IX

The grounds immediately appertaining to Craford New Manor are traversed

by a brook. Springing from amidst a thicket of creepers up the

hillside, it comes tumbling and winding, a series of miniature

cascades, over brown rocks, between mossy banks shadowed by ferns and

eglantine, through the sun-shot dimness of a grove of pine-trees, to

fling itself with a final leap and flash (such light-hearted

self-immolation) into the ornamental pond at the bottom of the lawn.

It is a pretty brook, and pleasing to the ear, with its purl and tinkle

of crisp water.

And now, as Anthony, heading for the Wetherleigh-wards exit of the

park, approached the brook, to cross it,--"Sh, sh--please, please,"--a

whisper stopped him.

There by the bank, under the tall pines, where sun and shadow chequered

the russet carpet of pine-needles, there, white-robed, sat Susanna:

white-robed, hatless, gloveless. She was waving her hand, softly, in a

gesture invocative of caution; but her eyes smiled a welcome to him.

Anthony halted, waited,--his heart, I think, high-bearing.

"It is a blue tit," she explained, under her breath, eagerly. "The

rarest bird that ever comes. He is bathing--there--see." She pointed.

Sure enough, in a little rock-formed pool a couple of yards up-stream,

a tiny blue titmouse was vigorously enjoying his bath--ducking,

fluttering, preening his plumage, ducking again, and sending off

shooting-stars of spray, prismatic stars where they crossed the

sunbeams.

"That is the delight of this bit of water," Susanna said, always with

bated breath. "The birds for miles about come here to drink and bathe.

All the rarer and timider birds, that one never sees anywhere else."

"Ah, yes. Very jolly, very interesting," said Anthony, not quite

knowing what he said, perhaps, for his faculties, I hope, were singing

a _Te Deum_. But--with that high nose of his, that cool grey eye, with

that high collar too, and the general self-assurance of his toilet--no

one could have appeared more composed or more collected.

"You speak without conviction," said Susanna. "Don't you care for

birds?"

("Come! You must get yourself in hand," his will admonished his wit.)

"I beg your pardon," he said, "I care for them very much. They 're an

indispensable feature of the landscape, and immensely serviceable to

the agriculturist. But one cares for other things as well. And I had

always fancied that the crowning virtue of this bit of water (since you

mention it) was its amenability to the caprice of man."

"Men _have_ caprices?" questioned she, surprise in her upward glance.

"At any rate," he answered, with allowance for her point, "your

Scottish gardener has. At his caprice, he turns this torrent on or

off, with a tap. For all its air of naturalness and frank impetuosity,

it is an entirely artificial torrent; and your Scottish gardener turns

it on and off with a tap."

"He sways the elements," murmured Susanna, as with awe. "Portentous

being." Then, changing her note to one of gaiety, "_Ecco_," she cried,

"Signor Cinciallegra has completed his ablutions--and _ecco_, he flies

away. Won't you--won't you sit down?" she asked, as her eyes came back

from the departing bird; and a motion of her hand made him free of the

pine-needles.

"Thank you," responded Anthony, taking a place opposite her. "I 'm not

sure," he added, "whether in honesty I ought n't to confess that I have

just been calling upon you."

"Oh," she said, with the politest smile and bow. "I am so sorry to

have missed your visit."

"You are very good." He bowed in his turn. "I wanted to consult you

about a trifling matter of business," he informed her.

"A matter of business--?" she wondered; and her face became all

attention.

"Exactly," said he. "I wanted to ask what you meant by stating that it

was your habit always to be abroad in the hours immaculate? I happened

by the merest chance to be abroad in them myself this morning. I

examined every nook and cranny of them, I turned them inside out; but

not one jot or tittle of you could I discover."

Susanna's eyes were pensive.

"I was speaking of Italy, was I not?" she replied. "I said, I think,

that it was the habit of the people in my part of Italy. But, anyhow,

one sometimes varies one's habits. And, after all, one sometimes makes

statements that are rash."

"And one is always free to repudiate one's responsibilities,"

suggestively supplemented our young man.

"Fortunately," she agreed. "Moreover," she changed her ground, "one

should not be too exclusive in one's sympathies, one should not be

unfair to other hours. This present hour here now--is it not

immaculate also? With its pure sky, and its odour of warm pines, its

deep cool shadows, its patines of bright gold where the sun penetrates,

and then, plashing through it, this curling, dimpling, artificial

torrent? It is not the hour's fault if it happens to arrive somewhat

late in the day--it had to wait its turn. Besides, if one can believe

what one reads in books, it will be the very earliest of early

hours--down there," (with the tip of a vertical finger she touched the

earth), "at the Antipodes."

"To this present hour," said Anthony, with impressive slowness, "I

personally owe so great a debt of thankfulness, it would be churlish of

me even to hint a criticism. And yet--and yet--how shall I express it?

_Eppur' si muove_. It moves, it hastes away;--while I could wish it to

remain forever, fixed as the Northern Star. Do they know, in your part

of Italy, any means by which the sparkling minutes can be prevailed

upon to stay their flight?"

"That is a sort of knowledge," Susanna answered, with a movement of the

head, "for which, I fear, one would have to go to a meta-physical and

thrifty land like Germany. We are not in the least metaphysical or

thrifty in my part of Italy. We allow the sparkling minutes to slip

between our fingers, like gold between the fingers of a spendthrift.

But--but we rather enjoy the feeling, as they slip."

"I wonder," Anthony hazarded, "whether you would take it very much

amiss if--if I should make a remark?"

Susanna's eyes lighted, dangerously.

"I wonder," she said, on a key of dubious meditation.

"I am not easily put off," said he, with firmness. "I am moved to

remark upon the astonishing facility with which you speak English.

Now--do your worst."

Susanna smiled.

"It would take more than that to provoke me to do my worst," she said.

"English is as natural to me as my mother-tongue. I always had English

governesses. Everyone has English governesses in Italy nowadays, you

know."

"Yes," he said, "I know; and they are generally Irish, are they not?

Of course you 've lived a great deal in England?" he surmised.

"On the contrary," she set him right, "this is my first visit here."

"Is it possible?" he marvelled. "I thought the true Oxford accent

could only be acquired on the spot."

"Have I the true Oxford accent?" Susanna brightly doubted, eye-brows

raised.

"Thank heaven," he gravely charged her, "thank heaven, kneeling, that

you have n't the true Oxford manner. Does England," he asked, "seem

very rum?"

"Yes," she answered, with immediate candour, "England seems very

rum--but not so rum as it might, perhaps, if I had n't read so many

English novels. English novels are the only novels you 're allowed to

read, in my part of Italy, when you 're young."

"Ah," said Anthony, nodding, "that's because our English novelists are

such dabs at the art of omission." And after the briefest pause, "Mere

idle and impertinent curiosity," he postulated, "is one thing: honest

neighbourly interest is another. If I were a bolder man, I should ask

you point-blank what part of Italy your part of Italy is."

Susanna (all a soft whiteness, in her white frock, in the mellow

penumbra of the pine-grove) leaned back, and softly laughed.

"My part of Italy? That is not altogether easy to tell," she said,

considering. "In one sense, my part of Italy is Rome. I belong to a

Roman family, and am politically a subject of the Holy Father,--what

though, for the moment, his throne be usurped by the Duke of Savoy, and

his prerogatives exercised by the Camorra. But then my part of Italy

is also Venice. We are Venetians, if to have had a house in Venice for

some four hundred years is sufficient to constitute folk Venetians.

But the part of Italy where I most often live, the part I like best, is

a part you will never have heard of--a little castaway island in the

Adriatic, about fifty miles north from Ancona: a little mountainous

island, all fragrant of rosemary and basil, all grey with

olive-trees,--all grey, save where the grey is broken by the green of

vineyards, or the white and green of villas with their gardens, or the

white and red of villages, with their red roofs, and white walls and

campanili,--all grey, and yet all blue and gold, between the blue sea

and the blue sky, in the golden light,--the little, unknown, beautiful

island of Sampaolo."

She was actress enough to look unconscious and unconcerned, as she

pronounced the name of Sampaolo. Her eyes gazed dreamily far away, as

if they could behold an air-vision of her island. At the same time, I

suspect, they kept a vigilant side-watch on Anthony.

Did Anthony give never so slightly perceptible a start? Did _his_ eyes

quicken? Did he colour a little? At all events, we need not question,

he was aware of a sudden throb of excitement,--on the spur of which,

without stopping to reflect, "Really?" he exclaimed. "That is a very

odd coincidence. Sampaolo--I know all about it."

"Indeed?" said Susanna, looking surprise. "You have been there? It is

rarely visited by travellers--except commercial ones."

"No, I have never been there," he answered, so far truthfully enough.

"But--but I know--I used to know--a man whose--a man who had," he

concluded lamely. For, when he did stop to reflect, "If you care for

an amusing situation," he reflected, "you 'll leave her in the dark

touching your personal connection with Sampaolo."

Susanna, being quite in the light touching that connection, could not

help smiling.

"I must play the game on his conditions, and feign ignorance of all

that he does n't tell," she reminded herself. "But fancy his being so

secretive!"

"I hope the 'man who had' reported favourably of us?" she threw out.

"H'm--yes," said Anthony, with deliberation. "The truth is, he

reported nothing. He was one of those inarticulate fellows who travel

everywhere, and can give no better account of their travels than just a

catalogue of names. He chanced to let fall that he had visited

Sampaolo, and I thus learned that such a place existed. I can't tell

why, but the fact struck me, and stuck in my mind, and I have ever

since been curious to know something about it."

"You said you knew _all_ about it," Susanna complained, her eyes

rebukeful, her tone a tone of disappointment.

"Oh, that was a manner of speaking," Anthony quibbled, plausible and

unperturbed. "I meant that I knew of its existence--which, after all,

is relatively a good deal, being vastly more than most people know."

"It would be worth your while," said Susanna, "the next time you find

yourself in its vicinity, to do Sampaolo the honour of an inspection.

It is easily reached. The Austrian-Lloyd coasting steamers from Venice

call there once a week, and there is a boat every Monday and Thursday

from Ancona. Sampaolo is an extremely interesting spot,--interesting

by reason of its natural beauty, its picturesque population, and (to

me, at least) by reason of its absurdly romantic, serio-comic,

lamentable little history."

"Ah--?" said Anthony, but with a suspension of the voice, with a

solicitude of eye and posture, that pressed her to continue.

"He is a poor dissembler," thought Susanna. "As if any mere chance

outsider would care a fig to hear about Sampaolo. However, so much the

better."

"Yes," she said, and again she seemed rapt in dreamy contemplation of

an air-vision. "The natural beauty of Sampaolo is to my thinking

unparalleled. At a distance, as your ship approaches it, Sampaolo lies

on the horizon like a beautiful soft cloud, all vague rose-colours and

purples, a beautiful soft pinnacle of cloud. Then gradually, as you

come nearer, the cloud changes, crystallises; and Sampaolo is like a

great wonderful carving, a great wonderful carved jewel, a cameo cut on

the sea, with a sort of aureole about it, an opalescence of haze and

sunshine. Nearer still, its aspect is almost terrible, a scene of

breath-taking precipices, spire-like mountains, wild black gorges,

ravines; but, to humanise it, you can count at least twenty villages,

villages clinging to every hillside, perched on almost every hill-top,

each with its group of cypresses, like sentinels, and its campanile.

At last you pass between two promontories, the Capo del Turco and the

Capo del Papa, from the summits of which two great Crucifixes look

down, and you enter the Laguna di Vallanza, a land-locked bay, tranquil

as a lake. And there, floating on the water as it seems, there is a

palace like a palace in Fairyland, a palace of white marble, all

stately colonnades and terraces, yet looking, somehow, as light as if

it were built of the sea's foam. This is one of the palaces--the

summer palace--of the Counts of Sampaolo. It seems to float on the

water, but it really occupies a tiny mite of an islet, called Isola

Nobile; and connected with Isola Nobile by marble bridges are two other

tiny Islets, laid out in gardens, Isola Fratello and Isola Sorella.

The Counts of Sampaolo are one of the most ancient and illustrious

families in Europe, the Valdeschi della Spina, descendants of San Guido

Valdeschi, a famous soldier-saint of the Twelfth Century. They have

another palace in the town of Vallanza, their winter palace, the

Palazzo Rosso; and a splendid old mediaeval castle, Castel San Guido,

on the hill behind the town; and two or three delightful villas in

different parts of the island. A highly enviable family, are they not?

Orange-trees are in blossom at Sampaolo the whole year round, in

blossom and in fruit at the same time. The olive orchards of Sampaolo

are just so many wildernesses of wild flowers: violets, anemones,

narcissus; irises, white ones and purple ones; daffodils, which we call

asphodels; hyacinths, tulips, arums, orchids--oh, but a perfect riot of

wild flowers. In the spring the valleys of Sampaolo are pink with

blossoming peach-trees and almond-trees, where they are not scarlet

with pomegranates. Basil, rosemary, white heather, you can pluck where

you will. And everywhere that they can find a footing, oleanders grow,

the big double red ones, great trees of them, such wonder-worlds of

colour, such fountains of perfume. The birds of Sampaolo never cease

their singing--they sing as joyously in December as in June. And the

nightingales of Sampaolo sing all day, as well as all night. _Tiu,

tiu, tiu--will, will, will--weep, weep, weep_--I can hear them now.

But I must stop, or I shall go on for ever. Believe me, the beauties

of Sampaolo are very great."

It was a long speech, but it had had an attentive listener. It was a

long speech, but it had been diversified by the varying modulations of

Susanna's voice, the varying expressions of her face, by little pauses,

hesitations, changes of time and of rhythm, by occasional little

gestures.

It had had an attentive, even an absorbed listener: one who, already

interested in the speaker, happened to have a quite peculiar interest

in her theme. As she spoke, I think Anthony beheld his own air-vision

of Sampaolo; I fancy the familiar park of Craford, the smooth,

well-groomed, well-fed English landscape, melted away; I doubt if he

saw anything of the actual save the white form, the strenuous face, the

shining eyes, of his informant.

But now, her voice ceasing, suddenly the actual came back--the brown

brook swirling at their feet, the tall pines whispering above, the warm

pine-incense, the tesserae of sun and shadow dancing together on the

carpet of pine-needles, as the tassels overhead swung in the moving air.

"You paint Elysium," he said. "You paint a veritable Island of the

Blessed."

Susanna's eyes clouded.

"Once upon a time Sampaolo _was_ a veritable Island of the Blessed,"

she answered sadly. "But now no more. Since its union with what they

call the Kingdom of Italy, Sampaolo has been, rather, an Island of the

Distressed."

"Ah--?" said Anthony, again on a tone, with a mien, that pressed her to

continue.

But all at once, as if recalled from an abstraction, Susanna gave a

little laugh,--what seemed a slightly annoyed, half-apologetic little

laugh,--and lifted her hands in a gesture of deprecation, of

self-reprehension.

"I beg your pardon," she said. "I can't think how I have allowed

myself to become so tiresome. One prates of one's parish pump."

"_Tiresome_?" cried out Anthony, in spontaneous protest. "I can't tell

you how much you interest me."

"He is the poorest of poor dissemblers," thought Susanna.

"You are extremely civil," she said. "But how can the condition of our

parish pump possibly interest a stranger?"

"H'm," thought Anthony, taken aback, "I expect my interest _does_ seem

somewhat improbable."

So, speciously, he sought to justify it.

"For more reasons than a few," he alleged. "To begin with, if I dared,

I should say because it is _your_ parish pump." He ventured a little

bow. "But, in the next place, because it is an Italian parish pump,

and somehow everything connected with Italy interests one. Then,

because it is the parish pump of Sampaolo, and I have always been

curious about Sampaolo. And finally, because it is a _human_ parish

pump--_et nihil humanum_ . . . . So please go on. How did Sampaolo

come to be an Island of the Distressed?"

"He 's not such a poor dissembler, after all,--when roused to action,"

thought Susanna. "But perhaps we have had enough Sampaolo for one

session. I must leave him with an appetite for more."

"Hark," she said, raising a finger, while her face became intent. "Is

n't that a skylark?"

Somewhere--just where one could n't tell at first--a bird was singing.

Many birds were singing, innumerable birds were chirruping, all about.

But this bird's song soared clear above the others, distinct from them,

away from them, creating for itself a kind of airy isolation. It was

an exquisitely sweet, liquid song, it was jocund, joyous, and it was

sustained for an astonishing length of time. It went on and on and on,

never faltering, never pausing, in soft trills and gay roulades, shrill

skirls or flute-like warblings, a continuous outpour, for I don't know

how many minutes. It was a song marvellously apposite to the bright

day and the wide countryside. The freshness of the air, the raciness

of the earth, the green of grass and trees, the laughing sunlight,--one

might have fancied it was the spirits of all these singing together in

unison.

"It's a skylark, sure enough," said Anthony, looking skywards. "But

where the mischief is he?"

And they gave eyes and ears to trying to determine, searching the

empyrean. Now his voice seemed to come from the west, now from the

north, the south, the east; it was the most deceptive, the most elusive

thing.

"Ah--there he is," Anthony cried, of a sudden, and pointed.

"Where? Where?" breathlessly asked Susanna, anxious as if life and

death hung on the question.

"There--look!" said Anthony, pointing again.

High, high up in the air, directly over their heads, they could discern

a tiny speck of black against the blue of the sky. They sat with their

necks craned back as far as they would go, and gazed at it like people

transfixed, whilst the sky pulsated to their dazzled sight.

"It is incredible," said Susanna. "A mere pin-point in that immensity,

yet he fills it full with his hosannas."

But the pin-point grew bigger, the hosannas louder; the bird was

descending.

"Literally it is music coming down upon us from heaven," she said.

"Yes--but when it reaches us, it will stop, we shall lose it," said

Anthony. "It is music too ethereal to survive the contact of this

gross planet."

Singing, singing, the bird sank, with folded wings; and sure enough,

the very instant he touched the earth, his song stopped short--a bubble

pricked, a light extinguished.

"He has come to drink and bathe," said Susanna.

He was hopping towards the water, on the other side of the brook, for a

poet the most prosaic-looking fellow, in the soberest brown coat.

Evidently he did n't dream that he was not alone. The trees had no

doubt hidden his watchers. But now Susanna's voice startled him. With

one wild glance at them, and a wild twitter of surprise, self-rebuke,

consternation, he bounded into the air, and in a second was a mere

speck again.

"Oh, how silly of him," Susanna sighed. "Does he think we are dragons?"

"No," said Anthony. "He would n't be half so frightened if he thought

we were dragons. He thinks we are much worse."

"Oh--?" guilelessly questioned she. "What is that?"

"He thinks we are human beings," Anthony explained.

Susanna laughed, but it was rather a rueful laugh.

"Anyhow," she said, "he 'll not come back so long as we remain here.

Yet he is hot and thirsty--and who knows from what a distance he may

have flown, just for this disappointment? Don't you think it would be

gracious on our part if we were to remove the cause of his alarm?"

She rose, and led the way out of the pine-grove, towards her house.

When they reached the open, it was to discover, walking together from

the opposite direction, Adrian and Miss Sandus,--Adrian bending towards

his companion in voluble discourse, which he pointed and underlined by

copious gesticulation.

"Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues," Anthony murmured, more or less

in his sleeve.

But at sight of him, Adrian halted, and struck an attitude.

"Oh, the underhand, the surreptitious villain!" he cried out. Then he

turned his pink face towards Susanna. "Lady, beauteous lady, vision of

loveliness," he saluted her, bowing to the ground. "But oh, to think

of that dark, secret villain! He 's gone and made your acquaintance

without waiting for me to introduce him, which I was so counting upon

doing to-morrow morning. Already he groans and totters under the

weight of obligations I 've heaped upon him. I wanted to add one

more--and now he 's gone and circumvented me."

"You will add one more if you 'll be so good as to introduce me to Miss

Sandus," said Anthony.

And when the introduction was accomplished, he proceeded to make

himself as agreeable to that lady as he possibly could. In the first

place, he liked her appearance, he liked her brisk, frank manner; and

then, is n't it always well to have a friend near the rose?

The result was that when she and Susanna were alone, Miss Sandus

succinctly remarked, "My dear, your cousin is a trump."

X

The shadows were long, as he and Adrian strolled back to Craford Old

Manor.

"Well, now, Truepenny," Adrian began, "now that you 've met her, speak

out, and tell me on your heart and conscience how she impresses you."

"She seems all right," was Anthony's temperate reply.

"_All right_?" cried Adrian, looking scorn and pity. "My dear

Malaprop, she 's just simply the nicest person of her sex within the

confines of the Solar System. She is to other women what--well, I 'll

name no names--what somebody I _could_ name is to other men. And with

such eyes--hey? Are they bright? Are they sharp? Are they trusty?

Are they knowing?"

"I expect she can see with them," said Anthony.

"_See_ with them," Adrian sniffed. "I 'll tell you what she can

do--she can see round a corner with them. And then such pretty little

ears, besides. Did you notice her ears?"

"I noticed she was n't earless," Anthony admitted.

"_Earless_," cried Adrian. "Her ears are like roses and white lilies.

Earless, says he. I 'll bet three-halfpence you 'll presently be

denying that she 's witty."

"She seems witty enough," assented Anthony.

"_Witty_," Adrian scoffed, cutting a caper to signify his disdain for

the weak expression. "Witty is n't the word for it. And then, with

all her years, she 's so _young_, is n't she? She breathes the fresh,

refreshing savour of an unspoiled soul."

"Yes, she's young--for the time being," Anthony agreed. "By the bye,

do you know where she comes from?"

"_Do_ I know? I should rather think I know," said Adrian, swaggering.

"She has n't a secret from me. She comes from Westmoreland. They 're

an old Westmoreland family. But she lives in Kensington. She has one

of those jolly old houses in Kensington Square. Historic, romantic,

poetic Kensington Square, where burning Sappho loved and sang, and

Thackeray wrote the What-do-you-call-'ems. Who fears to speak of

Ninety-eight? That's her number. Ninety-eight, Kensington Square, W.

And whenever I have occasion to run up to town, mind, I 'm not to think

of going to an hotel, I 'm to drive straight to Ninety-eight, and it

will be her joy to take me in. So it sometimes pays to be charming,

after all."

"I see," said Anthony.

"You see? The deuce you do. What do you see?" asked Adrian, opening

his blue eyes wide, and peering about, as one who would fain see too.

"You patter of Miss Sandus," said Anthony.

Adrian came to a standstill, and raised his hands towards heaven.

"Now I call upon the choirs of blessed Cherubim and Seraphim," he

exclaimed. "I call upon them to suspend their singing for an instant,

and to witness this. He sees that I patter of Miss Sandus. What

perspicuity. And he just a mortal man, like anybody--nay, by all

accounts, just a bluff country squire. Ah, what a noble understanding.

Well, then, my dear Hawkshaw, since there's no concealing anything from

you,--_fine mouche, allez_!--I own up. I patter of Miss Sandus."

"Do you happen to know where Madame Torrebianca comes from?" Anthony

asked.

"Oho!" cried Adrian. "It's Madame Torrebianca that _you 've_ been

raving about. Ah, yes. Oh, I concede at once that Madame Torrebianca

is very nice too. None readier than I to do her homage. But for fun

and devilment give me Peebles. Give me old ladies, or give me little

girls. You 're welcome to the betwixts and the betweens. Old ladies,

who have passed the age of folly, or little girls, who have n't reached

it. But women in the prime of their womanhood are always thinking of

fashion-plates and curling-irons and love and shopping. Name me, if

you can, four vainer, tiresomer, or more unfruitful topics. Have you

never waked in your bed at midnight to wonder how it has come to pass

that I, at my time of life, with my attractions, am still a bachelor?

To wonder what untold disappointment, what unwritten history of sorrow,

has left me the lonely, brooding celibate you see? I 'll lift the

veil--a moment of épanchement. It's because I 've never met a

marriageable woman who had n't her noddle stuffed with curling-irons

and fashion-plates and love and shopping."

"Do you happen to know where she comes from?" Anthony repeated.

"She--? Who?" asked Adrian, looking vague. Then, as Anthony

vouchsafed no answer, but merely twirled his stick, and gazed with

indifferent eyes at the horizon, "Oh--Madame Torrebianca?" he

conjectured. "Still harping on my daughter? Of course I know where

_she_ comes from. She comes from the land where the love of the turtle

now melts into sweetness, now maddens to crime--as who should say a

land of Guildhall banquets. She comes from Italy. Have you ever eaten

ortolans in Italy?"

"Do you happen to know what part of Italy?" Anthony persisted.

"From Rome, the pomp and pageant of imperial Rome," returned Adrian

promptly. "I 've got it in the lease. Nothing like having things in

leases. The business instinct--what? Put it in black and white, says

I. 'La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca, of the Palazzo Sebastiani, via

Quattro Fontane, Rome, party of the second part.' A _beau vers_, is

n't it? The lilt, the swelling cadence, the rich rhyme, the hidden

alliterations,--and then the sensitive, haunting pathos, the eternal

verities adumbrated by its symbolism. I 've stood upon Achilles' tomb,

and heard Troy doubted. Time--that monster-mother, who brings forth

her children only to devour them--Time shall doubt of . . ."

"Rome may be the official sort of address she gives to land-agents and

people," Anthony interposed. "But the part of Italy where she really

lives is a little castaway island in the Adriatic, some fifty miles

north from Ancona,--the little, unknown, beautiful island of Sampaolo."

Adrian came to a standstill again, and dropped his jaw in sign of

astonishment.

"Oh, come. Not really?" he gasped at length.

"Yes, really," said Anthony.

"My eye!" Adrian exclaimed.

"It _is_ odd, is n't it?" said Anthony.

"_Odd_?" cried Adrian. "It's--it--it beggars the English tongue."

"Well, if it beggars yours, it is doing pretty well," said Anthony.

"You goose," said Adrian, resuming his walk. "Can you actually suppose

that I 've passed all these golden days and weeks in friendly

hob-nobbings with her, and not learned that she came from the island of

Sampaolo? A fellow of penetration, like me? I appeal to your

honour--is it likely?"

"Why the devil have you never told me?" Anthony demanded, with asperity.

"You 've never asked me--you 've never given me a chance. You talk,

when you have me for a listener, you talk such an uninterrupted stream,

it's a miracle if I ever get a word in edgewise," Adrian explained.

"I trust, at least, that you 've been equally taciturn with her," said

Anthony.

"My good Absolute, I am the soul of taciturnity," Adrian boasted,

expanding his chest, and thumping it. "This bosom is a sealed

sanctuary for the confidences of those who confide in me. Besides,

when I 'm with Madame Torrebianca, believe me, we have other subjects

of conversation than the poor Squire o' Craford."

"You see," said Anthony, "for the lark of the thing, I should like, for

the present, to leave her in ignorance of my connection with Sampaolo."

"That's right," cried Adrian. "Dupe, cozen, jockey the trustful young

creature. Do. There 's a great-hearted gentleman. You need n't fear

_my_ undeceiving her. I know my place; I know who holds the

purse-strings; I know which side my bread is buttered on. Motley's my

wear. So long as you pay my wages, you may count upon my connivance."

"I shall see her to-morrow morning at Mass. I wonder whether I am in

love with her," Anthony was thinking.