On the way, he was seized by a desire to invite the whole family to lunch; but he thought that there would be trouble with the old man, and that, in view of their short acquaintance, Pani Cervi might be surprised at such a sudden invitation. But he promised himself that when the grandfather had some person to care for him he would, under pretext of saving time, arrange a lunch in the studio. Taking leave of the mother and daughter at the gate, he hurried into the first hotel he found and ordered lunch. He swallowed a few kinds of food, without knowing himself what he was, eating. Pani Elzen, Romulus, and Remus, with the moss roses, shot through his mind repeatedly, but in a way which was really ghost-like. A few days before the beautiful widow and their relations were questions of prime importance for him, over which he had tortured his head not a little. He recalled also that internal struggle through which he had passed on the sea while returning to Villa Franca. Now he said to himself, "This has ceased to exist for me, and I will not think again of it." So he felt not the least alarm, not the least compunction. On the contrary, it seemed to him that a kind of oppressive burden had dropped from his shoulders, and all his thoughts ran to Panna Cervi. His eyes and his head were full of her; by the power of imagination he saw her again, with dishevelled hair and closed eyelids; and when he thought that in an hour he would touch her temples with his fingers, that he would bend over her again and feel the warmth radiating from her, he felt elated, as if by wine, and for the second time asked himself,-- "Hei, old man, what is happening thee?" When he reached home, he found a telegram from Pani Elzen, "I expect you to dinner at six." Svirski crushed the paper and put it in his pocket; when Pani Cervi and her daughter arrived, he had forgotten it altogether, so that when his work was done at five he began to think where to dine, and was angry that he had nothing to do with himself that evening. CHAPTER IX. Next day when Pani Lageat brought a lunch for three persons to the studio, she stated that an hour before the same two handsome boys had come, this time, however, not with a strangely dressed servant, but with a youthful and beautiful lady. "The lady wanted absolutely to see you; but I told her that you had gone to Antibes." "To Toulon! to Toulon!" cried the artist, joyously. Next morning there was no one to whom Pani Lageat could give that answer, for only a letter came. Svirski did not read it. That day it happened that while trying to correct Panna Cervi's "position," he put his hand under her shoulder, and raised her so that their bosoms almost met, and her breath struck his face. Meanwhile her face changed from emotion, and he said to himself that if such a moment lasted longer, it would be worth while to give life for it.