“My sister,” I said, “is _really_ attractive, and _she_ always gets them. I like them _very_ much, and I was so _excited_ I could hardly get the box open. And I’d just heard that the twins were sick too, and the violets helped me a _lot_.” He didn’t answer, but he sat looking down at me and smiling, and I felt as if he would understand my clumsy thanking him. “I thank you _ever_ so much!” I ended. He shook his head, “Nothing,” he answered, “it was absolutely nothing. I wanted to buy the Pitti Palace and the Boboli gardens and give them to you, and throw in the Piazzale Michael Angelo for good measure. . . . Are you--are you going to let me be your good friend?” “If you really _want_ to be,” I responded, and I meant it. “I want it more than anything,” he said, in an undertone, and then we were quiet. “How are you?” I asked, after the silence had begun to seem strained. “Never have been better,” he answered. “Did you know Mr. Wake got me a sale for my boy picture straight off? He brought another agent in to see it and he took it. We broke the contract with my old agent. Mr. Wake said I could with safety. I don’t know what to say to you. . . . Think of what you’ve _done_ for me.” “Oh, no,” I disagreed. “Oh, _yes_!” he stated. Then the band began to play “the Blue Danube” and when I heard it I thought I had never heard waltz time before. . . . It rose and fell in the softest waves, with the first beat accented, until one felt as if one _must_ sway with it. It was a moment that I shall never forget. I don’t know quite why it was so vivid. . . . But the great hushed crowd which was pierced by blue uniforms, and the three-cornered hats of the carabinieri, and the look on the dark-skinned faces and in the deep brown eyes, and the sun that slanted across all this to cover an old stone building with gold, and the people around the little tables, and Viola talking with Mr. Wake, and Sam Deane, looking at me in a kind way, struck into my heart to make a picture that will always be remembered. When the music stopped, I said, “I don’t know why I am so happy to-day--” And Sam Deane said he was too, but he did know why, which of course was natural, for he had been close to starving and worried over work, and all his skies were cleared. “I can’t tell you,” I said, “how glad I am that everything is all right for _you_.” He didn’t answer immediately, and he really didn’t answer at all. He said, “Please keep _on_ feeling that way,” and I promised I would, and then we stood up, and made our way through the crowd to stand at the edge of it, and listen to a few more numbers before we went home.