"Then I foresee that I shall become a favourite," answered Colville. "I say a great deal more than I think." She looked at him again with envy, with admiration, qualifying her perplexity. They had come to a point where some moss-grown, weather-beaten statues stood at the corners of the road that traversed the bosky stretch between the avenues of the Cascine. "Ah, how beautiful they are!" he said, halting, and giving himself to the rapture that a blackened garden statue imparts to one who beholds it from the vantage-ground of sufficient years and experience. "Do you remember that story of Heine's," he resumed, after a moment, "of the boy who steals out of the old castle by moonlight, and kisses the lips of the garden statue, fallen among the rank grass of the ruinous parterres? And long afterward, when he looks down on the sleep of the dying girl where she lies on the green sofa, it seems to him that she and that statue are the same?" "Oh!" deeply sighed the young girl. "No, I never read it. Tell me what it is. I _must_ read it." "The rest is all talk--very good talk; but I doubt whether it would interest you. He goes on to talk of a great many things---of the way Bellini spoke French, for example. He says it was bloodcurdling, horrible, cataclysmal. He brought out the poor French words and broke them upon the wheel, till you thought the whole world must give way with a thunder-crash. A dead hush reigned in the room; the women did not know whether to faint or fly; the men looked down at their pantaloons, and tried to realise what they had on." "Oh, how perfectly delightful! how shameful!" cried the girl. "I _must_ read it. What is it in? What is the name of the story?" "It isn't a story," said Colville. "Did you ever see anything lovelier than these statues?" "No," said Imogene. "_Are_ they good?" "They are much better than good--they are the very worst rococo." "What makes you say they are beautiful, then?" "Why, don't you see? They commemorate youth, gaiety, brilliant, joyous life. That's what that kind of statues was made for--to look on at rich, young, beautiful people and their gallantries; to be danced before by fine ladies and gentlemen playing at shepherd and shepherdesses; to be driven past by marcheses and contessinas flirting in carriages; to be hung with scarfs and wreaths; to be parts of eternal _fetes champetres_. Don't you see how bored they look? When I first came to Italy I should have detested and ridiculed their bad art; but now they're exquisite--the worse, the better." "I don't know what in the world you _do_ mean," said Imogene, laughing uneasily. "Mrs. Bowen would. It's a pity Mrs. Bowen isn't here with us. Miss Effie, if I lift you up to one of those statues, will you kindly ask it if it doesn't remember a young American signor who was here just before the French Revolution? I don't believe it's forgotten me."