"Perhaps among those gentlemen I can find one for you." "Thank you," he cried; "I'll take care of that myself!" And he went away--satisfied, I hope. 10th.--He's an obstinate little wretch; it irritates me to see him sticking to it. Perhaps he is looking for his Camerino. I shall leave him, at any rate, to his fate; it is growing insupportably hot. 11th.--I went this evening to bid farewell to the Scarabelli. There was no one there; she was alone in her great dusky drawing-room, which was lighted only by a couple of candles, with the immense windows open over the garden. She was dressed in white; she was deucedly pretty. She asked me, of course, why I had been so long without coming. "I think you say that only for form," I answered. "I imagine you know." "_Che_! what have I done?" "Nothing at all. You are too wise for that." She looked at me a while. "I think you are a little crazy." "Ah no, I am only too sane. I have too much reason rather than too little." "You have, at any rate, what we call a fixed idea." "There is no harm in that so long as it's a good one." "But yours is abominable!" she exclaimed, with a laugh. "Of course you can't like me or my ideas. All things considered, you have treated me with wonderful kindness, and I thank you and kiss your hands. I leave Florence tomorrow." "I won't say I'm sorry!" she said, laughing again. "But I am very glad to have seen you. I always wondered about you. You are a curiosity." "Yes, you must find me so. A man who can resist your charms! The fact is, I can't. This evening you are enchanting; and it is the first time I have been alone with you." She gave no heed to this; she turned away. But in a moment she came back, and stood looking at me, and her beautiful solemn eyes seemed to shine in the dimness of the room. "How _could_ you treat my mother so?" she asked. "Treat her so?" "How could you desert the most charming woman in the world?" "It was not a case of desertion; and if it had been it seems to me she was consoled." At this moment there was the sound of a step in the ante-chamber, and I saw that the Countess perceived it to be Stanmer's. "That wouldn't have happened," she murmured. "My poor mother needed a protector." Stanmer came in, interrupting our talk, and looking at me, I thought, with a little air of bravado. He must think me indeed a tiresome, meddlesome bore; and upon my word, turning it all over, I wonder at his docility. After all, he's five-and-twenty--and yet I _must_ add, it _does_ irritate me--the way he sticks! He was followed in a moment by two or three of the regular Italians, and I made my visit short. "Good-bye, Countess," I said; and she gave me her hand in silence. "Do you need a protector?" I added, softly. She looked at me from head to foot, and then, almost angrily--"Yes, Signore." But, to deprecate her anger, I kept her hand an instant, and then bent my venerable head and kissed it. I think I appeased her.