He dared not follow them now; and he was about to turn away when he saw Natalie’s new companion motion to her to sit down on one of the seats.  He sat down, too; and he took her hand, and held it in his.  What then?

This man looking on from a distance, with a bitter heart, had no thought against her.  Was it not natural for so beautiful a girl to have a lover?  But that this fellow—­this foreigner—­should degrade her by treating her as if she were a nursery-maid flirting with one of the soldiers from the barracks down there, this filled him with bitterness and hatred.  He turned and walked away with a firm step.  He had no ill thoughts of her, whatever message she might send him.  At the worst, she had been generous to him; she had filled his life with love and hope; she had given him a future.  If this dream were shattered, at least he could turn elsewhere, and say, “Labor, be thou my good.”

Meanwhile, of this stranger?  He had indeed taken Natalie Lind’s hand in his, and Natalie let it remain there without hesitation.

“My little daughter,” said he to her in Italian, “I could have recognized you by your hands.  You have the hands of your mother:  no one in the world had more beautiful hands than she had.  And now I will tell you about her, if you promise not to cry any more.”

It was Calabressa who spoke.

CHAPTER XVII.

CALABRESSA.

When Calabressa called at the house in Curzon Street he was at once admitted; Natalie recognizing the name as that of one of her father’s old friends.  Calabressa had got himself up very smartly, to produce an impression on the little Natalushka whom he expected to see.  His military-looking coat was tightly buttoned; he had burnished up the gold braid of his cap; and as he now ascended the stairs he gathered the ends of his mustache out of his yellow-white beard and curled them round and round his fingers and pulled them out straight.  He had already assumed a pleasant smile.

But when he entered the shaded drawing-room, and beheld this figure before him, all the dancing-master’s manner instantly fled from him.  He seemed thunderstruck; he shrunk back a little; his cap fell to the floor; he could not utter a word.

“Excuse me—­excuse me, mademoiselle,” he gasped out at length, in his odd French.  “Ah, it is like a ghost—­like other years come back—­”

He stared at her.

“I am very pleased to see you, sir,” said she to him, gently, in Italian.

“Her voice also—­her voice also!” he exclaimed, almost to himself, in the same tongue.  “Signorina, you will forgive me—­but—­when one sees an old friend—­you are so like—­ah, so like—­”

“You are speaking of my mother?” the girl said, with her eyes cast down.  “I have been told that I was like her.  You knew her, signore?”

Calabressa pulled himself together somewhat.  He picked up his cap; he assumed a more business-like air.