Soft rose-coloured or tender yellow silk shades toned everything down, and made a kind of dreamland of the rooms with their costly furniture and many treasures of art--with their soft carpets, their rich rugs, and abundance of modern comforts. Minna leaned back in the corner of a sofa, near a small table on which stood one of these rose-shaded lamps. She had drunk her tea and was idly holding the cup in her hand, her eyes fixed on the little drop which remained at the bottom of it. She had been conversing for a short time with a funny-looking little Scotch monsignore, who figured largely at gatherings of this description, and of whom she was not particularly fond. He had just removed his dapper little figure and blonde face with its pink cheeks to the vicinity of a tall, handsome English girl, who was more disposed than Minna to be gracious to him. Minna, as she sat there, seemed to see Monsignore Macpherson’s figure fade away, and be all at once replaced by another, which rose from the ground or appeared in the air, forming itself gradually before her mental vision: a finely-set head, and a countenance at once pale and bronzed, eyes that flashed, lips that could be eloquent, nervously-moving white hands, and a very shabby suit of clothes and rusty black coat. ‘What was he like before--when he was young? How did he ever come to be in this pitiful condition? Surely no man with any will or spirit need have drifted into such a state! There must have been a great weakness somewhere, I am certain, which he now recognises. He knows it is his own fault, and that is what makes him so abnormally irritable; yes, abnormally, even for an irritable Italian, and----’ ‘Minna Hastings, I have not been able to get a word with you until this moment,’ said a clear, decided voice just at her elbow. At the same moment, a white hand, on which flashed many rings, was laid on her wrist, and Mrs. Charrington, in a billow of silk and lace, sat down beside her. Minna sighed and looked up. ‘How could I expect to be distinguished above other women?’ she asked, forcing a smile. ‘When you have fifty or sixty people to attend to some must come short.’ ‘Well, you see, I do my possible--and I have been well assisted by my niece there, that pretty little thing with the yellow hair and forget-me-not eyes. She has turned the head of every Italian man in the room. She is going to spend the winter with me.’ ‘Is she?’ said Minna vaguely. Her hostess noticed her want of interest, but did not care just then to remark upon it, so she proceeded: ‘Having spoken to everyone, I may now rest myself for a few minutes beside you. You used to be the embodiment of rest and tranquillity. What is this I hear about your having left your apartment?’ ‘It is quite true. I left it because I had to. I was very much annoyed about it. After revelling for so long in the comforts provided by Signora Vincenzini, it is not easy to reconcile one’s self to anything less.’