“Did you?  That was waste of time.”

“I think you intended I should read it.”

He hesitated.

“Lady Kitty, those things are very far away.  I can’t defend myself—­for they seem wiped out.”  He had crossed his arms, and was leaning back against the open door, a fine, rugged figure, by no means repentant.

Kitty laughed.

“You overstate the difference!”

“Between the past and the present?  What does that mean?”

She dropped her eyes a moment, then raised them.

“Do you often go to San Lazzaro?”

He bowed.

“I had a suspicion that the vision at the window—­though it was there only an instant—­was you!  So you saw Mademoiselle Ricci?”

His tone was assurance itself.  Kitty disdained to answer.  Her slight gesture bade him let her pass through; but he ignored it.

“I find her kind, Lady Kitty.  She listens to me—­I get sympathy from her.”

“And you want sympathy?”

Her tone stung him.  “As a hungry man wants food —­as an artist wants beauty.  But I know where I shall not get it.”

“That is always a gain!” said Kitty, throwing back her little head.  “Mr. Cliffe, pray let me bid you good-bye.”

He suddenly made a step forward.  “Lady Kitty!”—­his deep-set, imperious eyes searched her face—­“I can’t restrain myself.  Your look—­your expression—­go to my heart.  Laugh at me if you like.  It’s true.  What have you been doing with yourself?”

He bent towards her, scrutinizing every delicate feature, and, as it seemed, shaken with agitation.  She breathed fast.

“Mr. Cliffe, you must know that any sympathy from you to me—­is an insult!  Kindly let me pass.”

He, too, flushed deeply.

“Insult is a hard word, Lady Kitty.  I regret that poem.”

She swept forward in silence, but he still stood in the way.

“I wrote it—­almost in delirium.  Ah, well”—­he shook his head impatiently—­“if you don’t believe me, let it be.  I am not the man I was.  The perspective of things is altered for me.”  His voice fell.  “Women and children in their blood—­heroic trust—­and brute hate—­the stars for candles—­the high peaks for friends—­those things have come between me and the past.  But you are right; we had better not talk any more.  I hear old Federigo coming up the stairs.  Good-night, Lady Kitty—­good-night!”

He opened the door.  She passed him, and, to her own intense annoyance, a bunch of pale roses she carried at her belt brushed against the doorway, so that one broke and fell.  She turned to pick it up, but it was already in Cliffe’s hand.  She held out hers, threateningly.

“I think not.”  He put it in his pocket.  “Here is Federigo.  Good-night.”

It was quite dark when Kitty reached home.  She groped her way up-stairs and opened the door of the salon.  So weary was she that she dropped into the first chair, not seeing at first that any one was in the room.  Then she caught sight of a brown-paper parcel, apparently just unfastened, on the table, and within it three books, of similar shape and size.  A movement startled her.