The Signora Paula had found herself de trop in her brother’s house.  The Count Clemente had offered himself to the younger of his two first lodgers, the girl of fifty, and been beamingly accepted; and, though months must elapse before all the necessary preparations could be made for their marriage, the Sposa was now mistress of the house.  She smiled as before, but she had her way.  The sacred dirt of centuries was being cleaned out, and immemorial grime was growing pale before the soap and sand of a civilization to which the Signora Paula was a stranger.  Where duchesses had swept their silks in uncomplaining tranquillity, the smiling Americana walked on tiptoe with her skirts upheld, and pointed out her orders to the wondering scrubbers with the toe of her slipper, both hands being employed.

In all these innovations every care was taken that the count should not be disturbed.  But he had his cross, and an unexpected one.  When it became time to talk of settlements, and it had to be owned that the gentleman had nothing to settle on his wife but the shadow of a coronet, of which she would have to buy the substance if she ever wore it, the lady announced blandly that she would pay all their living-expenses and give her husband five hundred dollars a year spending-money if he would pay the rent to the duke,—­this arrangement to hold as long as they should live together.

“But we shall always live together,” said the count, with a contortion meant for a smile.

“If we should live,” the lady said.  “But life is uncertain.”

“Oh, in case of death, one makes different arrangements,” the count said, somewhat impatiently.  “That is another question.”

“But I want it so,” persisted the lady coquettishly; “and I must have my way.  I have always had my way.”

And, ever smiling, never appearing to dream that he was in earnest or to suspect the rage that was gnawing his heart, she had her way.  She smiled at his coarse and open grasping, smiled at his scarcely hidden anger, and smiled at the half-insulting consent he flung at her, as if it were all a jest.  And he believed her the simpleton she seemed, and did not know that he had found a mistress who would rule him with a rod of iron.

On the second day of their stay in Sassovivo the duke and duchess drove down early in the morning to the campagna, and left another brewing of ossequii to fizz itself out in unresponsive air.

Aurora was going to erect a memorial fountain to her mother in the midst of the long, hot, dusty road to the station.  A wild spring of delicious water lay back in a rocky pasture.  This was to be brought forward and run into marble basins for man and beast.  Above should be a carved relief of Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well, with, underneath, “And the woman said, Lord, give me of this water to drink, that I may never thirst again.”

An artist had come out from Rome to see the place and make suggestions; and they walked over the green grass, and visited the spring in its own home, and drank of its sparkling tide.