any rate to his fate; it is growing insupportably hot.
11th.—I went this evening to bid farewell to the Scarabelli. There was no one there; she was alone in her great dusky drawing-room, which was lighted only by a couple of candles, with the immense windows open over the garden. She was dressed in white; she was deucedly pretty. She asked me of course why I had been so long without coming.
"I think you say that only for form," I answered. "I imagine you know."
"Chè! what have I done?"
"Nothing at all. You are too wise for that."
She looked at me a while. "I think you are a little crazy."
"Ah no, I am only too sane. I have too much reason rather than too little."
"You have at any rate what we call a fixed idea."
"There is no harm in that so long as it's a good one."
"But yours is abominable!" she exclaimed with a laugh.
"Of course you can't like me or my ideas. All things considered, you have treated me with wonder-
