dance now before a ship’s company, but if you did, no one would suspect that you knew any better.  Have you forgiven me, yet?  Well, I didn’t use you very well, Clementina, and I never pretended I did.  I’ve eaten a lot of humble pie for that, my dear.  Did Miss Milray tell you that I wrote to her about it?  Of course you won’t say how she told you; but she ought to have done me the justice to say that I tried to be a friend at court with her for you.  If she didn’t, she wasn’t fair.”

“She neva said anything against you, Mrs. Milray,” Clementina answered.

“Discreet as ever, my dear!  I understand!  And I hope you understand about that old affair, too, by this time.  It was a complication.  I had to get back at Lioncourt somehow; and I don’t honestly think now that his admiration for a young girl was a very wholesome thing for her.  But never mind.  You had that Boston goose in Florence, too, last winter, and I suppose he gobbled up what little Miss Milray had left of me.  But she’s charming.  I could go down on my knees to her art when she really tries to finish any one.”

Clementina noticed that Mrs. Milray had got a new way of talking.  She had a chirpiness, and a lift in her inflections, which if it was not exactly English was no longer Western American.  Clementina herself in her association with Hinkle had worn off her English rhythm, and in her long confinement to the conversation of Mrs. Lander, she had reverted to her clipped Yankee accent.  Mrs. Milray professed to like it, and said it brought back so delightfully those pleasant days at Middlemount, when Clementina really was a child.  “I met somebody at Cairo, who seemed very glad to hear about you, though he tried to seem not.  Can you guess who it was?  I see that you never could, in the world!  We got quite chummy one day, when we were going out to the pyramids together, and he gave himself away, finely.  He’s a simple soul!  But when they’re in love they’re all so!  It was a little queer, colloguing with the ex-headwaiter on society terms; but the head-waitership was merely an episode, and the main thing is that he is very talented, and is going to be a minister.  It’s a pity he’s so devoted to his crazy missionary scheme.  Some one ought to get hold of him, and point him in the direction of a rich New York congregation.  He’d find heathen enough among them, and he could do the greatest amount of good with their money; I tried to talk it into him.  I suppose you saw him in Florence, this spring?” she suddenly asked.

“Yes,” Clementina answered briefly.

“And you didn’t make it up together.  I got that much out of Miss Milray.  Well, if he were here, I should find out why.  But I don’t suppose you would tell me.”  She waited a moment to see if Clementina would, and then she said, “It’s a pity, for I’ve a notion I could help you, and I think I owe you a good turn, for the way I behaved about your dance.  But if you don’t want my help, you don’t.”