At this, her smile rippled into laughter; and she murmured something in which I caught the words “youth” and “engaging candour.” “Oh, I’m not so furiously young,” I protested. She raised her eyebrows, gazing at me quizzically. “Aren’t you?” she inquired. “I’m twenty-two,” I announced, with satisfaction. “Oh, dear!” She laughed again. “And twenty-two you regard as the beginning of old age?” she suggested. “At all events, one is no longer a child at twenty-two,” I argued solemnly, “especially if one has seen the world a bit.” My conversation appeared to divert her more than I could have hoped; for still again she laughed. Then, “Ah, wait till you’re my age—wait till you’re a hundred and fifteen,” she pronounced in a hollow voice, making her face long, and shaking her head. It was my turn to laugh now. Afterwards, “I don’t believe you’re much older than I am,” I confided to her, with bluff geniality. “What’s the difference between twenty-two and thirty—especially when one has seen the world a bit?” she asked. “You’re never thirty,” I expostulated. “An experienced old fellow of two-and-twenty,” she observed, “must surely be aware that people do sometimes live to attain the age of thirty.” “You’re not thirty,” I reiterated. “Perhaps not,” she said; “but unless I’m careful, I shall be, before I know it. Have you been long in Rome?” “Oh, I’m an old Roman,” I replied airily. “We used to come here when I was a child. And I was here again when I was eighteen, and again when I was twenty.” “Mercy!” she cried. “Then you will be able to put me up to the tricks of the town.” “Why, but you live here, don’t you?” I wondered simply. “Yes, I suppose I live here,” she assented. “I live in the Palazzo Stricci, you must come and see me. I’m at home on Mondays.” “Oh, thank you; I’ll come the very first Monday that ever is,” I vowed. For, though she had teased me and laughed at me, I thought she was very charming, all the same. “Well, and how did you get on with the Countess Bracca?” Miss Belmont asked. When I had answered her, she proceeded, as her wont was, to volunteer certain information. “She was a Miss Wilthorpe, you know—the Cumberland Wilthorpes, a staunch old Catholic family. Her mother was a Frenchwoman, a Montargier. Monsignor Wilthorpe is her cousin. Her husband, Count Bracca, held a commission in the Guardia Nobile—between ourselves, a creature of starch and whalebone, a pompous noodle. She was married to him when she was eighteen. He died three or four years ago: a good thing too. But she has continued to live in Rome, in the winter. In the summer she goes to England, to her people. Did she ask you to go and see her? Go, on the first occasion. Cultivate her. She’s clever. She’ll do you good. She’ll form you,” Miss Belmont concluded, looking at me with a critical eye.