"No, I"
"Yes, you did, absolutely. So I've done it. You saw me freeze Giuseppe Bastoni when I left you this afternoon to join Arturo. You were looking—I saw you were; and I snubbed Giuseppe the worst I know how. He knew I meant it, and he and his brother will understand perfectly that it's permanent. I think he was in a cold rage when I went by him. Then I looked back to see if I had done what I meant to, which was just to please you, and I saw I hadn't. You looked like the siroc! Does it make you bitter to have a girl try to please you?"
He did not reply at once; and she took a cigarette from a silver case lying open before him on the table, and lighted it herself, as he seemed unaware. "Well, does it? What was wrong with what I did?"
"I'll tell you," he said thoughtfully. "I didn't propose a line of conduct for you this morning. You said I'd been watching you and asked me what I saw. Among other things, I said I hadn't been able to understand how any girl could give such fellows as the Bastoni any ground for conceiving, however mistakenly, that they were perhaps rivals with so splendid a young man as Arturo Liana. But whatever harm there was in it had been done; I didn't suggest an
