Running lightly down the corridor, she preceded him to a green baize door and held it open while he passed within. Ill at ease, raw from the recent encounter, he followed her down the back stairs and out to the side entrance. "I hope the signorino is better?" queried Regina, as he passed by her into the areaway. "Shall he be making the music again soon?" she added eagerly. As her meaning penetrated his misery, Alexis started, as if she had inadvertently touched some spiritual reflex. With a muttered excuse he strode out on to the sidewalk in front of the house. The air had suddenly become raw and damp, and a blustering wind raged down the narrow street, tearing away in its passage the few last leaves from the small, sickly trees. Rain had commenced to fall in large, scattered drops. Alexis shivered. He cast a reluctant look up at the luminous windows of the house. Voices and laughter floated out into the empty street. Shadows flitted and mingled, behind the opaque shades. He lingered uncertainly for a moment, the prey of undefinable desires. Suddenly an excess of hilarity burst from the open door and the figure of a man and woman emerged on to the sidewalk. They passed Alexis and he instinctively crouched against the shadow of the house. "Anne is becoming secretive in her dangerous thirties," the woman was murmuring as they made their way towards a motor brougham that stood waiting by the curb. "You'll have to be careful, Marchese. You know they say she's had quite a vampish past." The man laughed politely. "I'm afraid I'm too old a friend to be frightened off as easily as that, Miss Barnes. As Mrs. Schuyler knows, I am one of those tiresome fellows who never listens to scandal. It has been a pleasant evening, hasn't it?" The man deposited the discomfited lady within the brougham and watched the car drive off. Then, turning on his heel, he reëntered the house. Before the door closed behind him Alexis heard Anne's voice plaintively playful. "Was she maligning me, Vittorio?" But the man's answer, caressing, muffled, was lost within the house. Shivering and dazed, Alexis pulled his collar up about his throat. Lowering his head against the rain, in a bull-like, butting gesture, he strode toward Fifth Avenue.