The songs followed one another quickly. There was no time for conversation in between. Now and then, Sophy glanced at Amaldi. "If I were a Roman Catholic and he were a priest," she thought oddly, "I could confess anything to him." Then she smiled, her eyes on the open mouth of the singer. That had been such a queer thought! Amaldi looked so little like a priest. Rather as if he might make an impetuous soldier. Yes—one of those young, fierce soldiers of the Risorgimento. With her quick, visualising fancy, she tried to place him in his proper setting—as a child. What sort of home had he lived in as a child? What sort of countryside held his dearest memories as "Sweet-Waters" held hers? Como? Had he lived in a beautiful old villa on Como? Had he played with the little peasants of Cadenabbia? She saw the lovely lake floating purplish blue before her—the dull silver of snow-peaks. Amaldi as a brown-legged boy wrestling with the little villagers—swimming naked with them in the purplish water like a little brown fish.

Suddenly Olive leaned over and whispered:

"This is getting dreadfully dull and stuffy. Don't you think so? Jean won't sing any more. Do come with me. I'm going on to Kitty Illingham's ball."

Without waiting for Sophy to answer, she said to Varesca:

"Do help me to persuade her—you and Amaldi."

Varesca obediently began to gush forth entreaties. Amaldi said nothing. She had not yet heard the sound of his voice. But his eyes said: "Please come."

"Very well," said Sophy to Olive.

When she entered the ballroom, she felt, rather than saw, people turning to look after her. She had the oddest feeling of being glad that she was tall—that there was so much of her to feel that keen flame of life that had sprung up so suddenly within her.

A woman who admired her said to a man:

"Do look at Sophy Chesney! It does her good to be immured by her ogre. She's simply ablaze, to-night!"

The man said:

"I know she's been called the most beautiful American in England. But I never thought so till to-night."

Sophy herself wondered if this queer, super-vitalised sensation that she had was happiness. She could not tell. She was only one throb of exultation at being alive.

A voice spoke close beside her.

"Will you dance this with me?" Amaldi was asking.

And as she moved off with him, it seemed as if they had often danced together before.

When they stopped they found themselves near the conservatory.

"Let us sit in there a while," she said.

They sat down near a bank of gardenias, and Amaldi fanned her with her fan of white peacock feathers.

"You're not afraid to use peacock's feathers?" he asked, smiling. "In Italy we are superstitious about them."

She answered, smiling also: "I have my full share of superstition, but not about things like that. Are you really afraid of peacock's feathers?"

"No; but my mother wouldn't have one near her for worlds. She says that she has added all the Italian superstitions to the American ones."

"Is your mother an American?" said Sophy, surprised and pleased at this idea. If Amaldi's mother was an American, that would account in a great measure, she thought, for her feeling towards him—that odd feeling of having known him before.

"Yes," Amaldi was saying. "I am half American through my mother. She was a Miss Brainton."

"I am an American," said Sophy; "a Virginian. My name was Sophy Taliaferro. And that's odd"—she broke off, realising that her maiden name was probably of Italian origin—"because, though it's pronounced 'Tolliver,' it's spelt 'Taliaferro.' I never really thought of it before—but the first Taliaferro must have been an Italian!"

"Why, yes," said Amaldi eagerly, "There is a Tagliaferro family in Italy."

"So you're half American and I'm half Italian," she went on, looking at him pleasedly out of her candid eyes. "Such coincidences are strange, aren't they?"

"They're very delightful," said Amaldi, in a voice as frank as her look. He was thinking: "You are the woman I have imagined all my life. It seems very wonderful that you should have Italian blood."

Sophy liked this frank voice of his and the clear look in his eyes so much that she gave way to impulse.

"It seems to me," she said with the smile that he was beginning to watch for, "that Fate means us to become friends."

Amaldi thought: "And there is something of the child in you that makes me worship."

He said a little formally, but with feeling:

"I should consider that the greatest honour that could come to me." Then he added, also under impulse: "Since you're so kind, I'd like to confess something. May I?"

"Yes—do!" said Sophy, still smiling.

"It is this: When Varesca introduced me to you this evening, I had the feeling of having known you before. Strange, wasn't it?"

She was looking at him, her lips parted. She hesitated an instant, then said:

"It was even stranger than you know—because I, too, had that feeling about you. Such things almost make one believe in the old Hindu ideas. Perhaps in some other world and age we have been friends already. It's really very mysterious...."

"But, after all," said Amaldi, "mystery is what makes life worth while."

"I know," she said; "yet people are always trying to solve it...."

"Yes; that's one of its chief uses, I suppose—but not its end."

Sophy looked at him, interested.

"What do you think its end is?" she asked.

"Itself," he answered. He went on in a lighter tone: "The destiny of the Churchly God has always seemed so dreary to me. Think of it! A supremely well-informed Supreme Man—for whom there could be no mystery. An immortality of sound information that couldn't be added to or subtracted from!"

"We really couldn't help being friends, you know!" said Sophy, smiling. "You must come to see me. My husband is not very well—so I don't give dinners or parties or go out much myself. But I like to have my friends come to see me."

Amaldi thought:

"You have the most beautiful heart, and I don't misunderstand it. It is full only of kindness. I shall suffer ... ma ciao!"

"Ciao" is Milanese, and it means many things.

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