There were other days when Hedwig could not be induced to study, but would overwhelm Nino with questions about his wonderful cousin who sang, so that he longed with his whole soul to tell her it was he himself who had sung.  She saw his reluctance to speak about it, and she blushed when she mentioned the night at the Pantheon; but for her life she could not help talking of the pleasure she had had.  Her blushes seemed like the promise of spring roses to her lover, who drank of the air of her presence till that subtle ether ran like fire through his veins.  He was nothing to her, he could see; but the singer of the Pantheon engrossed her thoughts and brought the hot blood to her cheek.  The beam of moonlight had pierced the soft virgin darkness of her sleeping soul, and found a heart so cold and spotless that even a moon ray was warm by comparison.  And the voice that sang “Spirto gentil dei sogni miei” had itself become by memory the gentle spirit of her own dreams.  She is so full of imagination, this statue of Nino’s, that she heard the notes echoing after her by day and night, till she thought she must go mad unless she could hear the reality again.  As the great solemn statue of Egyptian Memnon murmurs sweet, soft sounds to its mighty self at sunrise, a musical whisper in the desert, so the pure white marble of Nino’s living statue vibrated with strange harmonies all the day long.

One night, as Nino walked homeward with De Pretis, who had come to supper with us, he induced the maestro to go out of his way at least half a mile, to pass the Palazzo Carmandola.  It was a still night, not over-cold for December, and there were neither stars nor moon.  As they passed the great house Nino saw a light in Hedwig’s sitting-room—­the room where he gave her the lessons.  It was late, and she must be alone.  On a sudden he stopped.

“What is the matter?” asked De Pretis.

For all answer, Nino, standing in the dark street below, lifted up his voice and sang the first notes of the air he always associated with his beautiful contessina.  Before he had sung a dozen bars the window opened, and the girl’s figure could be seen, black against the light within.  He went on for a few notes, and then ceased suddenly.

“Let us go,” he said in a low voice to Ercole; and they went away, leaving the contessina listening in the stillness to the echo of their feet.  A Roman girl would not have done that; she would have sat quietly inside, and never have shown herself.  But foreigners are so impulsive!

Nino never heard the last of those few notes, any more than the contessina, literally speaking, ever heard the end of the song.

“Your cousin, about whom you make so much mystery, passed under my window last night,” said the young lady the next day, with the usual display of carnation in her cheeks at the mention of him.

“Indeed, signorina?” said Nino, calmly, for he expected the remark.  “And since you have never seen him, pray how did you know it was he?”