How carefully he dressed himself that night! Never in all his life had he made so careful a toilette before. And Paolo, having heard what had happened (which Harry, reticent as he was, could not keep from him), was excited too, and came and sat by him while he dressed, and wanted to help him, as if they had been two girls. Paolo ran out and bought him a bouquet for his button-hole. He brought in a fresh bottle of eau-de-Cologne. He was very anxious to lend him something to wear--his studs, which were little cameos set in gold, or a ring, with a doubtful gem in it, of which he was very proud, thinking it a genuine antique. “It is not brilliant like a diamond,” said Paolo, “but it is art, which is more precious, and pleases much to the Signorina. Take it, amico mio, you have no ring, which is an absence that is felt; and the studs, that will make your appearance so much more perfect--what you call finished.” Harry rejected these aids to the effectiveness of his dress, but he took great pains about his tie, and rebrushed his coat himself, and gave particular attention to the arrangement of his hair. He said to himself, as he walked along in the summer dusk, that all this was very foolish, that he was not on his promotion, when it might have been wise to make the best of all his advantages, that he was going only because he was nobody, because the Vice-Consul was not afraid of him, and thought it wiser to run the risk of him than to disturb Rita’s mind about any such petty suitor. It was very much like giving him the crumbs from the table, but he was willing to accept these, or anything. He went into the lighted room with his heart beating. Several of the ladies who were _habituées_ exclaimed on his entrance, and made haste to tell him that they had thought he was gone altogether, and to ask where he had been. Rita took no part in these questions, but she gave him her left hand as a sign of friendship, and smiled and nodded to him without stopping her conversation with somebody else. Indeed, she treated him as if there had been no break in their intercourse, as though they had met yesterday and were to meet again to-morrow. This pleased Harry, and yet it wrung his heart. Was he of so little importance to her that she had not even noticed his absence? But that could not be. He began to wonder whether it was perhaps a good sign. She _had_ noticed his absence, speaking to her father about it. Was it perhaps--? His heart began to beat again as at first. But Rita took very little notice of him all the evening. She was perfectly sweet and smiling, and when she did address him did it with all her old friendliness; but Harry could not persuade himself that she had remarked him and his careful tie, and his well-brushed curls at all.