greatest pleasure. She talked very little, except to encourage
the young man to continue. I do not think she was brilliant, as
they call it, or witty. She was much more than that in her
comprehension, in her kindness--her beautiful kindness!

She spoke only once directly to me, except for the little things
one must say. "I am almost sure I have met you, Signor
Ansolini."

I felt myself burning up and knew that the conflagration was
visible. So frightful a blush cannot be prevented by will-power,
and I felt it continuing in hot waves long after Poor Jr. had
effected salvation for me by a small joke upon my
cosmopolitanism.

Little sleep visited me that night. The darkness of my room was
luminous and my closed eyes became painters, painting so
radiantly with divine colours--painters of wonderful portraits
of this lady. Gallery after gallery swam before me, and the
morning brought only more!

What a ride it was to Venice that day! What magical airs we rode
through, and what a thieving old trickster was time, as he
always becomes when one wishes hours to be long! I think Poor
Jr. had made himself forget everything except that he was with
her and that he must be a friend. He committed a thousand
ridiculousnesses at the stations; he filled one side of the
compartment with the pretty chianti-bottles, with terrible
cakes, and with fruits and flowers; he never ceased his joking,
which had no tiresomeness in it, and he made the little journey