lightness of tone which somewhat disguised her voice. 'You have the reputation of being a brilliant conversationalist—exert yourself therefore a little!'

'Oh cousin! cousin!' exclaimed Donna Francesca with a comical air of commiseration, while Filippo del Monte whispered something in his ear.

Andrea burst out laughing.

'Cavaliere Sakumi; we are the silent members of this party—we must wake up!'

The long narrow eyes of the Asiatic—redder than ever now that the wine had kindled a deeper crimson on his high cheek-bones—glittered with malice. All this time he had done nothing but gaze at the Duchess of Scerni with the ecstatic look of a bonze in presence of the divinity. His broad flat face, which might have come straight out of a page of O-kou-sai, the great classical humorist, gleamed red among the chains of flowers like a harvest moon.

'Sakumi is in love,' said Andrea in a low voice, and leaning over towards Elena.[10]

[10]

'With whom?'

'With you—have you not observed it yet?'

'No.'

'Well, look at him.'

Elena looked across at him. The amorous gaze of the disguised daimio suddenly affected her with such ill-disguised mirth that the Japanese felt deeply hurt and humiliated.

'See,' she said, and to console him she detached a white camellia and threw it across the table to the envoy of the Rising Sun,—'find some comparison in praise of me!'

The Oriental carried the flower to his lips with a ludicrous air of devotion.

'Ah—ah—Sakumi!' cried the little Baroness d'Isola, 'you are unfaithful to me!'

He stammered a few words while his face flamed. Everybody laughed unrestrainedly, as if the foreigner had been invited solely to provide entertainment for the other guests. Andrea turned laughing towards Elena.

Her head was raised and a little thrown back, and she was gazing furtively at the young man under her eyelashes with one of those indescribably feminine glances which seem to absorb—almost one would say drink in—all that is most desirable, most delectable in the man of their choice. The long lashes veiled the 

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