"I know it, my poor Antonio," said Ferdinanda, "and for that reason I forgive you once more, for the last time. If you repeat this scene I will tell my father, and then you must leave the house. And now, Signor Antonio, rise!" She gave him her hand, which, still kneeling, he pressed to his lips and forehead. "Antonio, Antonio!" called Justus' voice from without, and then a knock was heard at the door, which opened into the yard. Antonio sprang to his feet. "Is Antonio here, Fräulein Ferdinanda?" Ferdinanda went herself to open the door. "Still at work?" said Justus as he entered. "But I thought you were going to the Exhibition with your cousin?" "I am waiting for him; he has not made his appearance yet. You go on with Antonio; we will meet in the sculpture-room." "As you like. What you have done to the eyes to-day is no good at all--it is all wrong. You have worked without a model again. When will you learn that without models we are helpless! Andiamo, Antonio! if you are not ashamed to walk through the streets with me." He had laughingly placed himself by the Italian, as if to amuse Ferdinanda by the comparison which he himself observed between his short little figure in the old velvet coat and light trousers of doubtful newness, and the slim, handsome, smart youth, his assistant. But Ferdinanda had already turned away, and again repeated, "We shall meet in the sculpture-room." "Dunque andiamo!" cried Justus; "a rivederci!" CHAPTER IX. The door was shut, the footsteps of the two men died away--Ferdinanda had not moved. "Una principessa!" she murmured. "He is the only one who understands me. What use is it to be understood by him? If he were a prince, indeed! And yet it is delicious to know that one is loved like that--delicious and dangerous! He watches every step I take, nothing that I do escapes him; but really yesterday he does not seem to have been at home. He does not know yet that I dare not do anything when he is near." She sank down upon a stool, and took the letter from her bosom which _he_ had given her yesterday over the garden wall. She already knew it by heart, but she liked to see the trace of the loved hand.