"Your friends will admire this ring," said Valentini, "but I must beg of you, Ragna, not to give it away. The things I buy for you I do not intend to let pass out of the family." This because she had once sent a small and not particularly valuable brooch he had given her, to her sister Ingeborg, much to the latter's pleasure and surprise, though Fru Boyesen had sniffed when the gift was shown her. "Why don't you answer?" demanded Valentini, "you might at least attend to what I say. When I give you a thing it is for yourself, not for others." "But if it should please me better to give it to a sister whom I love, than to wear it myself?" "You have no right to squander my property or my gifts." "Very well," said Ragna wearily, "I have not the slightest intention of giving the ring away." They relapsed into silence and Egidio read the evening paper. The rustling of the pages grated so on her nerves that she thought she must scream and she jerked her needle in and out till the thread snapped. Generally she took but little interest in the local news, but to-night, when Egidio laid the paper on the table, she took it up, and in turning the pages over, her eye fell by chance on the list of names of travellers stopping at the large hotels. An involuntary exclamation rose to her lips as the name "Count Angelescu" stared at her from the printed column. "What is it?" inquired Egidio suspiciously. "Nothing--I have pricked my finger--" She still held her sewing crushed in her left hand. He turned again to the design he was making on the back of an old envelope. Angelescu in Florence! Angelescu! The blood surged and beat in her temples, her hands shook as she raised the paper to her eyes. No, there could be no mistake, it must be he and no other! For so long she had hardly thought of him; the realities of her everyday life had deadened her memory of the past, and unless something out of the ordinary occurred to recall them specially to her mind, her thoughts rarely turned to those days in Rome. Her household cares, the constant attention required by the children, her interest in her writing, which she still carried on, and the social intercourse with the little circle of friends she had formed, all these sufficiently occupied her time, leaving her but little leisure for brooding over past or present. Egidio mocked at her social proclivities, at her friends, especially when they happened to be titled folk, and called her a snob, so that it was with terror and dismay that she viewed his arrival when any of her friends happened to be present, for unless they were young and pretty women, he exaggerated his habitual boorishness of manner. If a really pretty woman occupied his wife's drawing-room, his airs and graces were a sight to see, and caused Ragna even more shame than his rudeness.