"
"What difference does that make to me--once you leave these shores?"
Mrs. Luna rose to her feet. "Ah, chivalry, chivalry!" she exclaimed. And
she walked away to the window--one of the windows from which Ransom had
first enjoyed, at Olive's solicitation, the view of the Back Bay. Mrs.
Luna looked forth at it with little of the air of a person who was sorry
to be about to lose it. "I am determined you shall know where I am
going," she said in a moment. "I am going to Florence."
"Don't be afraid!" he replied. "I shall go to Rome."
"And you'll carry there more impertinence than has been seen there since
the old emperors."
"Were the emperors impertinent, in addition to their other vices? I am
determined, on my side, that you shall know what I have come for,"
Ransom said. "I wouldn't ask you if I could ask any one else; but I am
very hard pressed, and I don't know who can help me."
Mrs. Luna turned on him a face of the frankest derision. "Help you? Do
you remember the last time I asked you to help me?"
"That evening at Mrs. Burrage's? Surely I wasn't wanting then; I
remember urging on your acceptance a chair, so that you might stand on
it, to see and to hear."
"To see and to hear what, please? Your disgusting infatuation!"
"It's just about that I want to speak to you," Ransom pursued. "As you
already know all about it, you have no new shock to receive, and I
therefore venture to ask you----"
"Where tickets for her lecture to-night can be obtained? Is it possible
she hasn't sent you one?"
"I assure you I didn't come to Boston to hear it," said Ransom, with a
sadness which Mrs.
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