the sweet perfume of Latin adulation despite the fact that he scarcely knew the language.  A sonnet by Illica moved him actually to tears.  Other inscriptions were meaningless to him—­the lines from Hans Keller, especially, the great orchestral conductor, disciple and confidant of Wagner, the artistic executor, charged with watching over the master’s glory—­that Hans Keller of whom Leonora was speaking all the time with the fondness of a woman and the admiration of an artist—­all of which did not prevent her from adding that he was “a barbarian.”  Stanzas in German, in Russian and in English, which, as the singer re-read them brought a contented smile to her features, Rafael, to his great despair, could not induce her to translate.

“Those are matters you wouldn’t understand.  Go on to the next page.  I mustn’t make you blush.”

And that was the only explanation she would give—­as though he were a child.

Some Italian verses, written in a tremulous hand and in crooked lines, attracted Rafael’s attention.  He could half make their meaning out, but Leonora would never let him finish reading them.  It was an amorous, desperate lament; a cry of racking passion condemned to disappointment, writhing in isolation like a wild beast in its cage:  Luigi Macchia.

“And who is Luigi Macchia?” asked Rafael.  “Why such despair?”

“He was a young fellow from Naples,” Leonora answered, at last, one afternoon, in a sad voice, and turning her head, as if to conceal the tears that had come to her eyes.  “One day they found him under the pine trees of Posilipo, with a bullet through his head.  He wanted to die, you see, and he killed himself....  But put all this aside and let’s go down to the garden.  I need a breath of air.”

They sauntered along the avenue that was bordered with rose-bushes, and several minutes went by before either of them spoke.  Leonora seemed quite absorbed in her thoughts.  Her brows were knitted and her lips pressed tightly together, as if she were suffering the sting of painful recollections.

“Suicide!” she said at last.  “Doesn’t that seem a silly thing to do, Rafael?  Kill yourself for a woman?  Just as if we women were obliged to love every man who thinks he’s in love with us!...  How stupid men are!  We have to be their servants, love them willy-nilly.  And if we don’t, they kill themselves just to spite us.”

And she was silent for a time.

“Poor Macchia!  He was a good boy, and deserved to be happy.  But if I were to surrender to every desperate protestation made to me!...  However, he went and did just what he said he would do....  How crazy they get!  And the worst of it is, I have found others like him in my travels.”

She explained no farther.  Rafael gazed at her, but respected her silence, trying in vain to guess the thoughts that were stirring behind her shining eyes, as green and golden as the sea under a noonday sun.  What a wealth of romance must be hidden in that woman’s past!  What tragedies must have been woven into the checkered fabric of her wonderful career!...