But perhaps he would not have been so wholly engrossed with that trifling difficulty had he known who this was who had come softly up the stair and was now standing, irresolute, smiling, wondering, at the open door.  She was a remarkably pretty, even handsome young lady, whose pale, clear, olive complexion and coal-black hair bespoke her Southern birth; while there was an eager and yet timid look in her lustrous, soft black eyes, and something about the mobile, half-parted mouth that seemed to say she hardly knew whether to cry or laugh over this meeting with an old friend.  A very charming picture she presented there; for, besides her attractive personal appearance, she was very neatly, not to say coquettishly, dressed, her costume, which had a distinctly foreign air, being all of black, save for the smart little French-looking hat of deep crimson straw and velvet.

At last she said,

“Leo!”

He turned instantly, and had nearly dropped the cigarette-case in his amazement.  And for a second he seemed paralyzed of speech—­he was wholly bewildered—­perhaps overcome by some swift sense of responsibility at finding Antonia Rossi in London, and alone.

“Che, Nina mia,” he cried; “tu stai cca a Londra!—­chesta mo, chi su credeva!—­e senza manca scriverme nu viers’ e lettere—­Nina!—­mi pare nu suonno!—­”

She interrupted him; she came forward, smiling—­and the parting of the pretty lips showed a sunny gleam of teeth; she held up her two hands, palm outwards, as if she would shut away from herself that old, familiar Neapolitanese.

“No, no, no, Leo,” she said, rapidly, “I speak English now—­I study, study, study, morning, day, night; and always I say, ’When I see Leo, he have much surprise that I speak English’—­always I say, ’Some day I go to England, and when I see Leo’—­”

The happy, eager smile suddenly died away from her face.  She looked at him.  A strange kind of trouble—­of doubt and wonderment and pain—­came into those soft, dark, expressive eyes.

“You—­you not wish to see me, Leo?” she said, rather breathlessly—­and as if she could hardly believe this thing.  “I come to London—­and you not glad to see me—­”

Quick tears of wounded pride sprang to the long black lashes; but, with a dignified, even haughty inclination of the head, she turned from him and put her hand on the handle of the door.  At the same instant he caught her arm.

“Why, Nina, you’re just the spoiled child you always were!  Ah, your English doesn’t go so far as that; you don’t know what a spoiled child is?—­e la cianciosella, you Neapolitan girl!  Why, of course I’m glad to see you—­I am delighted to see you—­but you frightened me, Nina—­your coming like this, alone—­”

“I frighten you, Leo?” she said, and a quick laugh shone brightly through her tears.  “Ah, I see—­it is that I have no chaperon?  But I had no time—­I wished to see you, Leo—­I said, ’Leo will understand, and afterwards I get a chaperon all correctly.’  Oh, yes, yes, I know—­but where is the time?—­yesterday I go through the streets—­it is Leo, Leo everywhere in the windows—­I see you in this costume, in the other costume—­and your name so large, so very large, in the—­in the—­”