After some friendly argument they yielded to my wishes.  I bade them both a civil “good-night,” bending low over my wife’s hand and kissing it, coldly enough, God knows, and yet the action was sufficient to make her flush and sparkle with pleasure.  Then I left them, Ferrari himself escorting me to the villa gates, and watching me pass out on the open road.  As long as he stood there, I walked with a slow and meditative pace toward the city, but the instant I heard the gate clang heavily as it closed, I hurried back with a cautious and noiseless step.  Avoiding the great entrance, I slipped round to the western side of the grounds, where there was a close thicket of laurel that extended almost up to the veranda I had just left.  Entering this and bending the boughs softly aside as I pushed my way through, I gradually reached a position from whence I could see the veranda plainly, and also hear anything that passed.  Guido was sitting on the low chair I had just vacated, leaning his head back against my wife’s breast; he had reached up one arm so that it encircled her neck, and drew her head down toward his.  In this half embrace they rested absolutely silent for some moments.  Suddenly Ferrari spoke: 

“You are very cruel, Nina!  You actually made me think you admired that rich old conte.”

She laughed.  “So I do!  He would be really handsome if he did not wear those ugly spectacles.  And his jewels are lovely.  I wish he would give me some more!”

“And supposing he were to do so, would you care for him, Nina?” he demanded, jealously.  “Surely not.  Besides, you have no idea how conceited he is.  He says he will never make love to a woman unless she first makes love to him; what do you think of that?”

She laughed again, more merrily than before.

“Think!  Why, that he is very original—­charmingly so!  Are you coming in, Guido?”

He rose, and standing erect, almost lifted her from her chair and folded her in his arms.

“Yes, I am coming in,” he answered; “and I will have a hundred kisses for every look and smile you bestowed on the conte!  You little coquette!  You would flirt with your grandfather!”

She rested against him with apparent tenderness, one hand playing with the flower in his buttonhole, and then she said, with a slight accent of fear in her voice—­

“Tell me, Guido, do you not think he is a little like—­like Fabio?  Is there not a something in his manner that seems familiar?”

“I confess I have fancied so once or twice,” he returned, musingly; “there is rather a disagreeable resemblance.  But what of that? many men are almost counterparts of each other.  But I tell you what I think.  I am almost positive he is some long-lost relation of the family—­Fabio’s uncle for all we know, who does not wish to declare his actual relationship.  He is a good old fellow enough, I believe, and is certainly rich as Croesus; he will be a valuable friend to us both.  Come, sposina mia, it is time to go to rest.”