"Thank you," she said, in a rich voice with strong but pleasant accent.
"I have had time."

"But improvement is not always a question of time," returned he. "Look
at me."

"You have grown old," Ninitta commented, regarding him keenly. "You are
gray now."

"Yes," retorted the other lightly, "I am an old man." It is really a
very long time since you posed for me in my little den at Rome."

"You remember those days perhaps, sometimes?" she said, dropping the
long lashes over her eyes.

A shadow passed over Herman's high brow.

"Is one likely to forget such days?" he demanded. "Is one likely to
forget how love may be turned to treachery and--"

"Pardon," the woman interrupted with dignity. "I did not come to be
reproached, _eccelenza_. You have not forgotten Signor Hoffmeir?"

"No," he answered, with a deepening frown. "I have not forgotten the
man who pretended to be my friend and proved it by stealing my
betrothed."

"It is well that you have not forgotten," Ninitta went on calmly, but
earnestly, "for I have a message from him. He charged me when he was
dying," she added, crossing herself, "to give it to you with my own