"Don't you know?" said Bice, in a proud and bitter voice, "she is afraid of Giovanni." "Of Giovanni? Oh, nonsense! Why--he is a boy, he is nobody but just-- Giovanni! She can't be quite so silly. Bice, I do think you must be mistaken; besides, why should she be afraid?" Kitty's merry laugh rang out childlike and confident. Bice started to her feet and turned round with a gesture that was almost fierce. "You don't understand; you don't know anything about the world, you are only a girl. Why should she be afraid?--because we are poor, and Nina is a contessa living in a palace, and so she has found out that there is nothing in all the world so good as money; and as she is fond of Giovanni, she wants him to have a great _dola_ with his wife. That is all, if you want to know." "Then she is a silly," said Kitty, unmoved by this outburst. "As if Giovanni were good enough for you!--or as if money were everything!" "Perhaps it is more than we think," said Bice, still bitterly; "sometimes I feel almost sure it is." "It would give us some new dresses, to be sure," Kitty said, with a general readiness to assent to her sister's ideas, "and a piano. I should enjoy a piano." "It would do more than that," Bice said abruptly. And then her voice softened, the beautiful eyes grew wistful; she put her hands on the girl's shoulders, and looked into her face. "Oh, Kitty," she said, "if we only had a little money, you or I, we could save poor Clive without--" She stopped suddenly, and Kitty looked startled, for something in Bice's manner thrilled through her. "But," she said hesitatingly, "Oliver will do that. He has promised, hasn't he?" "Yes," said Bice, very slowly. Alas! but it was she who had to promise also. "Then it's all right. Oliver can do anything." "Only if he is to do this, I must marry him." She still spoke slowly, but her voice sounded strained and unnatural. Kitty answered cheerfully-- "Yes, I know. But you like him, don't you? You made up your mind the last time he was here, and there has been nothing to make you change. And you always wanted to live in England. I don't think Oliver would be at all a bad sort of person to marry." "I have never said I would marry him," interrupted her sister. "No," said Kitty doubtfully, "not exactly. Still you intended it." "What has Clive done?" said Bice, looking at her with troubled eyes. "We know very little about it all. Oliver always says we cannot understand, and that it is better for us that he should not attempt to explain; but I think it would be better if he _did_ explain; for now it is like some dreadful dark shadow of disgrace hanging over us, never off one's mind day and night." Kitty's eyes filled with tears. "Is it so bad for you, dear?" she said sadly. "I have not troubled myself much about it since Oliver said he would arrange. Surely he knows best, and he is the only person to do anything."