small copper beech with its bronze leaves become translucent in the hot
light. It is true that the browsing sheep were abnormally black; and the
yellow-billed starlings had perhaps less sheen on their feathers than
they would have had in the country; nevertheless, for a park in the
midst of a great city this place was very quiet and beautiful and
sylvan; and indeed, when these two sat down on a couple of chairs under
a fragrant hawthorn, Nina's lustrous dark eyes became wistful and
absent, and she said,

"Yes, Leo, it is as you say in the house--it all appears a dream."

"What appears like a dream to you?" her companion asked.

"To be in London, sitting with you, Leo, and hearing you speak," she
answered, in a low voice. "Often I think of it--often I think of
London--wondering what it is like--and I ask myself, 'Will Leo be the
same after his great renown? Are we friends as before?' and now I am
here, and London is not dark and terrible with smoke, but we sit in
gardens--oh, very beautiful!--and Leo is talking just as in the old
way--perhaps it is a dream?" she continued, looking up with a smile.
"Perhaps I wake soon?"

"Oh, no, it isn't a dream, Nina," said he, "only it might pass for one,
for you haven't told me how you managed to get here. It is all a mystery
to me. Where are you staying, for example?"

"My lodging?" she said. "I have an apartment in the Restaurant
Gianuzzi."

"Where is that?"