They had come out from the Pincian now, stopped and were looking at each other, under the ilex trees. From the way he had answered her astonished question about China she had known that he was going to say something to her, really something that he meant, as people never do, something from far underneath the surface. But she had never dreamed that he would so throw open the doors of his heart and let her look in to see something she had never thought was in any one's heart,--the honest desire to do something with his life beyond getting out of it all he could for himself. It was like daylight shining down, clear, into dark shadows. * * * * * Marise dreaded Donna Antonia's musical entertainments. They were nightmares, at least for a girl with no recognized definite rung on the social ladder as her own, at least for a paid entertainer who was paid not only to play a Beethoven sonata, but to look well, to add to the social brilliancy of the evening, to make up for Donna Antonia's prodigious inertia by rushing about, seeing that everything went smoothly, that the servants did not sequester half the ices, that each guest had some one to talk to. If she could only come in, play her Beethoven and go away again!--That was really all she was paid for. No, of course the pay for the rest of what she did was Donna Antonia's "taking her up," her familiarity in the great house, those occasional condescending "cards for her personal friends," all that Donna Antonia could do for a young pianist's future. Every one told her that her fortunes were made, now that Donna Antonia had taken a fancy to her, every one expected her as a matter of course to make the most of her great opportunity, to flatter Donna Antonia, to run briskly on her errands, to accept with apparent pleasure the amused, patronizing friendliness of a capricious great lady who on some days was caressing and petting, like a person with a pet cat, and on others was cold and distant, like a person who has no use for cats. She was not only to play for Donna Antonia whenever she was asked, but sit on a cushion, let her hair be stroked and talk intimately with Donna Antonia of things Marise would much prefer not to know about; or on another day to be willing to dash out in a cab to get a delayed dress from the dressmaker's because the maid was busy with hair-dressing; or, as on this evening, act the part of helpful daughter of the house, when her real position (which all the guests knew perfectly well how to make her feel) was that of temporary toy and amusement. What really underlay all that advice to make the most of this great opportunity was a doubt whether she was genuinely gifted enough to make her own way by her talent, was the feeling that the best way to make up for deficiencies in her musical equipment was by accumulating personal influences of social importance on her side. The "great opportunity" which Visconti's other pupils so