Clementina and seized her hands. "If you knew such a girl, what would you
have her do? Should she bid him hope again? Would you have her say to him
that she, too, had been faithful to their dream, and that she too--"

"Let me go, Mr. Belsky, let me go, I say!" Clementina wrenched her hands
from him, and ran out of the room. Belsky hesitated, then he found his
hat, and after a glance at his face in the mirror, left the house.




XXIV.

The tide of travel began to set northward in April. Many English, many
Americans appeared in Florence from Naples and Rome; many who had
wintered in Florence went on to Venice and the towns of northern Italy,
on their way to Switzerland and France and Germany.

The spring was cold and rainy, and the irresolute Italian railroads were
interrupted by the floods. A tawny deluge rolled down from the mountains
through the bed of the Arno, and kept the Florentine fire-department on
the alert night and day. "It is a curious thing about this country," said
Mr. Hinkle, encountering Baron Belsky on the Ponte Trinita, "that the
only thing they ever have here for a fire company to put out is a
freshet. If they had a real conflagration once, I reckon they would want
to bring their life-preservers."

The Russian was looking down over the parapet at the boiling river. He
lifted his head as if he had not heard the American, and stared at him a
moment before he spoke. It is said that the railway to Rome is broken at