FEBRUARY gave place to a stormy March, which ushered itself in angry and tempestuous. By the end of the month it was tired of its anger, and throughout April was like a child promising with smiles and tears to be good. In May it fulfilled its promise. The month was all sunshine, with soft winds and blue skies. The parks were alive with flowers, women donned their brightest dresses, and London looked like a great living nosegay.  
And with the spring the Music of the Heart was playing so loudly for the Duchessa that she wondered Paul could not hear it too, and many times she longed to bid him listen.
 
The portrait was finished, and was in her drawing-room till later in the year when she would take it with her to Italy, where it would hang in the gallery like a great glowing sapphire among the sombre and haughty ladies of the House of Corleone.
 
She saw Paul from time to time. He came to her flat, and she went to his studio. And Michael had been persuaded to come and play for her. And having come once he was ready to come again. He made music sad and gay, and in her presence it lost much of its bitterness. Only when he was alone bitterness returned, and with it a desperate and pathetic note of yearning. For with the beauty of the Duchessa Michael realized more terribly that he was not as other men, though with the curious instinct possessed by the man-creature of hurting himself, he loved to be near her and look at her. And in his heart he laughed cynically at Paul, seeing that he had but to put out his hand and grasp the wonderful jewel of her love. But having been lonely all his own life he understood better than anyone Paul’s hesitation, even while he laughed.
 
And one day when the morning sunshine was more radiant than ever, and the whole earth seemed singing the Benedicite, Sara wandered across one of the bridges that span the river and found herself in Battersea Park. And the lilacs were a mass of purple flowers, and the laburnums hanging in showers of golden rain, and the tulips were flaunting their gaudy colours, and the birds singing full-throated songs of joy.
 
She sat down on a bench near a great bed of golden tulips and looked at them. And the colour took her back to Italy, and the courtyard of Casa di Corleone and the golden oranges, and she knew now the truth of Christopher’s statement that one day she would be ready to forget them. And a little prayer rose up in her heart, a prayer that perhaps hundreds of women were praying at that moment before flower-decked altars, but which Sara addressed to the bed of golden tulips.
 
“Ah, Madonna Santa,” she prayed, in the language she had learned to love, “let him tell me.”
 
And then she looked up and saw Paul coming towards her.
 
“I knew I should find you here,” he said quietly, and he sat down beside her.
 
And the tulips became a mass of blurred gold, and the Music of the Heart rang so loudly in her ears that for the moment the song of the birds was drowned.
 
“I have waited a long time,” said Paul, “but I cannot wait any longer. I love you, Sara.”
 
She turned towards him, and there was an adorable little sob of happiness in her voice.
 
“But, Paul, dear,” sh............