Pandolfini looked at the light-hearted yet sympathetic Englishman with a glow upon his dark face of more profound emotion than Mr. Hunstanton knew anything about. He held out his hands in the fulness of his heart. Instinct told him that this was not the man to whom to speak of Diana--although the Englishman was fond of Diana too in his way. But his heart melted to the friend who had divined his love. Mr. Hunstanton, too, was touched by a confession so frank yet so silent. He got up and patted his friend on the shoulder. “To be sure,” he said, his voice even trembling a little, “you mustn’t have any shyness with an old man. I divined it all the time.” There was a little pause, during which this delightful and effusive confidant resumed his seat. He kept silence by sheer force of the emotion which he saw in the other’s face, though it was almost unintelligible to him. Why should he take it so very seriously? Mr. Hunstanton was on the very eve of bursting forth when Pandolfini himself began-- “But to what good? She is more young, more rich, more highly gifted than I. What hope have I to win her! She with all the world at her feet! I--nobody. Ah, it is not want of seeing. I see well--not what you say, my good friend, but what all your poets have said. That is what a woman is--a woman of the English. But, _amico mio_, do not let us deceive ourselves. What hope is there for such a one as I?” “Hope! why, every hope in the world,” cried the cheerful counsellor. “Talk about the poets: what is it that Shakespeare says? Shakespeare, you know, the very chief of them-- ‘She is a woman, therefore to be wooed; She is a woman, therefore to be won.’ Tut! why should you be discouraged. Don’t you know our proverb, that ‘Faint heart never won fair lady’? Cheer up, man, and try. You can but lose at the worst, and then if you win----”