He has nearly reached the door, when he hears the _frou-frou_ of her gown, and turning, sees that her unsteady feet have carried her after him, and that her face is changing from crimson to white and back again with startling rapidity. "I thought you would have understood," she says faintly. "I thought that you were the one person who would not have misunderstood." His conscience pricks him, but he is never very quick to be able to own himself in the wrong, and before he can bring himself to frame any sentence that smacks of apology and regret, she resumes, with a little more composure and in a conventional voice: "You know--we told you--even at Genoa--that--that we are not going out, that we do not wish to make any new acquaintances!" "I know," replies he, with some indignation, "that that is the hollow formal bulletin you issue to the world in general, but I thought--I hoped----" "Do not bring her to see me," she interrupts, abandoning her effort for composure, and speaking in a broken voice, while her eyes swim in tears. "She--she might be sorry--she--she might not like it--afterwards!" He looks back at her with an almost terrified air. Is the answer to her sad riddle coming to him thus? Has he had the brutality to force her into giving it? "You have been so kind in not asking me any questions, you have even given up alluding to old times since you saw that it hurt me; but you must see--of course you do--that--that there is something--in me--not like other people; something that--that prevents--my--having any friends! I have not a friend in the world" (with a low sob) "except my mother--except mammy! Do you think" (breaking into a watery smile) "that it is very silly of me, at my age, to call her 'mammy' still?" "I think," he says, "that I am one of the greatest brutes out, and that I should be thankful if someone would kick me downstairs." And with this robust expression of self-depreciation, he takes his hat and departs. CHAPTER XVIII. "Ihr Blumen alle, Heraus! Heraus!" It was to German flowers that the above hest was addressed. If they obey it, with how much more alacrity do the Italian ones comply with its glad command. It is a week later, and now no one can say that "the spring comes slowly up this way." Vines, figs, and mulberries, all are emulously racing out, and the corn has added two emerald inches to its juicy blades. The young plane-trees in the Piazza d'Azeglio, so skimpily robed when first Jim had rung the _entresol_ bell of No. 12, are exchanging their "unhandsome thrift" for an apparel of plenteous green, and a wonderful Paulownia is beginning to hold up her clusters of gloccinia bells.