“Yes,” I said hesitatingly; “I should like to meet her.  Perhaps the chance will occur at some future time.”

“There is not the slightest doubt about that,” said Cellini.  “And now, mademoiselle, will you give me the pleasure of this waltz with you? or are you promised to another partner?”

I was not engaged, and I at once accepted his proffered arm.  Two gentlemen came hurriedly up to claim Amy and her Austrian friend; and for one brief moment Signor Cellini and I stood alone in a comparatively quiet corner of the ballroom, waiting for the music to begin.  I opened my lips to ask him a question, when he stopped me by a slight gesture of his hand.

“Patience!” he said in a low and earnest tone.  “In a few moments you shall have the opportunity you seek.”

The band burst forth just then in the voluptuous strains of a waltz by Gung’l, and together we floated away to its exquisite gliding measure.  I use the word floated, advisedly, for no other term could express the delightful sensation I enjoyed.  Cellini was a superb dancer.  It seemed to me that our feet scarcely touched the floor, so swiftly, so easily and lightly we sped along.  A few rapid turns, and I noticed we were nearing the open French windows, and, before I well realized it, we had stopped dancing and were pacing quietly side by side down the ilex avenue, where the little lanterns twinkled like red fireflies and green glow-worms among the dark and leafy branches.

We walked along in silence till we reached the end of the path.  There, before us, lay the open garden, with its broad green lawn, bathed in the lovely light of the full moon, sailing aloft in a cloudless sky.  The night was very warm, but, regardless of this fact, Cellini wrapped carefully round me a large fleecy white burnous that he had taken from a chair where it was lying, on his way through the avenue.

“I am not cold,” I said, smiling.

“No; but you will be, perhaps.  It is not wise to run any useless risks.”

I was again silent.  A low breeze rustled in the tree-tops near us; the music of the ballroom reached us only in faint and far echoes; the scent of roses and myrtle was wafted delicately on the balmy air; the radiance of the moon softened the outlines of the landscape into a dreamy suggestiveness of its reality.  Suddenly a sound broke on our ears—­a delicious, long, plaintive trill; then a wonderful shower of sparkling roulades; and finally, a clear, imploring, passionate note repeated many times.  It was a nightingale, singing as only the nightingales of the South can sing.  I listened entranced.

    “’Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! 
        No hungry generations tread thee down;
      The voice I hear this passing night was heard
        In ancient days by emperor and clown,’”

quoted Cellini in earnest tones.

“You admire Keats?” I asked eagerly.