“Three years ago I went for a holiday tour to Italy, when you were with some friends at Wiesbaden.” “I recollect perfectly well. I was disappointed because you would not join us.” “Would to Heaven I had yielded to your wishes!” “From that time I have scarcely seen anything of you, Paul. You have visited me by fits and starts, and have never stayed long.” As she spoke, an idea darted into Mrs. Desfrayne’s mind. “After traveling about in various parts of Italy, as I kept you informed by my letters, I reached Florence.” His lips trembled as he pronounced the name of the city which bore so many painful memories for him. “Go on, my dear.” “I remained at Florence for several weeks. While there, I went every night to the opera.” “A very agreeable manner of spending your evenings,” said Mrs. Desfrayne, with assumed carelessness. “There was an excellent company, and the operas were admirably selected; but I did not go for the sake of either performers or pieces: I went, drawn thither as by a lodestone, because I was under some kind of strange hallucination that I was in love with a young girl who had just come out there. Perhaps I may have been in love with her. It was folly--a madness!” There was no sign of emotion on Mrs. Desfrayne’s face. She sat almost immovable as a statue, her hands loosely clasped as they rested in her lap, her wide-open, glowing eyes alone betraying the painful interest she felt in her son’s words. “For some days and nights I blindly worshiped this dazzling star from a distance,” Paul continued, having vainly waited for some remark from his mother. “At last I was introduced to her. She lived with some elderly female relative, who accompanied her to the theater every night. By degrees--very rapid degrees, for Italian girls are very unlike their English sisters--she made me her confidant. She did with me as she chose. For all I knew of her real nature, she might as well have worn a waxen mask. Through the dishonesty of the man who had trained her, she had been sold into a species of slavery to the manager. Unaware of her own value, she had bound herself to this fellow’s exclusive service for the term of ten years, at a salary which the most subordinate performer would have refused with scorn.” “Go on,” said his mother, on whom the truth began to force itself. “Infatuated as I was, she easily interested me in her story, although I had at that time no intentions of any kind beyond----” “Beyond flirting with the girl?”