"Bless the girl! She shall have the subscription!" said the Senator, who was still looking at Regina. "And the audience also?" He promised the audience. At that moment he was smiling just as he smiled in the portrait and in the mirror; and Regina perceived that he pitied the poor Italian journalist and was thinking of the moral physiognomy of the working Englishwomen. "But why the audience?" asked Regina, emboldened and imitating the Senator's smile; "subscriptions are all very well--up to a certain point--but the audience----" "It's a moral support. With reference to my principles----" "Yes, yes; a moral support," interrupted the Senator, still smiling. Regina felt rebellious. This man who found the moral physiognomy of the women abroad so different from the moral physiognomy of the incapable, enslaved Italians--why did he not make Arduina understand the errors of her method? "But," she cried, almost angrily, "if you can't do without assistance, moral or material, it's better--to do nothing at all! We are always despoilers; and it's all one if we despoil fathers, husbands, lovers, or royalty and the Government! "My dear, you don't understand!" said Arduina, who, had not taken in Regina's meaning; "you talk like that because you've never felt the need----" "You are from Lombardy?" asked the Senator, who, with his hands folded on his breast, amused himself twiddling his thumbs. "I'm an incapable and useless Italian," she replied, very contemptuous of herself. "But you are young. Why don't you write?" "What's the use of writing," she asked, meeting his eye mockingly, "if it's only to ask for subscriptions and audiences?" The old man, still twiddling his thumbs, rose and took a step towards the young lady. "What's your impression of Rome?" "Bad! It bores me! Town life is so wretched and gloomy. Besides, it does nothing but rain," said Regina, and laughed. "What makes him stare so?" she thought; "can I possibly have the moral physiognomy of the English ladies?" The old man stood in front of her, his back to Arduina, whose presence he seemed to have forgotten. "Town life is wretched," he said, "because it's empty. Our women are full of useless aspirations, and, as you say, despoil their men, who deteriorate working too hard for their families. In those societies where the woman works also, the man has a free margin for the development of his abilities. In England----" "But what can we do," repeated Regina, "if we haven't been brought up to work?" The Senator did not appear to hear her. He drew a picture of English society where the whole middle class, the professional and the working sections alike kept themselves up in literature, art, politics, and promoted free discussion on all subjects; where the women were not bored, because they worked.