Sylvie lowered her eyes, and a faint colour crimsoned her cheeks.

“Then he knows where I am?” she asked.

“If he believes me, he knows,” replied Loyse D’Agramont, “But perhaps he does not believe me!  All Paris was talking about the Abbe Vergniaud and his son ‘Gys Grandit’, when I left, and the Marquis appeared as interested in that esclandre as he can ever be interested in anything or anybody.  So perhaps he forgot my visit as soon as it was ended.  Abbe Vergniaud is very ill by the way.  His self-imposed punishment, and his unexpected reward in the personality of his son, have proved a little too much for him,—­both he and ‘Grandit’ are at my Chateau,” here she raised her lorgnon, and peered through it with an inquisitive air, “Tiens!  There is the dear Varillo making himself agreeable as usual to all the ladies!  When does the marriage come off between him and our gifted Sovrani?”

“I do not know,” answered Sylvie, with a little dubious look, “Nothing is contemplated in that way until Angela’s great picture is exhibited.”

The Princesse D’Agramont looked curiously at the opposite wall where an enormous white covering was closely roped and fastened across an invisible canvas, which seemed to be fully as large as Raffaelle’s “Transfiguration”.

“Still a mystery?” she queried, “Has she never shown it even to you?”

Sylvie shook her head.

“Never!” and then breaking off with a sudden exclamation she turned in the direction of the door where there was just now a little movement and murmur of interest, as the slim tall figure of a man moved slowly and with graceful courtesy through the assemblage towards that corner of the studio where the Cardinal sat, his niece standing near him, and there made a slight yet perfectly reverential obeisance.

“Mr. Leigh!” cried Angela, “How glad I am to see you!”

“And I too,” said the Cardinal, extending his hand, and kindly raising Aubrey before he could complete his formal genuflection, “You have not wasted much of your time in Florence!”

“My business was soon ended there,” replied Aubrey.  “It merely concerned the saving of a famous religious picture—­but I find the modern Florentines so dead to beauty that it is almost impossible to rouse them to any sort of exertion . . .”  Here he paused, as Angela with a smile moved quickly past him saying,

“One moment, Mr. Leigh!  I must introduce you to one of my dearest friends!”

He waited, with a curious sense of impatience, and full beating of his heart, answering quite mechanically one or two greetings from Florian Varillo and other acquaintances who knew and recognised him--and then felt, rather than saw, that he was looking into the deep sweet eyes of the woman who had flung him a rose from the balcony of the angels, and that her face, sweet as the rose itself, was smiling upon him.  As in a dream he heard her name, “The Comtesse