"Oh," said she, laughing, "the Prince, in some ways, is practical-minded enough. He has this great collection of Italian paintings, which, by Italian law, he mayn't remove from Italian soil; and if he were to get rid of Sant' Alessina, where could he house them? In other ways, though, he is perhaps not so practical. He is one of those Utopians who believe that the present Kingdom of Italy must perforce before long make shipwreck; and I think he holds on to Sant' Alessina in the dream of coming here in triumph, and grandly celebrating that event." "I see," said John, nodding. "That is a beautiful ideal." "Good-bye," said she, flashing a last quick smile into his eyes; and she moved away, down a garden path, towards the pavilion beyond the clock. III And now, I should have imagined, for a single session, (and that an initial one), he had had enough. I should have expected him to spend the remainder of his day, a full man, in thankful tranquillity, in agreeable retrospective rumination. But no. Indulgence, it soon appeared, had but whetted his appetite. After a quarter-hour of walking about the garden, during which his jumble of sensations and impressions,--her soft-glowing eyes, her soft-drooping hair, under her wine-red hat; her slender figure, in its fluttering summery muslin, and the faint, faint perfume (like a far-away memory of rose-leaves) that hovered near her; her smile, and the curves, when she smiled, of her rose-red lips, and the gleam of her snow-white teeth; her laugh, her voice, her ivory voice; her pretty crisp-cut English; her appreciation of Annunziata, her disquieting presentiments concerning her; and his deep satisfaction in her propinquity, her "companionship;" and the long shaded fragrant avenue, and the bird-songs, and the gentle weather,--after a quarter-hour of anything but thankful tranquillity, a quarter-hour of unaccountable excitement and exaltation, during which his jumble of impressions and sensations settled themselves, from ebullition, into some sort of quiescence, he began to grow restlessly aware that, so far from having had enough, he had had just a sufficient taste to make him hunger keenly for more and more. It was ridiculous, but he couldn't help it. And as there seemed no manner of likelihood that his hunger would soon be fed, it was trying. At the best, he could not reasonably hope to see her again before to-morrow; and even then--? What ghost of a reason had he to hope that even then he could renew their conversation? He had owed that to-day to the bare hazard of their ways lying together. To-morrow, very likely, at the best, he might get a bow and a smile. Very likely it might be days before he should again have anything approaching a real talk with her. And what--a new consideration, that struck a sudden terror to his soul--what if her visit to Frau Brandt was to be a short one? What if to-morrow even, she were to depart? "Her