"I beg you will not trouble! I shall only remain a moment and leave you to finish." "No, now, no; don't go and leave me. I was only sweeping to be doing something. To clean the room wasn't my real object. I took their work from Zaira and Vitale, who are the ones to do it usually, in a way that's new to me, with damp sawdust. It's nearly finished, anyhow. All I've got to do is fold the sheets and push things back into their places." "Oh, Mrs. Hawthorne, please, please, allow me--" He tried to help her, waking to the fact that she was as strong as he, if not stronger. The room in a minute looked as usual, and she knelt in front of the hearth, piling up a kindling of pine-cones and little fagots, on which she laid a picturesque old root of olive-wood. "You seem to be alone," he remarked. "Yes; Estelle's gone out." He was not sorry to hear it. Miss Madison, whom he entirely liked, affected him curiously, or, to express the matter more exactly, in a curious degree failed to affect him at all. Her personality did not bite on his consciousness. Unless some chance left them on each other's hands, he had difficulty in remembering her presence. It was not that she was colorless; not by any means. She obviously had character, brightness, individuality, even charm; but so far as he was concerned she might have had none of these. Particularly when her big friend was by Gerald ceased to see her. He recognized the danger of her negative effect on him, and often made a point of devoting to her a special amount of attention, being toward her of an unnatural amiability, trying thus to keep her ignorant of the extent to which she did not exist for him. Now he suddenly remembered that from the choice little treat provided for Mrs. Hawthorne Miss Madison had been left out--forgotten. He was dismayed. Then a pleasant side to the affair revealed itself by a dim gleam. He was mortified by his forgetfulness, but the ladies were after all not Siamese twins. "You must wonder what brought me at this unusual time of day," he said. "Any time's good that brings you. But what in particular was it?" "I wanted to ask you to keep free next Saturday afternoon and, if you will be so good, spend it in part with me. I should like to take you to Mrs. Grangeon's." "Mrs. Grangeon's...?" "Don't you remember? Antonia! It is Antonia's real name. On the first evening of our acquaintance you had a good deal to say about her. If I remember rightly, you expressed then a desire to meet her--see her face." "Yes, yes. Antonia, of course."