Mrs. Innes, his mother's old friend, meeting him at Vieusseux's reading-room a few days before, had detained him for a chat, and in the course of it asked him if he knew this Mrs. Hawthorne of whom the Fosses appeared so fond. An amusing type, she must be. Seeing that statue of the she-wolf and little Romulus and Remus at the foot of Vial de' Colli, it seemed she had asked what it meant, and said she didn't believe it. It indefinably hurt him, incommoded some nerve of envenomed sensitiveness--yes, annoyed him like sand in his salad, to think of his country-woman, with the good faith of a dog in her face, so quoted as to make her ridiculous by a fellow wanting in human vitals, like Hunt. He would have liked, had it been possible, to ask a few frank questions of Mrs. Hawthorne, and find out more certainly what he should think. He would have liked to warn her against trusting her enormous ignorance to one who would have so little good-humor and protectiveness toward that baby-eyed giant-child. Really, instinct ought to teach her better whom to make her confident as respected that grave affair. Singularly, when next the music stopped, Mrs. Hawthorne, after she with true politeness had taken the box of cigarettes to the other of her guests, spoke of Hunt. Perhaps her thoughts, too, had gone straying, and mysteriously encountered some straying thought of his. "Charlie Hunt," she said, "is coming on Sunday morning to take us to the picture-galleries. We're going to play hooky from church. His work, don't you see, keeps him at the bank on week days till everything of that sort is closed." "Mrs. Hawthorne," cried Gerald and sat up in unaffected indignation, while mustache, beard, hair, everything about him appeared to bristle, "I thought _I_ had been engaged to take you sight-seeing! I thought it was to be _my_ honor and privilege. Mrs. Hawthorne, my dear friend, if you do not wish deeply to hurt me, deeply to hurt me, you will write to Mr. Hunt at once, this evening, and I will post the letter, that you have thought better of that immoral plan for Sunday morning, and are going to church like a good Christian woman. And to-morrow, Mrs. Hawthorne, at whatever time will be convenient for you, I will come and take you to the Uffizi." CHAPTER VI And so because, in his uncalled-for chivalry, he had made himself guide to a lady in a ball-room, Gerald, one thing leading to another, was once more committed to serving as a guide in Florence. He had filled the part so often, at the appeal of one good friend and another, that he had sworn never again to be caught, cajoled, or hired. He could have hated the Ghiberti doors had such a thing not been impossible. He did rather hate the Santissima Annunziata. And now it was all to do over again. It might be adduced, as a mitigation of his misfortune, that this was different. This was sometimes very different.