“I would fill my apron with sweet flowers and golden fruit—­great oranges, and those fragrant, delicious tiny mandarins—­and I would get a crowd of little Italians about me, all a-babbling their pretty, pretty tongue, and I would go down to the bay and get in an anchored boat, and lie there all the morning, catching the sunlight in my eyes, trimming the brown babies and the boat with flowers, looking off at the water and the clouds, tossing the pretty fruit, and laughing, and playing, and enjoying.  Later, there’d be a run on the beach, and a ride on a donkey, and a dance, with delirious music and frolic.  And then the moon and quiet,—­and I would steal away from the crowd, and take a little boat, and float and drift—­”

“Alone?” asked Bero, softly.  “Surely, you wouldn’t condemn a mountaineer’s yellow moustache, or a soldier’s spurs and sword, if at heart he was really a child of the sun also?  May I share your day of Heaven?  It would be paradise for me, too.”  All this in the same soft, deferential manner.

“Well, well,” half laughed, half sighed Mae.  “All this is a dream, unless, indeed, I go home with Lisetta.”

“Who is Lisetta?”

“Our padrona’s cousin.  She is here on a visit.  She lives within a mile of Sorrento, on the coast.  She goes home at the end of Carnival.  Oh, how I do long for Carnival,” continued Mae, frankly and confidentially.  “Don’t you?  I am like a child over it, I am trying already to persuade Eric—­that is my brother—­to take me down on the Corso the last night, for the Mocoletti.  It would be much better fun than staying on our balcony.”

“Where is your balcony?” asked Bero, stroking his long moustaches.

“It is on the corner of Maria e Jesu, and if I ever see you coming by, I shall be tempted to pepper your pretty uniform.  How beautiful it is!”

“Yes,” replied Bero, again gazing proudly down at his lithe figure, in its well-fitting clothes, “but I would be willing to be showered with confetti daily to see you.  How shall I know you?  What is to be the color of your domino?” And he bent forward, hitting his spurs against the paving stones, flashing his deep eyes, and half reaching out his hand, in that same tender, respectful way.

Mae saw the sunlight strike his hair; she half heard his deep breath; and, like a flood, there suddenly swept over her the knowledge that this new friend, this sympathizing soul, was an unknown man, and that she was a girl.  What had she done?  What could she do?  Confusion and embarrassment suddenly overtook her.  She bent her eyes away from those other eyes, that were growing bolder and more tender in their gaze.  “I—­I—­” she began, and just at this very inauspicious moment, while she sat there, flushed, by the stranger’s side, the clatter of swiftly-approaching wheels sounded, and a carriage turned the corner, containing Mrs. Jerrold, Edith, Albert, and Norman Mann.  They all saw her.

Mae laughed.  It was such a dreadful situation that it was funny, and she laughed again.  “Those are my friends,” she said, in a low voice.  “We can walk away,” replied the officer, and turned his face in the opposite direction.  “It is too late; and, besides, why should we?” And Mae looked full in his face, then turned to the carriage, which was close upon them.