I did not go immediately to the Villa San Giorgio; it was necessary that I should be clear why I was to go there at all. How did I stand with regard to Donna Aurelia—did I love her still, or was I cured of my wound? If I loved her, to go to her now were to play the criminal; if I did not, it might be to play the fool.

Because—if I did not love her, why was I going? That is easily answered. I was going because I suspected that all was not well with her. Why was Donna Giulia in retirement? Why was the villa at the disposition of the learned judge? Why was Sir John Macartney so guarded in his admissions, and why so desirous that I should not see Count Giraldi? Apart from my private grievance against that person, which, after all, was only based on surmise and the convictions of Virginia, I could see no possible reason why I should not meet him, but one. That was, that he was fallen a victim to Aurelia's charms. And to a certain extent I felt that I should be responsible for that misfortune, for if I had never loved her she had never been in Florence; and if she had never been in Florence, she had never seen this accomplished, scoffing, cynical Tuscan.

I was not ashamed to confess that I still thought Aurelia the most beautiful woman in the world, the most heavenly in conversation as in person the most superb. All the old glamour was upon me still. I knew that I should be a child at her knees the moment I set eyes upon her again; I knew that I should be imparadised, longing after impossible goodness, filled with impossible joys. But I knew also that I did not desire her. She was sacred, she was so little of the earth that as well might one hope to wed a seraph, all compact of fire, as she. I set by her, in my mind's eye, that passionate Virginia—that faithful, clinging, serving mate of what I knew were my happiest days. Ah, my sweet, lovely, loving wife! Virginia's long kisses, Virginia's close arms, her beating bosom, her fury of love, the meekness, obedience, steadfastness into which it could all be changed at a mere lift of my brows—ah, nuptial love, wedded bliss, the joys of home and the hearth, English joys! Virginia meant all this and more to me. I swore to myself that without her I could not live, that to deserve her I would renounce the world, my patrimony, my country, and that not even a changed Aurelia—changed from Seraph to calling Siren—could keep me from her side.

But Aurelia—Aurelia Gualandi, that delicate flower of Siena, that youngest of the angels, that fount of poesy—what of her? What had she to say to such a certainty as this of mine? In my mind's eye I saw them stand together, she and Virginia, those two beautiful girls, Virginia a head the taller, proudly erect, with arms folded over her chest, and her dark brows forming a bar across her forehead. I saw her in white bodice and green petticoat, her arms and neck bare, her feet in old slippers, her black hair loosely coiled and stuck with a silver pin. I saw her hold herself aloof and dubious, proud and coldly chaste. "Call me and I come," she seemed to say to me between her shut lips, "Call me and I follow you over the world like a dog at your heels. Send me into infamy and I go; expect me to woo you there and I will die sooner. Yours, if you will have me; nobody's, anybody's, if you will not!" In my fancy I could hear her very words, see her steady eyes, her pure and moving lips.

And Aurelia—how did she stand there? I saw her too in my mind's eye; dazzlingly, provokingly, like a creature of pure light, with thrown-back head and parted lips, with jewels about her neck, as I had seen her in the theatre at Siena; and jewels also in her hair. Like a queen of beauty at a love-court, conscious of her power, loving it, proving it; she smiled, she shook her cloudy tresses, she demanded my worship as of right. "If I choose I shall call thee," she seemed to say, "and thee— and thee—and thee again, to stand behind my chair, to kneel at my feet, to be my slave. And wilt thou deny me, Francis—or thou—or thou?"

Her soft eyes, how they peered and sparkled! Her soft lips, how they faltered between laugh and pout! "If I need him I can have him here," I heard her say. "I have but to thrill his name—to call Checho—Checho— and he comes. Is it not so, Checho? Is it not so?"

Call you me, Virginia; call you me in turn, my girl! What said she now but, "Povera Virginia, che fara? Don Francesco non ti ama piu. Ebbene— pazienza!" Virginia shrugged her proud shoulders and turned her grey eyes away. Virginia refused to plead, and was too proud to command.

So stood I, In my fancy, irresolute between these two, their battleground, the prize, it would seem, of one who now refused to fight for it, and of one already sure of victory. But this was very odd about the affair, that the stiffer Virginia grew, as I saw her there, the more indurate, the more ruggedly of the soil, declining battle, the more Aurelia shrank in my eyes, the less confident her call to me, the more frail her hold of my heart. Virginia stood apart like a rock and turned away her eyes from me. "Thou shalt seek me out of thine own will, Francis, for I will never come to thee again of mine!" But Aurelia's halo had slipped; her wings drooped lifeless, her glitter was dimmed. Her appeal was now urgent; her arms called me as well as her voice; but I seemed to shrink from them, as if there were danger in her.

This very singular hallucination of mine decided me to go, for now I was curious. The strife, in which I had had so little to do, had been most vivid, the parties to it so real, that there were moments when I caught myself speaking aloud to one of my phantoms. That one was always Virginia; therefore I dared to go, knowing full well that she would now go with me.

And it was so. At six o'clock of an evening I went out of doors and turned my face towards the east. It was a mild evening as that on which I had seen Virginia for the first time in the wood, her faggot on her head. I seemed to see her now going bravely before me. So clearly did she show, I quickened my steps to overtake her; and again my heart beat, and again I thought of the nymphs and all the soft riot of the woodland scents and sounds. Strange! how the slim figure of the peasant-girl possessed me. I thought of her as I entered the grove of cypresses which led to the villa, and if my heart was in high trouble as I asked for Donna Aurelia, it was the surmise that I should again see Virginia fluttering among the trees that set my blood a-tingling.

But she left me there, as I waited in the saloon open to the shadowed garden; and I knew not whether I felt her the more certainly for her absence than for her former persistent company.