a drawing-room, and staring at the ceiling with the expression of a man who has just been asked a conundrum. Madame Scarabelli seemed struck with his attitude.
"Don't you see," I said, "he can't read the riddle?"
"You yourself," she answered, "said he was incapable of thinking evil. I should be sorry to have him think any evil of me."
And she looked straight at me—seriously, appealingly—with her beautiful candid brow.
I inclined myself, smiling, in a manner which might have meant—
"How could that be possible?"
"I have a great esteem for him," she went on; "I want him to think well of me. If I am a puzzle to him, do me a little service. Explain me to him."
"Explain you, dear lady?"
"You are older and wiser than he. Make him understand me."
She looked deep into my eyes for a moment, and then she turned away.
26th.—I have written nothing for a good many days, but meanwhile I have been half a dozen times
