“My goodness gracious! can that be Nina?”

And Nina it assuredly was; but not the Nina of the black dress and crimson straw hat with which he had grown familiar.  Oh, no; this young lady who stepped down from the carriage, who waited a second for her friend, and then crossed the pavement, was a kind of vision of light summer coolness and prettiness; even his uninstructed intelligence told him how charmingly she was dressed; though he had but a glimpse of the tight-fitting gown of cream-white, with its silver girdle, the white straw hat looped up on one side and adorned on the other with large yellow roses, the pale-yellow gloves with silver bangles at the wrists, the snow-white sunshade, with its yellow satin ribbons attached.  The vision of a moment—­then it was gone; but only to reappear here at the open door.  And who could think of her costume at all when Nina herself came forward, with the pretty, pale, foreign face so pleasantly smiling, the liquid black eyes softly bespeaking kindness, the half-parted lips showing a glimmer of milk-white teeth.

“Good-morning, Leo!”

“Good-morning, Nina!  They say that ladies are never punctual; but here you are to the moment!”

“Then you have to thank Mrs. Grey—­and your own goodness in sending the carriage for us.  Ah, the delightful flowers!” said she, glancing at the table, and her nostrils seemed to dilate a little, as if she would welcome all their odors at once.  “But the window, Leo—­you will have the window open?  London, it is perfectly beautiful this morning!—­the air is sweet as of the country—­oh, it is the gayest city in the world!”

“I never saw London fuller, anyway,” said he, as he rang the bell, and told the waiter to have luncheon produced forthwith.

Nina, seated at table in that cool summer costume, merely toyed with the things put before her (except when they came to the strawberries); she was chattering away, with her little dramatic gestures, about every conceivable subject within her recent experience, until, as she happened to say something about Naples, Lionel cruelly interrupted her by asking her if she had heard lately from her sweetheart.

“Who?” she said, with a stare; and also the little widow in black looked up from her plate and seemed to think it a strange question.

“Don’t you pretend to have forgotten, Nina,” Lionel said, reprovingly.  “Don’t you look so innocent.  If you have no memory, then I have.”

“But who, Leo?” she demanded, with a touch of indignation.  “Who?—­who?—­who?  What is it you mean?”

“Nina, don’t you pretend you have forgotten poor Nicolo Ciana.”

“Oh, Nicolo!” she exclaimed, with supreme contempt (but all the same there was a faint flush on the clear olive complexion).  “You laugh at me, Leo!  Nicolo!  He was all, as they say here, sham—­sham jewelry, sham clothes, all pretence, except the oil for his hair—­that was plenty and substantial, yes.  And a sham voice—­he told lies to the maestro about his wonderful compass—­”