But she kept silence on this evening also. How could she help it? Caterina would not go to bed; she wanted to stay with her papa, whose golden moustache, beautiful eyes, beautiful scented hair, she admired prodigiously. Did Caterina see that her papa was beautiful? That cannot be known. But certainly she looked at his attractive countenance with great pleasure, and seemed to find special delight in touching the shaven face of _Il Papaino_ with her little peach-blossom cheek. Antonio sang his favourite rhyme-- "Mousey doesn't care for cream, Mousey wants to marry the Queen; If the King won't let her go, Mousey'll break his bones, you know." Each time he repeated those lines Regina remembered, as in a troubled dream, the evening of her arrival in Rome. But to-night Caterina laughed and screamed with mad delight, and admired her papa more than ever; and then they talked together of so many things, of such secret things, comprehensible only to themselves! What could Regina do? Deprive Antonio, who had been working all day, of the pleasure of talking to his baby, wrest the little one from him, and send her away? She was not so cruel. When at last Caterina's big eyes became languid with sleep, and all her little body relaxed and sank, heavy and sweet like a ripe fruit, Antonio said-- "Now I am going out for a little." What could Regina do? Say to him-- "No; stay. I wish to tell you the horrible things I am thinking of you----?" It was impossible. He had every right to go out for a little, at least in the evening, after a whole day of fatigue. He went out, and Regina sat down and read the terrible column of the _Avanti_ called "What goes on in the world." * * * * * Madame Makuline left Rome two days later, but Antonio still went daily to the villa to see after the letters and dispatch certain affairs. On Sunday he showed Regina the key, and told her the old servant left in charge of the house had asked leave of absence. "At last we are proprietors of a villa," he said, joking. Then Regina was assailed by a temptation. In vain, for some minutes, she tried to put it from her. "Let us go to the villa," she proposed. Antonio not only accepted, but seemed delighted. Could he be so cynical?