The giggling inarticulates dropped their chins and stared. They were not quite sure whether such talk was proper. But the Vision of Beauty, more at home in the world, was not in the least alarmed at Florian’s torrent of eloquence. On the contrary, she answered him back, as he himself remarked a little later to Will, like the lords of the council, with grace, wisdom, and understanding. Florian brightened, and flowed on. He loved a listener who could toss the ball back to him as fast as he tossed it. And the Vision of Beauty answered him back with lightning speed, and bore her share with credit in the conversation. It was evident as she went on that she knew her Europe. Was it Munich Florian touched upon with the light hand of his craft?—she discoursed of the Van der Weydens and Crivellis in the Pinakothek, like one to the manner born, and had views of her own which were bold, if not prudent, about the meaning and arrangement of the Aeginetan marbles. Was it Florence he attacked?—she was at home at San Marco, and knew her way like a Baedeker round the rooms at the Pitti. Will listened and marvelled, talking little himself, but giving Florian and the Vision of Beauty their heads. It surprised him much to find one female brain could store in its teeming cells so much miscellaneous knowledge. At last, at a brief break in Florian’s flood of speech, Will found space to inquire, for a purpose of his own, “Would you mind my asking where you got that necklet?” The Vision of Beauty handed the lid of the box to him. It bore, on a label, the name and address of the jeweller at whose shop she had bought it. “It’s on the way up,” she said, carelessly, “to this hotel from the city.” That one Shibboleth betrayed her. Florian started in surprise. “Why,” he cried with open eyes, “then you must be an American.” The beautiful stranger smiled and nodded. “Yes, _sir_,” she said with marked emphasis, as if to clinch the assertion of her western nationality. “I _am_ an American, and I don’t want to hide it. But you pay what you consider a compliment to the purity of my English all the same, if you mean that till now you haven’t even suspected it.” Florian made some politely condescending remark, of the sort so obnoxious to the late Mr Lowell, as to the correctness and delicacy of her English accent, and then, in order to show himself quite abreast of the times, inquired expansively if she knew the Van Rensselaers. “No; I haven’t had that pleasure,” the Vision of Beauty answered, curtly. “The Livingstones, perhaps?” Florian adventured, in tentative tones. The Vision shook her head. “My friends the Vanderbilts?” Florian essayed once more, eager to find a connecting link. “I stayed with them at Newport.” “No; nor yet the Vanderbilts,” the Vision answered, smiling.