"Well," said I, "you took me so by surprise that I had not my welcome ready. I did not expect the pleasure of seeing you till after our arrival in Paris."
"That is why I am here. I shall not be able to go to Paris. I am bitterly disappointed, but monsignore has made other plans for me. I am to go to Vienna to visit my aunt, whose husband is our ambassador there. The tour to Paris is postponed till the autumn."
Evidently monsignore had heard of the little heretic maiden, and he was going to remove his ward from temptation. I was infinitely obliged to him.
A desultory conversation followed, carried on principally by the young people, and then the count said, "Miss St. Clair tells me that you have visited the Uffizi and Pitti galleries. May I not go with you somewhere to-morrow?—to La Certose or San Miniato, for instance?"
"Thank you," I replied: "we are so exhausted with sight-seeing, Miss St. Clair and I, that we shall stay in all day to-morrow, and we shall be happy to see you once in the afternoon or evening, as may be most convenient for you."
I did not like to be hard and cross to the dear boy whom my heart yearned over, but I felt as much bound to "make an effort" as if I had been a veritable Dombey.
The call lasted afternoon and evening: it was only the change of a particle. I could not reproduce the innocent talk, half gay, half sad, of this long interview, but before he went away the count drew me aside: "Will you give this to Miss St. Clair when I am gone?"
I unfolded the package: it contained a photograph of himself and a small painting which he had executed of the Coliseum on the night of the illumination. "Yes."
"And will you send me her photograph from Paris? I will have it copied by the best miniature-painter in Rome and put in a locket set with diamonds," said the boy enthusiastically.
"I cannot promise."