listener shan't guess _whom_ you are talking about. In short, she is the
be-all and the end-all of your existence,--and you don't even know her
name, though you fear it may be Schmidt."

He lolled back at ease on the marble bench, and twirled his yellow-red
moustaches, fancy free.

"But you do know her name," said Annunziata, simply, in her deepest
voice, holding him with a gaze, lucent and serious, that seemed almost
reproachful. "Her name is Maria Dolores."

The thing was tolerably unexpected. What wonder if it put my hero out of
countenance? His attitude grew rigid, his pink skin three shades pinker;
his blue eyes stared at her, startled. So for a second; then he relaxed,
and laughed, laughed long and heartily, perhaps a little despitefully
too, at his own expense. ... But he must try, if he might, to repair the
mischief.

"My poor child," he said, resting his hand on her curls, and gently
smoothing them. "You are what the French call an _enfant terrible_. You
are what the English call a deuced sharp little pickle. And I must try,
if I can, without actually lying, to persuade you that you are utterly
mistaken, utterly and absolutely mistaken,"--he raised his voice, for
greater convincingness,--"and that her name is nothing distantly
resembling the name that you have spoken, and that in fact her name is
Mrs. Harris, and that in fine there is no such person, and that I was
merely talking hypothetically, in abstractions; I must draw a herring
across the trail, I must raise a dust, and throw a lot of it into your
amazingly clear-sighted little eyes. Now, is it definitely impressed
upon you that her name is _not_--the thrice-adorable name you