmetto. His boots were dusty, his jacket was rumpled, his black forelock tumbled over his brow; but still the rascal managed to look distinguished. His face, too finely drawn, -the sharp-featured face of some neurotic young emperor on a Roman coin,wore a frown of impatience and boredom. His walks in the country were shorter every day. It was he who now came first to that

that trysting-place, where Aglaia plucked a rose for his coat-lapel and fed chocolates to Bristles.

Through those languorous afternoons and soft evenings Aglaia had studied Cyril Bellegram with care. Against his faults she had set out his talents, had finally asked herself, "Could I overcome the defects, and bring out the virtues, sufficiently to make such a venture pay?"

He was indolent, irresolute, deferential; yet he woke to vigor at the call of amusement, was stubborn beyond belief at certain points, and his air of modesty, as is often the case, concealed an egotism greater than that which is openly shown by less complex men. The fact is, Cyril Bellegram had somehow got in his nature a generous share of temperament. Aglaia had not expected to find her first Englishman high-strung and sentimental.

"One could use the sentimentality" first," she reflected, "and the rest in its turn." For now Aglaia was picturing herself as a diplomatist's wife.

She wrote to London for books on the British diplomatic service-its special requirements, its scheme of appointments, its private politics. Meanwhile she drew from Cyril some hints about his relatives at home. The brother of his uncle's wife

was ensconced in the Foreign Office. It looked like fate.

Yet the future might easily offer a better marriage and one more favorable to her operatic career? When she had peered long and earnestly in the mirror, she snapped her fingers at her thirty years. After all, if she wished, she could safely wait a while longer.

Indeed, she had never looked so alluring as now. Her emerald eyes were more brilliant; her fair skin seemed well-nigh luminous; her copper-colored tresses had taken on a fresh luster. When she entered the garden, her slender body undulated at every step. When she picked a flower, her gesture was a poem of blended grace and decision. When she turned her small, drooping head, her profile, against the leaves, was like a cameo. She appeared to be a new creature, whose secret intentions were reinforced from deep reservoirs of attractiveness, hitherto unknown.

In the evening, when she leaned back. on the bench beneath the palmetto, the odor of mignonette from her gown seemed mingled with an incorporeal sweetness, as though from the shadows were stealing forth invisible ministers to her will. They slipped close, with sinuous movements. They uttered round the silent young man such sighs as might perfume dim places. full of rose-leaves, golden dishes gleaming on purple cushions, cups of enchantment pulsing in answer to the last note of a lute. The air of the Southern night passed over his face, like those caresses one longs to feel apart from a dream. He had a sensation of eagerness and terror. But, as he hesitated, Aglaia said in an ordinary tone:

"Come, let me tell your fortune."

She took his cold hand in hers, turned it up to the starlight, leaned forward. Her breath passed over his palm. She smiled thoughtfully, as if nothing had happened.

"Your fingers are lean, with rounded tips. That denotes simple tastes, a quick mind, mixed talents. But this thumb is not energetic: you 'll have to be urged,

it seems.

Your palm is long and thin. You are guided by the ideal, the sublime, the soul; you desire high conquests. But here is lack of motive power again, unless something comes along to arouse you. There, down the palm, are gifts and good luck. The line of fortune shows success, but only from earnest endeavor. Under the little finger I see political tendencies, under the first, diplomacy." She looked closer, then dropped his hand, with the words, "Bah! your heart line is nothing more than a chain of flirtations!"

"Never!"

"Flirtations,

flirtations, flirtations!

Which reminds me I have a dozen pages of music to read to-night." Softly laughing, she rose to her feet. From the doorway of the glass corridor she called back to him in Italian, "Good night, good repose, Don Juan!"

One morning Mme. von Schwandorf told her that Valentino Mughetto, the singing-teacher, was back from Montecatini. That same day Aglaia presented herself at his house, in the other end of town, near the English graveyard.

A man-servant, wearing a yellowstriped waistcoat, ushered her into a parlor shaded against the sun, floored with mosaic, where pieces of old brocade were stretched on the walls. For ten minutes she gazed at the Donatello bust on the mantel-shelf, the six antique chairs with raveled coats of arms on their plush, the bunch of peonies in the majolica vase. A Maltese cat appeared, examined her scornfully, stuck his claws in the table-cloth fringe, ran under a chair. Aglaia perceived in the doorway a big man with the figure of a half-deflated balloon, with a ruddy, pear-shaped face, a hooked nose, and a curly beard, dyed black, spread over his coat-lapels like a fan. From his small, keen eyes there leaped forth at her a glance which seemed, in an instant, to scan her from head to foot, appraise her attire, her body, her thoughts, and penetrate to the inmost recess of her heart. But immediately a conventional smile appeared on his lips.

She said:

"I've come to take lessons."

He cleared his throat, with a rumble thrown back by the walls like a peal of thunder.

"Why?"

"I wish to become a dramatic soprano." "Indeed? You sound like a contralto to me."

"A contralto! Impossible! I 've always sung soprano."

"In that case you 've probably ruined your voice. Step into the music-room."

With a sensation of fright she entered the adjoining apartment, a yellow chamber bare except for a black pianoforte, a stool, and a chair. Through the lattices. of four French windows one saw a gay flower-garden ablaze in the sunlight.

Valentino Mughetto let down his balloon-like shape upon the piano-stool, spread his hands on the keys, and stared into space:

"Sing something.”

She lowered her head till the pounding of her heart had abated, then straightening her slender form, she announced defiantly:

"The 'Vissi d'arte' from 'Tosca."" The barest hint of a grin crossed his

face.

"All right."

He struck the keys. She sang. In ten seconds he stopped, shrugged his shoulders, remarked:

"A contralto, badly damaged."

Aglaia stood motionless, gazing at him in horror.

"Sit down, Signorina," he suggested in kinder tones. And when she had sunk into the chair, the maestro explained.

Her ambition, or bad advice, had ignored the facts in her case. All this while she had forced a contralto voice to sing the soprano register till it had grown so scratchy and thin that there was small chance of restoring it. "Unless, young lady, you put yourself faithfully into my hands."

"But-a contralto!"

Gone all the visions of Aglaia as Tosca, as Madama Butterfly, as Marguerite, Elizabeth, and Isolde! He smiled like an