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nearly so much, though it’s true enough,” he thought, listening to her lazy voice.

“But, you know, this is a scandalous hour. I ought to be in bed———”

“It is a very good hour to be up. Isn’t the sun splendid?”

“The sun? and the flowers”—non c’ è male. But, really, I am too old for this kind of thing. You are such a child!”

Tony smiled up at her, eyes unmasked. It was a carefully secluded path that they had chosen, and he was lying on the grass at her feet, on a small, forgotten lawn with one stone seat shaded by cypresses; the sun was gold everywhere else in the gardens.

“You are just ten,” he said. “Just ten, if you choose. And I———”

“Yes, you, signorino mio. Eight?”

“Eleven,” said Tony, firmly and cheerfully.

“Then I am at least twelve.”

“Oh, no. Ten. So we needn’t bother about grown-up things at all, if you don’t like them. I didn’t have much of a time when I was eleven, so let’s play it now.”

“What was it?” she said idly. “Were you unhappy at school?”

“Not at school. . . . It wouldn’t interest you. What strange eyes you have, Yolanda, they———”

“They do not belong to–ten-years-old. Go on with your play.”

“No, for you won’t play, and you won’t let me be in earnest either.”

“Have you ever been in earnest, Boy?”

“Ma si, sicuro!” He laughed, and she noted curiously that his eyes were very hard–hard as his laughing mouth. He looked as if something had stabbed him unexpectedly, and needed a convulsive effort to hide the effect of the blow; she did not put it into words, only it puzzled her.