"What did you want to say of him?" she asked calmly.

"I hardly know how to put it: that he puzzles me, to begin with. You
know I feel somewhat responsible for him."

"Yes."

"Of course, I never should have thought of him, if it hadn't been for
your mother's talk that morning coming back from San Lazzaro."

"I know," said Florida, with a faint blush.

"And yet, don't you see, it was as much a fancy of mine, a weakness for
the man himself, as the desire to serve your mother, that prompted me
to bring him to you."

"Yes, I see," answered the young girl.

"I acted in the teeth of a bitter Venetian prejudice against priests.
All my friends here--they're mostly young men with the modern Italian
ideas, or old liberals--hate and despise the priests They believe that
priests are full of guile and deceit, that they are spies for the
Austrians, and altogether evil."

"Don Ippolito is welcome to report our most secret thoughts to the
police," said Florida, whose look of rising alarm relaxed into a smile.

"Oh," cried the painter, "how you leap to conclusions! I never
intimated that Don Ippolito was a spy. On the contrary, it was his