mystery, that it was in his power to introduce me to the most beautiful
woman in Italy--"A beauty with a soul!"

"Upon my word," I cried, "you are extremely fortunate, and that is a most
attractive description."

"This woman's beauty," he went on, "is a lesson, a morality, a poem! It's
my daily study."

Of course, after this, I lost no time in reminding him of what, before we
parted, had taken the shape of a promise. "I feel somehow," he had said,
"as if it were a sort of violation of that privacy in which I have always
contemplated her beauty. This is friendship, my friend. No hint of her
existence has ever fallen from my lips. But with too great a familiarity
we are apt to lose a sense of the real value of things, and you perhaps
will throw some new light upon it and offer a fresher interpretation."

We went accordingly by appointment to a certain ancient house in the
heart of Florence--the precinct of the Mercato Vecchio--and climbed a
dark, steep staircase, to the very summit of the edifice. Theobald's
beauty seemed as loftily exalted above the line of common vision as his
artistic ideal was lifted above the usual practice of men. He passed
without knocking into the dark vestibule of a small apartment, and,
flinging open an inner door, ushered me into a small saloon. The room
seemed mean and sombre, though I caught a glimpse of white curtains
swaying gently at an open window. At a table, near a lamp, sat a woman
dressed in black, working at a piece of embroidery. As Theobald entered
she looked up calmly, with a smile; but seeing me she made a movement of
surprise, and rose with a kind of stately grace. Theobald stepped
forward, took her hand and kissed it, with an indescribable air of