Again her voice was veiled. She put out her hand and touched the boy's hand.

"Grazie! How sweetly it plays! You thought of me!"

There was a silence till the tune was finished. Then Maurice said:

"Hermione, I don't know what to say. That we should be at the fair the day you arrived! Why--why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you write?"

"You didn't know, then!"

The words came very quickly, very eagerly.

"Know! Didn't Lucrezia tell you that we had no idea?"

"Poor Lucrezia! She's in a dreadful condition. I found her in the village."

"No!" Maurice cried, thankful to turn the conversation from himself, though only for an instant. "I specially told her to stay here. I specially----"

"Well, but, poor thing, as you weren't expecting me! But I wrote, Maurice, I wrote a letter telling you everything, the hour we were coming--"

"It's Don Paolo!" exclaimed Gaspare, angrily. "He hides away the letters.

He lets them lie sometimes in his office for months. To-morrow I will go and tell him what I think; I will turn out every drawer."

"It is too bad!" Maurice said.

"Then you never had it?"

"Hermione"--he stared at the open door--"you think we should have gone to the fair if----"

"No, no, I never thought so. I only wondered. It all seemed so strange."

"It is too horrible!" Maurice said, with heavy emphasis. "And Artois--no rooms ready for him! What can he have thought?"

"As I did, that there had been a mistake. What does it matter now? Just at the moment I was dreadfully--oh, dreadfully disappointed. I saw Gaspare at the fair. And you saw me, Gaspare?"

"Si, signora. I ran all the way to the station, but the train had gone."

"But I didn't see you, Maurice. Where were you?"

Gaspare opened his lips to speak, but Maurice did not give him time.

"I was there, too, in the fair."

"But of course you weren't looking at the train?"

"Of course not. And when Gaspare told me, it was too late to do anything.

We couldn't get back in time, and the donkeys were tired, and so----"

"Oh, I'm glad you didn't hurry back. What good would it have done then?"

There was a touch of constraint in her voice.

"You must have thought I should be in bed."

"Yes, we did."

"And so I ought to be now. I believe I am tremendously tired, but--but I'm so tremendously something else that I hardly know."

The constraint had gone.

"The signora is happy because she is back in my country," Gaspare remarked, with pride and an air of shrewdness.

He nodded his head. The faded roses shook above his ears. Hermione smiled at him.

"He knows all about it," she said. "Well, if we are ever to go to bed----"

Gaspare looked from her to his padrone.

"Buona notte, signora," he said, gravely. "Buona notte, signorino. Buon riposo!"

"Buon riposo!" echoed Hermione. "It is blessed to hear that again. I do love the clock, Gaspare."

The boy beamed at her and went reluctantly away to find the donkeys. At that moment Maurice would have given almost anything to keep him. He dreaded unspeakably to be alone with Hermione. But it had to be. He must face it. He must seem natural, happy.

"Shall I put the clock down?" he asked.

He went to her, took the clock, carried it to the writing-table, and put it down.

"Gaspare was so happy to bring it to you."

He turned. He felt desperate. He came to Hermione and put out his hands.

"I feel so bad that we weren't here," he said.

"That is it!"

There was a sound of deep relief in her voice. Then she had been puzzled by his demeanor! He must be natural; but how? It seemed to him as if never in all his life could he have felt innocent, careless, brave. Now he was made of cowardice. He was like a dog that crawls with its belly to the floor. He got hold of Hermione's hands.

"I feel--I feel horribly, horribly bad!"

Speaking the absolute truth, his voice was absolutely sincere, and he deceived her utterly.

"Maurice," she said, "I believe it's upset you so much that--that you are shy of me."

She laughed happily.

"Shy--of me!"

He tried to laugh, too, and kissed her abruptly, awkwardly. All his natural grace was gone from him. But when he kissed her she did not know it; her lips clung to his with a tender pa.s.sion, a fealty that terrified him.