"She is so ugly," said Alba, "will you sacrifice me to her?"

"Then there is my compatriot, who goes away tomorrow and of whom I must
take leave this evening, Madame de Sauve, with whom you met me at the
museum .... You will not say she is ugly, will you?"

"No," responded Alba, dreamily, "she is very pretty.".... She had another
prayer upon her lips, which she did not formulate. Then, with a
beseeching glance: "Return, at least. Promise me that you will return
after your two visits. They will be over in an hour and a half. It will
not be midnight. You know some do not ever come before one and sometimes
two o'clock. You will return?"

"If possible, yes. But at any rate, we shall meet to-morrow, at the
studio, to see the portrait."

"Then, adieu," said the young girl, in a low voice.




CHAPTER X

COMMON MISERY

The Contessina's disposition was too different from her mother's for the
mother to comprehend that heart, the more contracted in proportion as it
was touched, while emotion was synonymous with expansion in the opulent
and impulsive Venetian. That evening she had not even observed Alba's