PART II

I

Cosmo descended into a hall now empty and with most of its lights

extinguished. A loud murmur of voices guided him to the door of the

dining room. He discovered it to be a long apartment with flat pilasters

dividing its whitewashed walls, and resembling somewhat a convent's

refectory. The resemblance was accentuated by the two narrow tables

occupying its middle. One of them had been appropriated by the British

naval officers, had lights on it, and bristled with the necks of wine

bottles along its whole length. The talk round it was confused and

noisy. The other, shorter, table accommodated two rows of people in

sombre garments who at first glance struck Cosmo as natives of the town

and belonging to a lower station in life. They had less lights, less

wine, and almost no animation. Several smaller tables were ranged

against the walls at equal intervals, and Cosmo's eye was caught by one

of them because of the candles in the sconce on the wall above it having

been lighted. Its cloth was dazzlingly white, and Signor Cantelucci with

a napkin in his hand stood respectfully at the elbow of its sole

occupant, who was seated with his back to the door.

Cosmo was under the impression that his entrance had been unobserved.

But before he had walked half the length of the room Signor Cantelucci,

whose eyes had never ceased darting here and there while his body

preserved its deferential attitude at the elbow of the exclusive client,

advanced to meet him with his serious and attentive air. He bowed.

Perhaps the signore would not mind sharing the table of his illustrious

countryman.

"Yes, if my countryman doesn't object," assented Cosmo readily. He was

absolutely certain that this must be the doctor of whom Spire had

spoken.

Cantelucci had no doubt that His Excellency's company would be most

welcome to his illustrious countryman. Then stepping aside, he added

under his breath: "He is a person of great distinction. A most valued

patron of mine. . . ." The person thus commended, turning his head

ensconced in the high collar of his coat, disclosed to Cosmo a round

face with a shaved chin, strongly marked eyebrows, round eyes, and thin

lips compressed into a slightly peevish droop which, however, was at

once corrected by an attempt at a faint smile. Cosmo, too, produced a

faint smile. For an appreciable moment they looked at each other without

saying a word while Cantelucci, silent too, executed a profound bow.

"Sit down, sir, sit down," said the elder man (Cosmo judged him to be

well over forty), raising his voice above the uproar made by the

occupants of the naval table and waving his hand at the empty chair

facing his own. It had a high carved back showing some traces of

gilding, and the silk which covered it was worn to rags. Cosmo sat down

while Cantelucci disappeared and the man across the table positively

shouted, "I am glad," and immediately followed that declaration by an

energetic "Oh damn!" He bent over the table: "One can't hear oneself

speak with that noisy lot. All heroes, no doubt, but not a single

gentleman."

He leaned back and waited till the outburst of noisy mirth had died out

at the officers' table. The corners of his mouth drooped again and Cosmo

came to the conclusion that face in repose was decidedly peevish.

"I don't know what they have got to be so merry about," the other began,

with a slight glance at the naval table and leaning forward again

towards Cosmo. "Their occupation is gone. Heroes are a thoughtless lot.

Yet just look at that elderly lieutenant at the head of the table.

Shabby coat. Old epaulette. He doesn't laugh. He will die a

lieutenant--on half pay. That's how heroic people end when the heroic

times are over."

"I am glad," said Cosmo steadily, "that you recognize at least their

heroism."

The other opened his mouth for some time before he laughed, and that

gave his face an expression of somewhat hard jollity. But the laugh when

it came was by no means loud and had a sort of ingratiating softness.

"No, no. Don't think I am disparaging our sea service. I had the

privilege to know the greatest hero of them all. Yes, I had two talks

with Lord Nelson. Well, he was certainly not . . ."

He interrupted himself and raising his eyes saw the perfectly still gaze

of Cosmo fastened on his face. Then peevishly:

"What I meant to say was that he at least was indubitably a hero. I

remember that I was very careful about what I said to him. I had to be

mighty careful then about what I said to anybody. Someone might have put

it into his head to hang me at some yard-arm or other."

"I envy your experience all the same," said Cosmo amiably. "I suppose

your conscience was clear?"

"I have always been most careful not to give my conscience any license

to trouble me," retorted the other with a certain curtness of tone which

was not offensive; "and I have lived now for some considerable time. I

am really much older than I look," he concluded, giving Cosmo such a

keen glance that the young man could not I help a smile.

The other went on looking at him steadily for a while, then let his eyes

wander to a door in a distant part of the long room as if impatient for

the coming of the dinner. Then giving it up:

"A man who has lived actively, actively I say, the last twenty years may

well feel as old as Methuselah. Lord Nelson was but a circumstance in my

life. I wonder, had he lived, how he would have taken all this."

A slight movement of his hand seemed to carry this allusion outside the

confines of the vaulted noisy room, to indicate all the out-of-doors of

the world. Cosmo remarked that the hand was muscular, shapely, and

extremely well cared for.

"I think there can be no doubt about the nature of his feelings if he

were living." Cosmo's voice was exactly non-committal. His interlocutor

grunted slightly.

"H'm. He would have done nothing but groan and complain about anything

and everything. No, he wouldn't have taken it laughing. Very poor

physique. Very. Frightful hypochondriac. . . . I am a doctor, you know."

Cantelucci was going to attend himself on his two guests. He presented

to the doctor a smoking soup tureen enveloped in a napkin. The doctor

assumed at once a business-like air, and at his invitation Cosmo held

out his plate. The doctor helped him carefully.

"Don't forget the wine, my wine, Anzelmo," he said to Cantelucci, who

answered by a profound bow. "I saved his life once," he continued after

the innkeeper had gone away.

The tone was particularly significant. Cosmo, partly repelled and partly

amused by the man, enquired whether the worthy host had been very ill.

The doctor swallowed the last spoonful of soup.

"Ill," he said. "He had a gash that long in his side and a set of

forty-pound fetters in his legs. I cured both complaints. Not without

some risk to myself, as you may imagine. There was an epidemic of

hanging and shooting in the South of Italy then."

He noticed Cosmo's steady stare and raised the corners of his mouth with

an effect of geniality on his broad rosy face.

"In '99, you know. I wonder I didn't die of it too. I was considerably

younger then and my humane instincts, early enthusiasms, and so on had

led me into pretty bad company. However, I had also pretty good friends.

What with one thing and another I am pretty well known all over Italy.

My name is Martel--Doctor Martel. You probably may have heard. . . ."

He threw a searching glance at Cosmo, who bowed non-committally, and went

on without a pause: "I am the man who brought vaccine to Italy, first.

Cantelucci was trying to tell me your name but really I couldn't make it

out."

"Latham is my name," said Cosmo, "and I only set foot in Italy for the

first time in my life two days ago."

The doctor jerked his head sideways.

"Latham, eh? Yorkshire?"

"Yes," said Cosmo, smiling.

"To be sure. Sir Charles . . ."

"That's my father."

"Yes, yes. Served in the Guards. I used to know the doctor of his

regiment. Married in Italy. I don't remember the lady's name. Oh, those

are old times. Might have been a hundred years ago."

"You mean that so much history has been made since."

"Yes, no end of history," assented the doctor, but checked himself. "And

yet, tell me, what does it all amount to?"

Cosmo made no answer. Cantelucci having brought the wine while they

talked, the doctor-filled two glasses, waited a moment as if to hear

Cosmo speak, but as the young man remained silent he said:

"Well, let us drink then to Peace."

He tossed the wine down his throat while Cosmo drank his much more

leisurely. As they set down their empty glasses they were startled by a

roar of a tremendous voice filling the vaulted room from end to end in

order to "let Their Honours know that the boat was at the steps." The

doctor made a faint grimace.

"Do you hear the voice of the British lion, Mr. Latham?" he asked

peevishly. "Ah, well, we will have some little peace now here."

Those officers at the naval table who had to go on board rose in a body

and left the room hastily. Three or four who had a longer leave drew

close together and began to talk low with their heads in a bunch. Cosmo

glancing down the room seemed to recognize at the door the form of the

seaman whom he had met earlier in the evening. He followed the officers

out. The other diners, the sombre ones, and a good many of them with

powdered heads, were also leaving the room. Cantelucci put another dish

on the table, stepped back a pace with a bow, and stood still. A moment

of profound silence succeeded the noise.

"First rate," said Doctor Martel to Cosmo, after tasting the dish, and

then gave a nod to Cantelucci, who made another bow and retreated

backwards, always with a solemn expression on his face.

"Italian cooking, of course, but then I am an old Italian myself. Not

that I love them, but I have acquired many of their tastes. Before we

have done dining you will have tasted the perfection of their cookery,

north and south, but I assure you are sharing my dinner. You don't

suppose that the dishes that come to this table are the same the common

customers get."

Cosmo made a slight bow. "I am very sensible of the privilege," he said.

"The honour and the pleasure are mine, I assure you," the doctor said in

a half-careless tone and looking with distaste towards the small knot of

officers with a twenty-four hours' leave who had finished their

confabulation and had risen in a body like men who had agreed on some

pleasant course of action. Only the elderly lieutenant lagging a little

behind cast a glance at his two countrymen at the little table and

followed his comrades with less eager movements.

"A quarter of a tough bullock or half a roast sheep are more in their

way, and Cantelucci knows it. As to that company that was sitting at the

other table, well, I daresay you can tell yourself what they were, small

officials or tradesmen of some sort. I should think that emptying all

their pockets--and they were how many, say twenty--you couldn't collect

the value of one English pound at any given time. And Cantelucci knows

that too. Well, of course. Still he does well here, but it's a poor

place. I wonder, Mr. Latham, what are you doing here?"

"Well," said Cosmo with a good-humoured smile, "I am just staying here.

Just as you yourself are staying here."

"Ah, but you never saved Cantelucci's life, whereas I did and that's the

reason why I am staying here: out of mere kindness and to give him an

opportunity to show his gratitude. . . . Let me fill your glass. Not

bad, this wine."

"Excellent. What is it?"

"God knows. Let us call it Cantelucci's gratitude. Generous stuff, this,

to wash down those dishes with. Gluttony is an odious vice, but an

ambition to dine well is about the only one which can be indulged at no

cost to one's fellow men."

"It didn't strike me," murmured Cosmo absently, for he was just then

asking himself why he didn't like this pleasant companion, and had just

come to the conclusion that it was because of his indecisive expression

wavering between peevishness and jocularity with something else in

addition, as it were, in the background of his handsome, neat, and

comfortable person. Something that was not aggressive nor yet exactly

impudent. He wondered at his mistrust of the personality which certainly

was very communicative but apparently not inquisitive. At that moment he

heard himself addressed with a direct inquiry.

"You passed, of course, through Paris?"

"Yes, and Switzerland."

"Oh, Paris. I wonder what it looks like now. Full of English people, of

course. Let's see, how many years is it since I was last there? Ha, lots

of heads rolled off very noble shoulders since. Well, I am trying to

make my way there. Curious times. I have found some letters here. Duke

of Wellington very much disliked, what? His nod is insupportable, eh?"

"I have just had a sight of the Duke two or three times," said Cosmo. "I

can assure you that everybody is treating him with the greatest

respect."

"Of course, of course. All the same I bet that all these foreigners are

chuckling to themselves at having finished the job without him."

"They needn't be so pleased with themselves," said Cosmo scornfully.

"The mere weight of their numbers . . ."

"Yes. It was more like a migration of armed tribes than an army. They

will boast of their success all the same. There is no saying what the

Duke himself thinks. . . . I wonder if he could have beaten the other in

a fair fight. Well, that will never be known now."

Cosmo had a sudden sense of an epical tale with a doubtful conclusion.

He made no answer. Cantelucci had come and gone solemnly,

self-contained, with the usual two ceremonial bows. As he retreated he

put out all the candles on the central table and became lost to view.

From the illuminated spot at which he sat, Cosmo's eyes met only the

shadows of the long refectory-like room with its lofty windows closely

shuttered so that they looked like a row of niches for statues. Yet the

murmur of the piazza full of people stole faintly into his ear. Cosmo

had the recollection of the vast expanse of flagstones enclosed by the

shadowy and palatial masses gleaming with lights here and there under

the night sky thick with stars and perfectly cloudless.

"This is a very quiet inn," he observed.

"It has that advantage certainly. The walls are fairly thick, as you can

see. It's an unfinished palace, I mean as to its internal decorations,

which were going to be very splendid and even more costly than splendid.

The owner of it, I mean the man who had it built, died of hunger in that

hall out there."

"Died of hunger?" repeated Cosmo.

"No doubt about it. It was during the siege of Genoa. You know the

siege, surely?"

Cosmo recollected himself. "I was quite a child at the time," he said.

The venerated client of Cantelucci cracked a walnut and then looked at

Cosmo's face.

"I should think you weren't seven years old at the time," he said in a

judicial tone. "When I first came into Italy with the vaccine, you know,

Sir Charles's marriage was still being talked about in Florence. I

remember it perfectly though it seems as if it had all happened in

another world. Yes, indubitably he died of hunger like ten thousand

other Genoese. He couldn't go out to hunt for garbage with the populace

or crawl out at night trying to gather nettles in the ditches outside

the forts, and nobody would have known that he was dead for a month if

one of the bombs out of a bomb-vessel with Admiral Keith's blockading

squadron hadn't burst the door in. They found him at the foot of the

stairs, and, they say, with a lot of gold pieces in his pockets. But

nobody cared much for that. If it had been a lot of half-gnawed bones

there would have been blood spilt, no doubt. For all I know there were

or may be even now secret places full of gold in the thickness of these

walls. However, the body was thrown into a corpse-cart and the

authorities boarded the doorway. It remained boarded for years because

the heirs didn't care to have anything to do with that shell of a

palace. I fancy that the last of them died in the snows of Russia.

Cantelucci came along, and owing to a friendship with some sort of

scribe in the Municipality he got permission to use the place for his

hostelry. He told me that he found several half ducats in the corners of

the hall when he took possession. I suppose they paid for the whitewash,

for I can't believe that Cantelucci had much money in his pockets."

"Perhaps he found one of those secret hiding-places of which you spoke,"

suggested Cosmo.

"What? Cantelucci? He never looked for any gold. He is too much in the

clouds; but he has made us dine well in the palace of the starved man,

hasn't he? Sixteen years ago in Naples he was a Jacobin and a friend of

the French, a rebel, a traitor to his king if you like--but he has a

good memory, there is no denying that."

"Is he a Neapolitan, then?" asked Cosmo. "I imagined they were of a

different type."

"God only knows. He was there and I didn't ask him. He was a prisoner of

the royalists, of the reactionaries. I was much younger then and perhaps

more humane. Flesh and blood couldn't stand in the sight of the way in

which they were being treated, men of position, of attainments, of

intelligence. The Neapolitan Jacobins were no populace. They were men of

character and ideas, the pick of all classes. They were properly

liberals. Still they were called Jacobins and you may be surprised that

I, a professional man and an Englishman . . ."

Cosmo, looking up at the sudden pause, saw the doctor sitting with the

dull eyes and the expression of a man suddenly dissatisfied with

himself. Cosmo hastened to say that he himself was no friend of

reactionaries and in any case not conceited enough to judge the conduct

of men older than himself. Without a sign that he had heard a word of

that speech the doctor had a faint and peevish smile. He never moved at

all till, after a longish interval, Cosmo spoke again.

"Were you expecting somebody that would want to see you this evening?"

he asked.

The doctor started.

"See me? No. Why do you ask?"

"Because within the last five minutes somebody has put his head twice

through the door; and as I don't expect either a visitor or a messenger,

I thought he was looking for you. I don't know a single soul here."

The doctor remained perfectly unmoved. Cosmo, who was looking towards

the distant door, saw the head again and this time shouted at it an

inquiry. Thereupon the owner of the head entered and had not advanced

half the length of the room before Cosmo recognized in him the portly

figure of Spire. To his great surprise, however. Spire instead of coming

up to the table made a vague gesture and stopped short.

This was strange conduct. The doctor sat completely unconscious, and

Cosmo took the course of excusing himself and following Spire, who,

directly he had seen his master rise, had retreated rapidly to the door.

The doctor did not rouse himself to answer, and Cosmo left him leaning

on his elbow in a thoughtful attitude. In the badly lighted hall he

found Spire waiting for him between the foot of the stairs and the door

which Cosmo presumed was leading to the offices of the hotel. Again

Spire made a vague gesture which seemed to convey a warning, and

approached his master on tiptoe.

"Well, what is it? What do you mean by flourishing your arm at me like

this?" asked Cosmo sharply, and Spire ventured on a warning "Ssh!"

"Why, there is nobody here," said Cosmo, lowering his voice

nevertheless.

"I wanted to tell you, sir, I have seen that fellow."

"What fellow? Oh yes. The fellow with the cap. Where did you see him?"

"He is here," said Spire, pointing to the closed door.

"Here? What could a man like that want here? Did you speak to him?"

"No, sir, he has just come in and for all I know he may be already gone

away--though I don't think so."

"Oh, you don't think so. Do you know what he has come for?"

Spire made no answer to the question, but after a short silence: "I will

go and see, and if you stand where you are, sir, you will be able to

look right into the room. He may not be the man."

Without waiting for an answer he moved towards the closed door and threw

it wide open. The room, very much like the dining room but smaller, was

lighted gloomily by two smoky oil lamps hanging from the ceiling, over a

trestle table having a wooden bench on each side. Bad as the light was

Cosmo made out at once the peculiar cap. The wearer, sitting on one of

the benches, was leaning with both elbows across the table towards the

fair head of a girl half-hidden by a lace scarf. They were engaged in

earnest conversation so that they never turned their heads at Spire's

entrance. Cosmo had just time to discern the fine line of the girl's

shoulders, which were half-tinned from him when Spire shut the door.

II

Returning to his bedroom, Cosmo found the fire of logs still playing

fitfully upon the drawn curtains, upon the dim shape of the canopied bed

of state, and perceived that Spire as directed had prepared the writing

table and had placed a screen round the inviting-looking armchair.

He did not sit down to write. He felt more than ever that in a moment of

amused expansion he had made a rash promise to his sister. The

difficulty in keeping it had confronted him for the first time in Paris.

Henrietta would have liked to hear of people he met, of the great world

indulging in the new-found freedom of travel, the English, the French,

the Poles, the Germans. Certainly he had seen quite a lot of people; but

the problem was as to what could be said about them to a young girl,

ignorant of the world, brought up in the country, and having really no

notion of what mankind was like. He admitted to himself with

introspective sincerity that even he did not exactly know what mankind

was really like. He was too much of a novice, and she, obviously, was

too innocent to be told of his suspicions and of what it was like. Even

to describe the world outwardly was not an easy task--to Henrietta. The

world was certainly amusing. Oh yes, it was amusing; but even as he

thought that, he felt within him a certain distaste. Just before he had

left Paris he had been at a rout given by a great lady. There was a

fellow there who somehow became suspected of picking pockets. He was

extremely ugly and therefore attracted notice. The great lady, asked if

she had invited him, denied ever having seen him before, but he assured

her that he had spoken to her already that evening. Her Ladyship then

declared that if he was really the man he gave himself out to be, she

was not aware that he was in Paris. She imagined him to be in Ireland.

Altogether a peculiar story. Cosmo never knew how it had ended because

his friend Hollis led him away to introduce him to Mrs. R., who was most

affable and entertained him with a complete inventory of her daughter's

accomplishments, the daughter herself being then in the room, obviously

quite lovely and clever, but certainly a little odd; for a little later,

on his being introduced, she had discoursed to him for half an hour on

things of the heart, charmingly, but in a perfectly cool and detached

manner. There was also Lady Jane, very much in evidence, very much run

after, with a voice of engaging sweetness, but very free, not to say

licentious, in her talk. How could he confide his impressions of her to

Henrietta? As a matter of fact his head had been rather full of Lady

Jane for some time. She had, so to speak, attended him all the way from

Paris up to the morning of his arrival at Cantelucci's inn. But she had

now deserted him. Or was it his mind that had dropped her out of a

haunting actuality into that region where the jumble of one's

experiences is allowed to rest? But was it possible that a shabby fellow

in tight breeches and bad boots, with a peculiarly shaped cap on his

head, could have got between him and Lady Jane about the time of sunset?

Cosmo thought suddenly that one's personal life was a very bizarre

thing. He could write to his sister that before he had been three hours

in Genoa he had been involved in passing secret correspondence from

Italy to the Island of Elba. Henrietta had solemnly charged him to write

everything he could find out, hear, or even guess about Napoleon. He had

heard certainly a lot of most extraordinary stories; and if he had not

made any guesses he had been associating with persons who actually had

been doing nothing else; frightened persons, exulting people, cast-down

people, frivolous people, people with airs of mystery or with airs of

contempt. But by Jove, now he had been in personal touch and had

actually helped a man of the people who was mysteriously corresponding

with Elba. He could write something about that but, after all, was it

worth while? Finally he concluded he wouldn't write home at all that

evening; pushed the table away, and throwing himself into the armchair

extended his legs towards the fire. A moody expression settled on his

face. His immobility resembled open-eyed sleep with the red spark of the

fire in his unwinking eyes, and a perfect insensibility to outward

impressions. But he heard distinctly Spire knocking discreetly at the

door. Cosmo's first impulse was to shout that he wasn't wanted, but he

changed his mind. "Come in."

Spire shut the door carefully, and crossing the room at once put a log

on the fire. Then he said:

"Can't get any hot water this evening, sir. Very sorry, sir. I will see

that it won't happen again."

At the same time he thought, "Served him right for picking out such an

inn to stay at." Cosmo, still silent, stared at the fire, and when he

roused himself at last he perceived Spire in the act of putting down in

front of his chair a pair of slippers of shiny leather and red heels.

"Take your boots off, sir?" suggested Spire under his breath.

Cosmo let him do it. "Going to bed now, sir?" asked Spire in the same

subdued tone.

"No, but you needn't wait. I won't need you any more to-night."

"Thank you, sir." Spire lingered, boots in hand. "The two small pistols

are on the bedside table, sir. I have looked to the primings. This town

is lull of rabble from all parts just now, so I hear. The lock of your

door is fairly poor. I shall be sleeping just outside in the corridor,

sir. They are going to put me a pallet there."

"You will be very cold," protested Cosmo.

"It will be all right, sir. I have got the fur rug out of the carriage.

I had everything taken out of the carriage. The yard isn't safe, sir.

Nothing is properly safe in this house, so far as I can see."

Cosmo nodded absent-mindedly. "Oh, wait a moment, Spire. That man, that

fellow in the cap, is he still downstairs?"

Spire thought rapidly that he wouldn't be a party to bringing any of

those ragamuffins up to the bedroom. "Gone a long time ago, sir," he

said stolidly.

Cosmo had a vivid recollection of the man's pose of being settled for an

earnest and absorbing conversation to last half the night.

"He doesn't belong to this house?" he asked.

"No, sir, he only came to talk to a young woman. I left him taking leave

of her to come up to you, sir. I suppose he was the man you meant, sir."

"Yes," said Cosmo, "I have no doubt about it. He will probably turn up

again."

Spire admitted reluctantly that it was likely. He had been telling a

long tale to that young woman. "She is very good-looking, sir."

"Is she a servant here?"

"Oh no, sir. She came in with that old cut-throat cobbler. They seem to

be friendly. I don't like the looks of the people in this house."

"I wonder," said Cosmo, "whether you could manage to obtain for me a

quiet talk with that man on the next occasion he comes here."

Spire received this overture in profound silence.

"Do you think you could?" insisted Cosmo.

A dispassionate raising of the eyebrows preceded the apparently

irrelevant remark. "The worst of this house, sir, is that it seems open

to all sorts of rabble."

"I see. Well, try to think of some way. Spire. You may go now."

Spire, carrying the boots, walked as far as the door, where he turned

for a moment. "The only way I can think of, sir," he said, "would be to

make friends with that young woman." Before Cosmo could recover from the

surprise at the positive statement Spire had gone out and had shut the

door.

Cosmo slept heavily but fitfully, with moments of complete oblivion

interrupted by sudden starts, when he would lie on his back with open

eyes, wondering for a moment where he was, and then fall asleep again

before he had time to make a movement. In the morning the first thing he

did was to scribble a note to the Countess Montevesso to ask her

permission to call that very morning. While writing the address he

smiled to himself at the idea that it was after all the little Adèle

whom he remembered but dimly, mostly as a fair head hovering near his

father's armchair in the big drawing room, the windows of which opened

on the western terrace. As a schoolboy during his holidays he saw the

two girls, Adèle and his sister, mostly in the evening. He had his own

out-of-door pursuits while those girls stayed upstairs with their

governess. Remembering how he used to catch glimpses of them, the fair

and the dark, walking in the Park, he felt a greater curiosity to see

the Countess de Montevesso than if he had never seen her before. He

found it impossible to represent her to himself grown up, married for

years, the daughter of an ambassador.

When the family of D'Armand departed from Latham Hall, it was as if a

picture had faded, a picture of faces, attitudes, and colours, leaving

untouched the familiar background of his Yorkshire home, on to which he

could never recall them distinctly. He would be meeting a complete

stranger and he wondered whether that lady, who, young as she still was,

had lived through tragic times and had seen so many people, would

remember him at all. Him personally. For as to his home he had no doubt

she had not forgotten; neither the stones, nor the woods, nor the

streams. And as to the people Cosmo had a distinct notion that she was

more familiar with his father than he and Henrietta ever had been. His

father was not a man whom anybody could forget. And that Countess of

Montevesso, more difficult for him to imagine than a complete stranger,

would remember his mother better than he could himself. She had seen so

much more of her day after day for something like three years; whereas

he was at home only at intervals and while there took Lady Latham for

granted, a kind, serene presence, beautifully dressed.

He handed the note to Spire with orders to send it off by one of the

ragged idlers about the hotel door. There would be an answer. Then,

approaching the window, he perceived that he could not see very much out

of it. It was too high above the piazza, which furthermore was masked by

the jutting balconies. But the sky was blue with a peculiar deep

brilliance and the sunlight slanted over the roofs of the houses on the

other side of the piazza. When he opened the window the keen pure air

roused his vitality. The faint murmur of voices from below reached him

very much as it had reached him downstairs the night before through the

closed shutters of the dining room, as if the population of the town had

never gone to bed.

While Spire was serving his breakfast in his room he wondered what the

Countess of Montevesso would look like. The same fair head but higher

above the ground and with the hair no longer flowing over the shoulders,

but done up no doubt most becomingly and perhaps turned darker with age.

It would be the hair of the daughter of an ambassador, able to judge of

men and affairs, a woman of position, a very fine lady. Perhaps just a

fine lady; but the memory of the child came to him with renewed force,

gracious, quiet, with something timid and yet friendly in all its

gestures, with his father's hand smoothing the fair hair. . . . No. Not

merely a fine lady.

Cosmo had no inborn aptitude for mere society life. Though not exactly

shy, he lacked that assurance of manner which his good looks and his

social status ought to have given him. He suspected there was too much

mockery in the world, and the undoubted friendliness he had met with,

especially from women, seemed to him always a little suspect, the effect

not of his own merit, of which he had no idea, but of a shallow,

good-natured compassion. He imagined himself awkward in company. The

very brilliance of the entertainments, of which he had seen already a

good many, was apt to depress his spirits. Often during talk with some

pretty woman he would feel that he was not meant for that sort of life,

and then suddenly he would withdraw into his shell. In that way he had

earned for himself the reputation of being a little strange. He was to a

certain extent aware of it, but he was not aware that this very thing

made him interesting.

A gust of diffidence came over him while he was trying to eat some

breakfast. "I really don't want to see that Countess," he thought. Then

remembering the intonation in his father's voice when talking of Adèle,

he wondered whether perchance he would find an uncommon personality.

Cosmo had a profound belief in his father, though he was well aware that

he had never understood him thoroughly. . . . But if she is a woman out

of the common, he reflected further, then she can't possibly be

interested in a rough schoolboy grown into a young man of no particular

importance. No doubt she would be amiable enough. . . .

"Clear away all these things. Spire," he said, "and go downstairs to see

if the messenger is back."

The messenger was not back yet; and assisted by Spire, Cosmo began to

dress himself with extreme care. The tying of his neckcloth was an

irritating affair, and so was Spire's perfectly wooden face while he was

holding up the glass to him for that operation. Cosmo spoiled two

neckcloths and became extremely dissatisfied with the cut and colour of

various articles of attire which Spire presented to him one after

another. The fashions for men were perfectly absurd. By an effort of

mind Cosmo overcame this capricious discontent with familiar things and

finished his dressing. Then he sent Spire once more downstairs to

inquire if the messenger was back. Obediently, Spire disappeared, but

once gone it did not seem as though he meant to return at all. There was

no Spire. There was no bell-pull in the room either.

Cosmo stuck his head out through the door. Absolute silence reigned in

the well of the stairs. A woman in black, on her knees beside a pail of

water and scrubbing the floor of the corridor, looked up at him. Cosmo

drew his head in. She was a pitiful hag. . . . He was sure of a gracious

reception, of course. He was also sure of meeting a lot of people of all

sorts. He wondered what sort of society she received. Everybody, no

doubt; Austrians, Italians, French; all the triumphant reactionaries,

all the depressed heads bobbing up again after the storm, venomous,

revengeful, oppressive, odious. What the devil had become of Spire?

The long window right down to the floor had remained open. Suddenly the

sound of a drum reached Cosmo's ears. Stepping out on a balcony, he saw

a company of infantry in white coats marching across a distant corner of

the piazza. Austrians! Yes, their time had come. A voice behind him

said: "The messenger is back, sir." Cosmo stepped in and saw Spire

empty-handed. "There's a verbal answer, sir."

"What is it? You haven't spoken with the messenger, have you?"

"I have seen him, sir, but I got the message through the innkeeper. He

speaks a little English. The lady would be glad to see you as soon after

the fourth hour as possible. They have their own way of reckoning time,

but as far as I can understand it, sir, it means something between ten

and eleven. At any rate, it's what Cantelucci says, and he can tell the

time by an English watch all right."

"Shut the window, Spire. I don't want to hear that drum. Yes, it would

mean as soon after ten as possible, but why has the fellow been so long?

Is it very far?"

"No, sir, I think it's quite close, really. He was so long because he

has been trying to give your note to the lady herself and there was some

difficulty about it. That innkeeper tells me that instead of handing it

to the porter the fellow got in through the kitchen door and was dodging

about a passage for some time."

Cosmo looked fixedly at Spire, whose face expressed no opinion whatever

on those proceedings.

"Dodging in a passage," repeated Cosmo. "But did he see the lady

herself?"

"Apparently not, sir. Cantelucci slanged him for being so long, but he

said he thought he was acting for the best. He would have been there yet

if a black woman hadn't come along and snatched the letter out of his

hand. It was she too who brought down the message from the lady."

"Oh, yes," said Cosmo. "Don't you remember there was a black maid?"

"Yes, sir, I remember perfectly well, in the house-keeper's room. She

learned to talk English very quickly, but she was a little spitfire."

"Was she?"

Spire busied himself in brushing Cosmo's hat while he remarked in an

explanatory tone: "She could never understand a joke, sir."

He attended Cosmo into the hall, where Cantelucci with his usual intense

gravity and a deep bow asked whether the signore would want a carriage.

Cosmo, however, preferred walking; therefore the youth who had taken

Cosmo's note was directed to guide the English milord to the Palazzo

Brignoli. He had a tousled head of hair and wore a jacket that might

have belonged at one time to a hussar's uniform, with all its trimmings

and buttons cut off and a ragged hole in each elbow. His cheeks were

sunken, his eyes rolled expressively, and his smile discovered a set of

very sound teeth.

"_Si, si_, Palazzo Rosso," he said.

Cantelucci explained in his imperturbable and solemn manner that the

populace gave that name to the Palace on account of the red granite of

which it was built, and the thin-faced lad, bounding forward, preceded

Cosmo across the piazza, looking over his shoulder from time to time.

Cosmo's doubts and apprehensions disappeared before the inevitable charm

and splendour of the town. At the corner of a narrow lane and a small

open space with some trees growing in the centre of it the ragged guide

stopped and, pointing at a dark and magnificent building, left him

alone. Massive and sombre, ornate and heavy, with a dark aspect and

enormous carvings, the Palace where little Adèle was living had to

Cosmo's eye the air of a sumptuous prison. The portal with its heavy

iron-studded doors was reached by a flight of shallow steps, a segment

of a wide circle, guarded on each side by an enormous griffin seated,

tensely alert with wing and claw, on a high and narrow pedestal. On

ascending the steps Cosmo discovered that the heavy door was ajar, just

enough to let him slip in; and, at once, from the gloom of the arched

passage he saw the inner sunshine on the oleanders of the inner court,

flagged with marble, from whence a broad staircase ascended to the

colonnaded gallery of the first floor.

Cosmo had seen no porter or other living soul, and there was no sound of

any sort, no appearance of movement anywhere. Even the leaves of the

oleanders kept perfectly still. In the light of the morning a slanting

shadow cut the western wall into two triangles, one dark, the other

glowing as with a red fire; and Cosmo remained for a moment spellbound

by a strong impression of empty grandeur, magnificence, and solitude.

A voice behind him, issuing from somewhere in the big gateway through

which he had passed, cried: "Ascend, signore!" Cosmo began to mount the

open staircase, embarrassed as though he had been watched by thousands

of eyes. In the gallery he hesitated, for the several doors he could see

remained closed, and the only sound that reached his ears was the gentle

plashing of the fountain in the court below him.

Before he had made up his mind the door in front of him opened fairly

wide, but he could not see the person till he had entered an anteroom

with narrow red and gilt settees ranged along its white walls. The door

shut behind him and, turning round, he confronted a dark, plump mulatto

woman who was staring at him with an expression of intense admiration.

She clapped her hands in ecstasy and, opening her mouth, exhibited her

white teeth in a low cackling laugh.

"_Bonjour_, Aglae," said Cosmo readily.

The woman laughed again in sheer delight. "You remember my name, Mr.

Cosmo! You quite frighten me, you grow so big. I remember you climb tree

and throw nice ripe apple to the black girl. . . ." Her eyes gleamed and

rolled absurdly.

Cosmo was so strangely touched by this extremely slight reminiscence of

his tree-climbing boyhood, that when she added, "That was a good time,"

he was quite ready to agree, thereby provoking another burst of

delightful laughter. But Aglae was controlling herself obviously. Her

laughter was subdued. It had not the unbounded freedom of sound that

used to reverberate exotically in the dark passages at the back of

Latham Hall; though there, too, Aglae tried to subdue it in view of

rebukes or sarcastic comments in the servants' hall. It stopped suddenly

and Aglae in a tone of sober respect wanted to know how the Seignior

was. Cosmo said that his father was very well.

"He a very-great gentleman," commented Aglae. "I always tremble when I

see him. You very fine gentleman too, Mr. Cosmo."

She moved to one of the inner doors, but as Cosmo was following her she

raised her hand to prevent him and opened the door only a little way,

then came back and said in a lower tone, "It's to hear the bell better

when it rings. . . . Will you wait a little bit here?" she asked

anxiously.

"I will," said Cosmo, "but surely you don't want to tremble before me.

What is the matter?"

"Nothing at all is the matter." Aglae tossed her head, tied up in a

bandana handkerchief, with something of the spirit of the old days.

Cosmo was amused. "I no tremble before you," she continued. "I always

like you very much. I am glad with all my heart to see you here."

All the time she turned her ear to the door she had left the least bit

ajar. She had on a high-waisted white calico dress, white stockings, and

Genoese slippers on her feet. Her dark brown hands moved uneasily.

"And how is Madame la Comtesse?" asked Cosmo.

"Miss Adèle very well. Anyway she never says anything else. She very

great lady now. All the town come here, but she wants to see you alone

after all these years."

"It's very kind of her," said Cosmo. "I was wondering whether she

remembered me at all."

Now the excitement of seeing him had worn off, he was surprised at the

careworn expression of the mulatto's face. For a moment it seemed to him

like a tragic mask, then came the flash of white teeth, strangely unlike

a smile.

"She remember everything," said Aglae. "She . . . she . . . Mr. Cosmo,

you no boy now. I tell you that Miss Adèle had not a moment's peace

since she drive away from your big home in the country one very cold

day. I remember very well. Little birds fall dead off the tree. I feel

ready to fall dead myself."

"I was away at school," said Cosmo. He remembered that on his return the

disappearance of those people had not produced a very strong impression

on him. In fact, the only thing he had missed was, in the evening, the

fair head of the stranger Adèle near the dark head of his sister

Henrietta. And the next evening he had not even missed that!

While these thoughts were passing through his head he waited, looking at

Aglae with a faint smile of which he was not aware. The mulatto girl

seemed to have concentrated all her faculties on listening for the sound

of a bell. It came at last. Cosmo heard it, too, very distant, faint and

prolonged. A handbell.

"Now," said Aglae under her breath, and Cosmo followed her through a

suite of rooms, magnificent but under-furnished, with the full light

excluded by half-closed jalousies. The vista was terminated by a white

and gold door at which Aglae stopped and looked back at him over her

shoulder with an air of curiosity, anxiety, or was it hesitation? But

certainly without a smile. As to his own it had stiffened permanently on

his lips. Before turning the handle of the door the mulatto listened for

a moment. Then she threw it open, disclosing a room full of light indeed

but which Cosmo could not see in its full extent because of a screen

cutting off the view. His last thought as he crossed the threshold was,

"It will be interesting," and then he heard the door shut behind him,

leaving him as it were alone with the heavy screen of figured velvet and

three windows through which sunshine poured in a way that almost blinded

him after his long experience of half lights.

He walked clear of the screen, and he was surprised at the vast size of

the room. Here and there were other screens and a quite unexpected

quantity of elegant furniture amongst which he felt for a moment as if

lost. All this shone and gleamed and glowed with colour in the freshness

and brilliance of the sunny morning. "Why, there's nobody here," he

thought with a mingled sense of disappointment and relief. To his left

above a square of carpet that was like a flower-bed rose a white

mantelpiece which in its proportion and sumptuosity was like a low but

much carved portal surmounted by an enormous sheet of glass reaching up

to the cornice of the ceiling. He stepped on to the flowers, feeling now

somewhat vexed, and only then perceived away at the other end of the

room, in a corner beyond a fourth window, a lady seated at a writing

table with her back to him. Barred by the gilt openwork of the

chair-back he saw her dress, the only bit of blue in the room. There was

some white lace about her shoulders, her fair head was bent, she was

writing rapidly.

Whoever she was she seemed not to be aware of his presence. Cosmo did

not know whether to wait in silence or say something, or merely warn her

by a slight cough. What a stupid position, he thought. At that moment

the lady put the pen down and rose from her chair brusquely, yet there

was a perceptible moment before she turned round and advanced towards

him. She was tall. But for the manner of his introduction, which could

leave no room for doubt, the impression that this could not be the lady

he had come to see would have been irresistible. As it was Cosmo felt

apologetic, as though he had come to the wrong house. It occurred to him

also that the lady had been from the very first aware of his presence.

He was struck by the profundity of her eyes, which were fixed on him.

The train of her blue robe followed on the floor. Her well-shaped head

was a mass of short fair curls, and while she approached him Cosmo saw

the colour leave her cheeks, the passing away of an unmistakable blush.

She stopped and said in an even voice:

"Don't you recognize me?"

He recovered his power of speech but not exactly the command of his

thoughts, which were overwhelmed by a variety of strong and fugitive

impulses.

"I have never known you," he said with a tone of the profoundest

conviction.

She smiled (Cosmo was perfectly sure that he had never seen that sort of

smile or the promise even of anything so enchanting), and sank slowly on

to a sofa whose brocaded silk, gray like pure ashes, and the carved

frame painted with flowers and picked with gold, acquired an

extraordinary value from the colour of her dress and the grace of her

attitude. She pointed to an armchair, close by. Cosmo sat down. A very

small table of ebony inlaid with silver stood between them, her hand

rested on it; and Cosmo looked at it with appreciation, as if it had

been an object of art, before he raised his eyes to the expectant face.

"Frankly," he said, "didn't you think that a complete stranger had been

brought into the room?"

He said this very seriously, and she answered him in a light tone. "For

a moment I was afraid to look round. I sat there with my back to you. It

was absurd after having been imprudent enough to let you come in the

morning. You kept so still that you might have been already gone. I took

fright, I jumped up, but I need not have hesitated. You are still the

same boy."

Cosmo paid very little attention to what she said. Without restraint and

disguise, in open admiration he was observing her with all his might,

saying to himself, "Is it possible--this--Adèle!" He recollected

himself, however, sufficiently to murmur that men changed more slowly

and perhaps less completely than women. The Countess of Montevesso was

not of that opinion, or, at any rate, not in this case.

"It isn't that at all. I know because I used to look at you with that

attention worthy of the heir of the Latham name, whereas you never

honoured the French girl by anything more than a casual glance. Why

should you have done more? You had the dogs, the horses, your first gun.

I remember the gun. You showed it to both of us, to your sister and

myself while we were walking in the park. You shouted to us and came

across the grass, brandishing your gun, while the governess--I don't

remember her name--screamed at you. Oh _mon dieu! N'approaches pas!_ You

paid not the slightest attention to her. You had a flushed face. Of

course her screaming frightened us at first, and just as we were

preparing to get very interested in your gun you walked off with a look

of contempt."

"Did I behave so badly as that?" said Cosmo, feeling suddenly very much

at ease with that lady with whom he had never even exchanged a formal

greeting. She had grown more animated. As he was very fond of his sister

he answered her numerous questions about Henrietta with interest and

pleasure. From that subject the lady on the sofa, who may or may not

have been Adèle d'Armand at one time, went on putting a series of

questions about the house and all the people in it in a manner that

proved a precise and affectionate recollection of those days. The memory

of the countryside seemed to have been cherished by her too, and Cosmo's

heart warmed to the subject. She remembered certain spots in the park

and certain points of view in the neighbourhood as though she had left

them but a year before. She seemed not to have forgotten a single

servant in the house. She asked after Spire.

"I have got him with me," said Cosmo. "Of course he has grown elderly."

He almost forgot to whom he was speaking. Without associating her very

distinctly with the child Adèle, he was taking the Countess de

Montevesso for granted. He delighted in seeing her so quiet and so

perfectly natural. The first effect of her appearance persisted, with

only the added sense of the deep dark blue of her eyes, an impression of

living profundity that made his thoughts about her pause. But he was

unconsciously grateful to her for the fact that she had never given him

a moment of that acute social awkwardness from which he used to suffer

so much; though there could not be the slightest doubt that the little

Adèle (if there had ever been a little Adèle) was now a very fine lady

indeed. But she loved the old place and everything and everybody in it.

Of that too there could be no doubt. The few references she made to his

mother touched and surprised Cosmo. They seemed to imply some depth in

her which he, the son, and Henrietta, the daughter, had failed to

penetrate. In contrast with that, Cosmo remarked that after the inquiry

after Sir Charles's health, which was one of her first questions, his

father was not mentioned again.

"Are you going to make a stay in Genoa?" she asked after a pause.

"A few days," said Cosmo, in an irresolute tone, because he did not know

what answer was expected to this inquiry, the first which had nothing to

do with Yorkshire. His interest in the rest of Italy was, he perceived,

very small. But by the association of ideas he thought suddenly of the

passing hours. He raised his eyes to a faintly engraved brass disc with

black hands hung on the wall above one of the two doors at that end of

the room which he was facing. The black hands pointed to eleven, but

what prevented his eyes from returning at once to the delighted

contemplation of the Countess of Montevesso was the fact that the door

below the clock seemed to have moved slightly.

"I intend to see something of Italy," he said. "My time really is my

own, I have nothing special to do. It seems to me that the principal

object of my journey has been attained now. I don't think my father

would be surprised to hear that I had turned back after leaving Genoa."

The Countess looking up at this, their eyes remained fastened together

for a time and Cosmo thought: "What on earth am I saying?" He watched

her lips move to form the words which quite frightened him.

"Did Sir Charles give you a message for me?"

He thought he had brought this on himself. It was a painful moment. It

lasted long enough to give the Countess the time to assume an expression

of indifference, startling after the low tone of her question.

"No," said Cosmo truthfully. "I have only a message for your father." He

waited a moment. "But I will tell you one of the last things Henrietta

told me. She told me that when you were married my father could think of

nothing for days but you."

He did not venture to look at her; then added impulsively, "My father

loved you dearly. We children could see it very well. Ad----"

"Why don't you finish my name?" her seductive voice asked.

Cosmo coloured. "Well, you know, I never heard you really called by any

other name. It came naturally since I suppose you must be--Adèle."

Madame de Montevesso, who had been hanging on his lips, was surprised by

Cosmo raising his eyes to stare intensely into the part of the room

behind her back. Just as he was making his apology he had noticed the

door under the clock swing open without any sound at all; and there

entered quite noiselessly, too, and with something ambiguous in the very

motion, a young girl (nothing could have been more unexpected) in a sort

of dishabille of a white skirt and a long pink jacket of some very thin

stuff which had a silky shimmer. She made a few steps and stopped. She

was rather short, her hair was intensely black and drawn tightly away

from her forehead. Cosmo felt sure (though he couldn't see) that it was

done in one long plait at the back. Her face was a short oval, her chin

blunt, her nose a little too big and her black eyes perfectly round.

Cosmo had the time to notice all this because astonishment prevented him

from looking away. The girl advanced slowly if with perfect assurance,

and stared unwinkingly at Cosmo, who in the extremity of his

embarrassment got up from his chair. The young girl then stopped short

and for a moment the three persons in the room preserved an absolute

immobility. Then the Countess glanced over her shoulder leisurely and

addressed Cosmo.

"This is Clelia, a niece of my husband." Cosmo made a deep bow to the

possessor of the round black eyes. "I didn't know of her existence till

about a fortnight ago," added Madame de Montevesso carelessly. The

round-eyed girl still staring hard made a curtsey to Cosmo. "My

husband," went on Adèle, "has also two old aunts living here. I have

never seen them. This house is very big."

Cosmo resumed his seat and there was a moment of silence. The girl sat

down in the chair before the writing table sideways, folded her arms on

its back, and rested her chin on her hands. Her round eyes examined

Cosmo with a sort of animal frankness. He thought suddenly that it was

time to bring his visit to an end. He would have risen at once but for

the Countess de Montevesso beginning to speak to him, still in English.

She seemed to have guessed what was passing through his mind.

"Don't go yet for a moment," she said, in a perfectly unconcerned voice,

then paused. "We were talking about your father."

"As to him," said Cosmo, "I have nothing more to say. I have told you

all the truth as far as I am certain of it."

She inclined her head slowly and in the same level voice:

"The Court is here and most of the foreign ambassadors. We are waiting

here for the arrival of the Queen of Sardinia, who may or may not come

within the next month or so. This is considered a good post of

observation, but there is very little to observe just now from the

diplomatic point of view. Most of us have exhausted almost all emotions.

Life has grown suddenly very dull. We gossip a little about each other;

we wait for the end of the Vienna Congress and discuss the latest rumour

that floats about. Yes. The play is over, the stage seems empty. If I

were you I would stay a little longer here."

"I certainly mean to stay here for some time," declared Cosmo with

sudden resolution.

"That's right," she continued in the same indifferent tone. "But wait a

few days before you write home. You have awakened old memories in me.

Inconceivably distant," she went on in a voice more expressionless than

ever, "and the dormant feelings of what seems quite another age."

Cosmo smiled at this. The girl with round eyes was keeping perfectly

still with her watchful stare. Madame de Montevesso seemed to read

Cosmo's thoughts.

"Yes," she insisted. "I feel very old and everything is very far. I am

twenty-six and I have been married very nearly ten years now."

Cosmo, looking at her face, thought that those had been the most

agitated ten years of European history. He said, "I have no doubt that

Yorkshire must seem very far away to you."

"I suppose you write very often home?" she said.

Cosmo defended himself from being one of those people who write letters

about their travels. He had no talent for that; and then what could one

write to a young girl like Henrietta and to a man as austere as his

father, who had so long retired from the world? Cosmo had found it very

difficult. Of course he took care to let them know pretty often that he

was safe and sound.

Adèle could see this point of view. She seemed amused by the innocent

difficulties of a young man having no one but a father and a sister to

write to. She ascertained that he had no intimate friend left behind to

whom he could confide his impressions. Cosmo said he had formed none of

those intimacies that induce a man to share his innermost thoughts and

feelings with somebody else.

"Probably your father was like that too," said Madame de Montevesso. "I

fancy he must have been very difficult to please, and still more

difficult to conquer."

"Oh, as to that," said Cosmo, "I can safely say I've never been

conquered," and he laughed boyishly. He confessed further that he had

the habit of thinking contradictorily about most things. "My father was

never like that," he concluded.

The gravity with which she listened to him now disconcerted him

secretly. At last she nodded and opined that his difficulties had their

source in the liveliness of his sympathies. He declared that he suffered

most at times from the difficulty of making himself understood by men of

his own age.

"And the women?" she asked quietly.

"Oh, the women!" he said, without the slightest levity. "One would not

even try." He raised his eyes and, obeying a sudden impulse, added: "I

think that perhaps you could understand me."

"That would be because I am so much older," she said. Cosmo discovered

in her delicately modelled face, with all its grace and freshness of

youth, an interrogative profundity of expression, the impress of the

problems of life and the conflicts of the soul. The great light of day

had treated her kindly. Bathed in the sunshine entering through the four

windows, she appeared to him wonderful in the glow of her complexion, in

the harmony of her form and the composed nobility of her attitude. He

felt this wonderfulness of her whole person in some sort physically, and

thought that he had looked at her too long. He glanced aside and met the

dark girl's round unwinking stare of a cat ready to fly at one. She had

not moved a hair's breadth, and Cosmo felt reluctant to take his eyes

off her exactly as though she had been a fierce cat. He heard the voice

of the Countess of Montevesso and had to turn to her.

"Well, wait a few days before you write home about . . . Genoa."

"I had a mind to begin a letter yesterday," he said.

"What? Already! Only a few hours after your arrival!"

"Yes. Henrietta is very anxious to hear everything relating to the

Emperor Napoleon."

Madame de Montevesso was genuinely surprised. Her voice lost its equable

charm while she asked what on earth could he have had to tell of

Napoleon that he could not have written to her from Paris.

"Yes. He is in everybody's thoughts and on everybody's lips there," he

said. "Whenever three people come together he is the presence that is

with them. But last night . . ."

He was on the point of telling her of his adventure on the tower when

she struck in:

"The Congress will put an end to all that presently." It checked Cosmo's

expansiveness and he said instead:

"It's very possible. But last night on arriving here I experienced a

curious sensation of his nearness. I went down in the evening to look at

the Port."

"He isn't certainly very far from here. And what are your feelings about

him?"

"Oh," he rejoined lightly, "as about everything else in the

world--contradictory."

Madame de Montevesso rose suddenly, saying:

"I won't ask you, then, as to your feelings about myself." Cosmo stood

up hastily. He was a little the taller of the two but their faces were

nearly on a level. "I should like you to make up your mind about me

before you take up your traveller's pen," continued Adèle. "Come again

this evening. There will be a few people here; and, as you have said,

when a few people come together just now Napoleon is always with them,

an unseen presence. But you will see my father. Do you remember him at

all?"

Cosmo assured her that he remembered the Marquis d'Armand perfectly. He

was on the point of making his parting bow when Madame de Montevesso,

with the two words "_à l'Anglaise_," put out her hand. He took it and

forgot himself in the unexpected sensation of this contact. He was in no

haste to release it when to his extreme surprise, with a slight movement

of her eyes towards the girl at the writing table, Madame de Montevesso

said:

"Did you ever see anything like that?"

Cosmo was taken completely aback. He dropped her hand. He did not know

what to say, and even if it was proper for him to smile. Madame de

Montevesso continued in a voice betraying no sentiment of any kind: "I

can never be sure of my privacy now. Do you understand that I am her

aunt? She wanders all over this palazzo very much like a domestic

animal, only more observant, and she is by no means an idiot. Luckily

she knows no language but Italian."

They had been moving slowly towards the other end of the room, but now

Madame de Montevesso stopped and returned Cosmo's parting bow with a

slight inclination of her head. Before passing round the screen between

him and the door Cosmo glanced back. The girl on the chair had not

stirred.

He had half a hope that the mulatto maid would be waiting for him. But

he saw no one. As he crossed the courtyard he might have thought himself

leaving an uninhabited house. But the streets through which he made his

way to his inn were thronged with people. The day was quite warm.

Already on the edge of the pavements, here and there, there was a

display of flowers for sale; and at every turn he saw more people who

seemed carefree, and the women with their silken shoes and the lace

scarves on their heads appeared to him quite charming. The plaza was a

scene of constant movement. Here and there a group stood still,

conversing in low voices but with expressive gestures. As he approached

his hotel he caught an evanescent sight of the man he had met on the

tower. His cap was unmistakable. Cosmo mended his pace but the man had

disappeared; and after looking in all directions Cosmo went up the steps

of the inn. In his room he found Spire folding methodically some

clothes.

"I saw that man," said Cosmo, handing him his hat.

"Was he following you, sir?" asked Spire.

"No, I saw his back quite near this house."

"I shouldn't wonder if he were coming here," opined Spire.

"In any case I wouldn't have spoken to him in the piazza," said Cosmo.

"Much better not, sir," said the servant.

"After all," said Cosmo, "I don't know that I have anything to say to

him."

From these words Spire concluded that his master had found something

more interesting to occupy his mind. While he went on with his work he

talked to Cosmo, who had thrown himself into an armchair, of some

repairs needed to the carriage, and also informed him that the English

doctor had left a message asking whether Mr. Latham would do him the

honour to take his midday meal with him at the same table as last night.

After a slight hesitation Cosmo assented, and Spire, saying that he

would go and tell them downstairs, left the room.

In the solitude favourable to concentration of thought Cosmo discovered

that he could not think connectedly, either of the fair curls of the

Countess de Montevesso or of the vague story of her marriage. Strictly

speaking he knew nothing of it; and this ignorance interfered with the

process of consecutive thinking; but he formed some images and even came

to the verge of that state in which one sees visions. The obscurity of

her past helped the freedom of his fancies. He had an intuitive

conviction that he had seen her in the fullest brilliance of her beauty

and of the charm of her mind. A woman like that was a great power, he

reflected, and then it occurred to him that, marvellous as she was, she

was not her own mistress.

Some church clock striking loudly the hour roused him up, but before he

went downstairs he paced the floor to and fro several times. And when he

forced himself out of that empty room it was with a profound disgust of

all he was going to see and hear, a momentary repulsion towards the

claims of the world, like a man tearing himself away from the side of a

beloved mistress.

III

Returning that evening to the Palazzo Brignoli, Cosmo found the lantern

under the vaulted roof lighted. There was also a porter in gold-laced

livery and a cocked hat who saluted him, and in the white anteroom with

red benches along the walls two lackeys made ready to divest him of his

cloak. But a man in sombre garments detained Cosmo, saying that he was

the ambassador's valet, and led him away along a very badly lighted

inner corridor. He explained that His Excellency the Ambassador wished

to see Monsieur Latham for a few moments in private before Monsieur

Latham joined the general company. The ambassador's cabinet into which

he introduced Cosmo was lighted by a pair of candelabra. Cosmo was told

that His Excellency was finishing dressing, and then the man

disappeared. Cosmo noticed that there were several doors besides the one

by which he had entered, which was the least conspicuous of them all,

and in fact so inconspicuous, corresponding exactly to a painted panel,

that it might have been called a secret door. Other doors were framed in

costly woods, lining the considerable thicknesses of the walls. One of

them opened without noise and Cosmo saw enter a man somewhat taller than

he had expected to see, with a white head, in a coat with softly

gleaming embroideries and a broad ribbon across his breast. He advanced,

opening his arms wide, and Cosmo, who noticed that one of the hands was

holding a snuffbox, submitted with good grace to the embrace of the

Marquis d'Armand, whose lips touched his cheeks one after another and

whose hands then rested at arm's length on his shoulder for a moment.

"Sit down, _mon enfant_," were the first words spoken, and Cosmo obeyed,

facing the armchair into which the Marquis had dropped. A white meagre

hand set in fine lace moved the candelabra on the table, and Cosmo

good-humouredly submitted to being contemplated in silence. This man in

a splendid coat, white-headed and with a broad ribbon across his breast,

seemed to have no connection whatever with his father's guest, whom as a

boy he remembered walking with Sir Charles amongst deep shrubberies or

writing busily at one end of the long table in the library of Latham

Hall, always with the slightly subdued mien of an exile and an air of

being worried by the possession of unspeakable secrets which he

preserved even when playing at backgammon with Sir Charles in the great

drawing room. Cosmo, returning the gaze of the tired eyes, remarked that

the ambassador looked old but not at all senile.

At last the Marquis declared that he could detect the lineaments of his

old friend in the son's face, and in a voice that was low and kindly put

a series of questions about Sir Charles, about London and his old

friends there; questions which Cosmo, especially as to the latter, was

not always able to answer fully.

"I forget! You are still so young," said the ambassador, recollecting

himself. This young man sitting here before him with a friendly smile

had his friends amongst his own contemporaries, shared the ideas and the

views of his own generation which had grown up since the Revolution, to

whom the Revolution was only a historical fact and whose enthusiasms had

a strange complexion, for the undisciplined hopes of the young make them

reckless in words and sometimes in actions. The Marquis's own generation

had been different. It had had no inducement to be reckless. It had been

born to a settled order of things. Certainly a few philosophers had been

indulging for years in subversive sentimentalism, but the foundations of

Europe seemed unshakable. He noticed Cosmo's expectant attitude and

said:

"I wonder what my dear old friend is thinking of all this."

"It is not very easy to get at my father's thoughts," confessed Cosmo.

"After all, you must know my father much better than I do, Monsieur le

Marquis."

"In the austerity of his convictions your father was more like a

republican of ancient times," said the Marquis seriously. "Does that

surprise you, my young friend? . . ." Cosmo shook his head slightly. . . .

"Yet we always agreed very well. Your father understood every kind of

fidelity. The world had never known him and it will never know him now.

But I, who approached him closely, could have nothing but the greatest

respect for his character and for his far-seeing wisdom."

"I am very glad to hear you say this," interjected Cosmo.

"He was a scornful man," said the Marquis, then paused and repeated once

more: "Yes. _Un grand dédaigneux._ He was that. But one accepted it

from him as one would not from another man, because one felt that it was

not the result of mean grievances or disappointed hopes. Now the old

order is coming back and, whatever my old friend may think of it, he had

his share in that work."

Cosmo raised his head. "I had no idea," he murmured.

"Yes," said the Marquis. "Indirectly if you like. All I could offer to

my Princes was my life, my toil, the sacrifice of my deepest feelings as

husband and father. I don't say this to boast. I could not have acted

otherwise. But for my share of the work, risky, often desperate, and

continuously hopeless as it seemed to be, I have to thank your father's

help, _mon jeune ami._ It came out of that fortune which some day will

be yours. The only thing in all the activities the penetrating mind of

your father was not scornful of was my fidelity. He understood that it

was above the intrigued, the lies, the selfish stupidities of that

exiles' life which we all shared with our Princes. They will never know

how much they owe to that English gentleman. When parting with my wife

and child I was sustained by the thought that his friendship and care

were extended over them and would not fail."

"I have heard nothing of all this," said Cosmo. "Of course I was not

ignorant of the great friendship that united you to him. This is one of

the things that the world does know about my father."

"Have you brought a letter for me?" asked the Marquis. "I haven't heard

from him for a long time. After we returned to France, through the

influence of my son-in-law, communications were very difficult. Ten

years of war, my dear friend, ten years."

"Father very seldom takes a pen in hand now," said Cosmo, "but . . ."

The Marquis interrupted him. "When you write home, my dear friend, tell

him that I never gave way to promptings of mean ambition or an unworthy

vanity. Tell him that I twice declined the Embassy of Madrid which was

pressed on me, and that if I accepted the nomination as a Commissioner

for settling the frontiers with the representatives of the Allied Powers

it was at the cost of my deepest feelings and only to serve my

vanquished country. My secret missions had made me known to many

European statesmen. I knew I was liked. I thought I could do some good.

The Russians, I must say, were quite charming, and you may tell your

father that Sir Charles Stewart clothed his demands in the form of the

most perfect politeness; but all those transactions were based after all

on the right of the strongest. I had black moments and I suffered as a

Frenchman. I suffered . . ."

The Marquis got up, walked away to the other end of the room, then

coming back dropped into the armchair again. Cosmo was too startled by

this display of feeling to rise. The ambassadorial figure in the laced

coat exhaled a deep sigh. "Your father knows that, unlike so many of the

other refugees, I have always remained a Frenchman. One would have paid

any price almost to avoid this humiliation."

Cosmo was gratified by the anxiety of a king's friend to, as it were,

justify himself before his father. He discovered that even this old

royalist had been forced, if only for a moment, to regret the days of

imperial victories. The Marquis tapped his snuffbox, took a pinch of

snuff, and composed himself.

"Of course when this Turin mission was unexpectedly pressed on me I went

to the King himself and explained that, having refused a much higher

post, I could not think of accepting this one. But the King pointed out

that this was an altogether different position. The King of Sardinia was

his brother-in-law. There was nothing to say against such an argument.

His Majesty was also good enough to say that he was anxious to grant me

any favour I might ask. I didn't want any favours but I had to think of

something on the spur of the moment and I begged for a special right of

entrée on days on which there are no receptions. I couldn't resist so

much graciousness," continued the Marquis. "I have managed to keep clear

of prejudices that poison and endanger the hopes of this restoration,

but I am a royalist, a man of my own time. Remember to tell your father

all this, my dear young friend."

"I shall not fail," said Cosmo, wondering within himself at the power of

such a strange argument, yet feeling a liking and respect for that old

man torn between rejoicing and sorrow at the end of his troubled life.

"I should like him to know, too," the Marquis said in his bland and

friendly voice, "that M. de Talleyrand just before he left for Vienna

held out to me the prospect of the London Embassy later. That,

certainly, I would not refuse, if only to be nearer a man to whom my

obligations are immense and only equalled by the affection I had borne

towards him through all those unhappy years."

"My father--" began Cosmo--"I ought to have given you his message

before--told me to give you his love and to tell you that when you are

tired of your grandeurs there is always a large place for you in his

house."

Cosmo was surprised at the sudden movement of the Marquis, who leaned

over the arm of his chair and put his hand over his eyes. For a time

complete silence reigned in the room. Then Cosmo said:

"I think somebody is scratching at the door."

The Marquis sat up and listened, then raising his voice: "You may come

in."

The man in black clothes, entering through the hidden door, stopped at

some distance in a respectful attitude. The Marquis beckoned him to

approach, and the man, bending to his ear, said in a low voice which

was, however, audible to Cosmo: "He is here." The Marquis answered in an

undertone, "He came rather early. He must wait," at which the man

murmured something which Cosmo couldn't hear. He became aware that the

Marquis looked at him irresolutely before he said:

"My dear boy, you will have to make your entrance into my daughter's

salon together with me. I thought of sending you back the way you came,

but as a matter of fact the passage is blocked. . . . Bring him in and

let him sit here after we are gone," he directed the man in black, and

Cosmo only then recognized Bernard, the servant of proved fidelity in

all the misfortunes of the D'Armand family. Bernard withdrew without

responding in any way to Cosmo's smile of recognition. "In my position,"

continued the Marquis, "I have to make use of agents more or less shady.

Those men often object to being seen. Their occupation is risky. There

is a man of that sort waiting in the corridor."

Cosmo said he was at the Marquis's orders, but the ambassador remained

in the armchair, tapping the lid of his snuffbox slightly.

"You saw my daughter this morning, I understand." Cosmo made an

assenting bow. Madame de Montevesso had done him the honour to receive

him in the morning.

"You speak French very well," said the Marquis. "I don't really know why

the English are supposed to be bad linguists. We French are much worse.

Did you two speak French together?"

"No," said Cosmo, "we spoke in English. It was Madame de Montevesso's

own choice."

"She hasn't quite forgotten it, has she?"

"It struck me," said Cosmo, "that your daughter has forgotten neither

the language nor the people, nor the sights of her early life. I was

touched by the fidelity of her memory and the warmth of her feelings."

His own tone had warmth enough in it to make the Marquis look up at him.

There was a short pause. "None of us are likely to forget those days of

noble and infinite kindness. We were but vagrants on a hostile earth. My

daughter could not have forgotten! As long as there is anybody of our

name left . . ."

The Marquis checked himself abruptly, but almost at once went on in a

slightly changed tone: "But I am alone of my name now. I wish I had had

a son so that gratitude could have been perpetuated from generation to

generation and become a traditional thing between our two families. But

this is not to be. Perhaps you didn't know I had a brother. He was much

younger than myself and I loved him as though he had been my son.

Directly I had placed my wife and child in safety, your father insisted

on giving me the means to return to France secretly in order to try and

save that young head. But all my attempts failed. It fell on the

scaffold. He was one of the last victims of the sanguinary madness of

that time. . . . But let us talk of something else. What are your plans,

my young friend?"

Cosmo confessed that he had no plans. He intended to stay in Genoa for

some time. Madame de Montevesso had been good enough to encourage him in

that idea, and really there was such a feeling of leisure in the

European atmosphere that he didn't see why he should make any plans. The

world was enjoying its first breathing time. Cosmo corrected

himself--well no, perhaps not exactly enjoying. To be strictly truthful

he had not noticed much feeling of joy. . . . He hesitated a moment but

the whole attitude of the Marquis was so benevolent and encouraging that

he continued to take stock of his own sensations and continued in the

same strain. There was activity, lots of activity, agitation perhaps,

but no real joy. Or at any rate, no enjoyment. Not even now, after the

foreign troops had withdrawn from France and all the sovereigns of the

world had gone to Vienna.

The Marquis listened with profound attention. "Are those your

impressions, _mon cher enfant?_ Somehow they don't seem very favourable.

But you English are very apt to judge us with severity. I hear very

little of what is going on in France."

The train of his own thoughts had mastered Cosmo, who added, "What

struck me most was the sense of security . . ." he paused for an instant

and the ambassador, bending forward in the chair with the air of a man

attempting an experiment, insinuated gently:

"Not such a bad thing, that sentiment."

In the ardour of his honesty Cosmo did not notice either the attitude or

the tone, though he caught the sense of the words.

"Was it of the right kind," he went on, as if communing with himself,

"or was it the absence of sound thought, and almost of all feeling? M.

le Marquis, I am too young to judge, but one would have thought,

listening to the talk one heard on all sides, that such a man as

Bonaparte had never existed."

"You have been in the society of returned exiles," said the Marquis

after a moment of meditation. "You must judge them charitably. A class

that has been under the ban for years lives on its passions and on

prejudices whose growth stifles not only its sagacity but its visions of

the reality." He changed his tone. "Our present Minister of Foreign

Affairs never communicates with me personally. The only personal letter

I had from him in the last four months was on the subject of procuring

some truffles that grow in this country for the King, and there were

four pages of most minute directions as to where they were to be found

and how they were to be packed and transmitted to Paris. As to my

dispatches, I get merely formal acknowledgments. I really don't know

what is going on except through travellers who naturally colour their

information with their own desires. M. de Talleyrand writes me short

notes now and then, but as he has been himself for months in Vienna he

can't possibly know what is going on in France. His acute mind, his

extraordinary talents are fit to cope with the international situation,

but I suppose he too is uneasy. In fact, my dear young friend, as far as

I can judge, uneasy suspense is the prevailing sentiment all round the

basin of the Mediterranean. The fate of nations still hangs in the

balance."

Cosmo waited a moment before he whispered, "And the fate of some

individual souls perhaps."

The ambassador made no sound till after a whole minute had elapsed, and

then it was only to say:

"I suppose that like many of your young and even old countrymen, you

have formed a project of visiting Elba."

Cosmo at once adopted a conversational tone. "Half-formed at most," he

said. "I was never one of those who like to visit prisons and gaze at

their fellow beings in captivity. A strange taste indeed! I will own to

you, M. le Marquis," he went on boyishly, "that the notion of captivity

is very odious to me, for men, and for animals too. I would sooner look

at a dead lion than a lion in a cage. Yet I remember a young French

friend of mine telling me that we English were the most curious nation

in the world. But as you said, everybody seems to be doing Elba. I

suppose there are no difficulties."

"Not enough difficulties," said the ambassador blandly. "I mean for the

good of all concerned."

"Ah," said Cosmo, and repeated thoughtfully, "All concerned! The other

day in Paris I met Mr. Wycherley on his way home. He seemed to have had

no difficulty at all, not even in Elba. We had quite a long audience.

Mr. Wycherley struck me as a man of blunt feelings. Apparently the

Emperor--after all, the imperial title is not taken away from him

yet----"

The Marquis lowered his head slowly. "No, not yet."

"Well, the Emperor said to him: 'You have come here to look at a wild

beast,' and Mr. Wycherley, who doesn't seem to be at a loss for words,

answered at once: 'I have come here to look at a great man.' What a

crude answer! He is telling this story to everybody. He told me he is

going to publish a pamphlet about his visit."

"Mr. Wycherley is a man of good company. His answer was polite. What

would have been yours, my young friend?"

"I don't think I will ever be called to make any sort of answer to the

great man," said Cosmo.

The Marquis got up with the words: "I think that on the whole you will

be wise not to waste your time. I have here a letter from the French

Consul in Leghorn quoting the latest report he had from Elba. It states

that Bonaparte remains shut up for days together in his private

apartments. The reason given is that he fears attempts on his life being

made by emissaries sent from France and Italy. He is not visible.

Another report states that lately he has expressed great uneasiness at

the movements of the French and English frigates."

The Marquis laid a friendly hand on Cosmo's shoulder. "You cannot

complain of me; I have given you the very latest intelligence. And now

let us join whatever company my daughter is receiving. I think very few

people." He crossed the room, followed by Cosmo, and Cosmo noticed a

distinct lameness in his gait. At the moment of opening the door the

Marquis d'Armand said:

"Your arm, _mon jeune ami._ I am suffering from rheumatism considerably

this evening."

Cosmo hastened to offer his arm, and the Marquis with his hand on the

door said:

"I can hardly walk. I hope I shall be able to go to the audience I have

to-morrow with the King of Sardinia. He is an excellent man but all his

ideas and feelings came to a standstill in '98. It makes all

conversation with him extremely difficult even for me. His ministers are

more reasonable, but that is only because they are afraid."

A low groan escaped the ambassador. He remained leaning with one hand on

Cosmo's shoulder and with the other clinging to the door-handle.

"Afraid of the people?" asked Cosmo.

"The people are being corrupted by secret societies," the Marquis said

in his bland tone. "All Italy is seething with conspiracies. What,

however, they are afraid most of is the Man of Elba."

Cosmo for an instant wondered at those confidences, but a swift

reflection that probably those things were known to everybody who was

anybody in Europe made him think that this familiar talk was merely the

effect of the Marquis's kindness to the son of his old friend. "I think

I can proceed now," said the Marquis, pushing the door open. Cosmo

recognized one of the rooms which he had passed in the morning. It was

the only one of the suite which was fully lighted by a great central

glass chandelier, but even in that only two rows of candles were

lighted. It was a small reception. The rest of the suite presented but a

dim perspective. A semi-circle of heavy armchairs was sparsely occupied

by less than a dozen ladies. There was only one card table in use. All

the faces were turned to the opening door, and Cosmo was struck by the

expression of profound surprise on them all. In one or two it resembled

thunderstruck imbecility. It didn't occur to him that the entrance of

the French King's personal representative leaning on the shoulder of a

completely unknown young man was enough to cause a sensation. A group of

elderly personages, conversing in a remote part of the room, became

silent. The Marquis gave a general greeting by an inclination of his

head, and Cosmo felt himself impelled towards a console between two

windows against which the Marquis leaned, whispering to him, "If I were

to sit down it would be such an affair to get up." The Countess de

Montevesso advanced quickly across the room. Cosmo noticed that her

dress had a long train. She smiled at Cosmo and said to the Marquis

anxiously:

"You are in pain, Papa?"

"A little. . . . Take him away, my dear, now. He was good enough to lend

me his shoulder as far as this."

"_Venez_, M. Latham," said Adèle, "I must introduce you at once to Lady

William Bentick in order to check wild speculation about the appearance

of a mysterious stranger. As it is, all the town will be full of

rumours. People will be talking about you this very night."

Cosmo followed Adèle across the room. She moved slowly and talked

easily with a flattering air of intimacy. She even stopped for a moment

under the great chandelier. "Lady William is talking now with Count

Bubna," she explained to Cosmo, who took a rapid survey of a tall, stout

man in an Austrian general's uniform, with his hair tied up in a queue,

with black moustaches and something cynical though not ill-natured in

his expression. That personage interrupted suddenly his conversation

with a lady, no longer very young, who was dressed very simply, and made

his way to the ambassador, giving in passing a faintly caustic smile and

a keen glance to Cosmo.

"Let me introduce to you Mr. Cosmo Latham," said Adèle. "He is the son

of my father's very old friend. He and I haven't met since we were

children together in Yorkshire. He has just arrived here."

Cosmo bowed, and in response to a slight gesture took a seat close to

the lady, whose preoccupied air struck him with a sort of wonder. She

seemed to have something on her mind. Cosmo could know nothing of the

prevalent gossip that it was only the black eyes of Louise Durazzo that

were detaining Lord William in Italy. He explained in answer to a

careless inquiry as to the latest news from Paris that he had been

travelling very leisurely and that he could not possibly have brought

any fresh news. Lady William looked at him as if she had not seen him

before.

"Oh, I am not very much interested in the news, except in so far that

they may make a longer stay here unnecessary for us."

"I suppose everybody wants to see the shape of the civilized world

settled at last," said Cosmo politely.

"All I want is to go home," declared Lady William. She was no longer

looking at him and had the appearance of a person not anxious to listen

to anybody's conversation. Cosmo glanced about the room. The card game

had been resumed. The Austrian general was talking to the Marquis with

Madame de Montevesso standing close to them, while other persons kept at

a respectful distance. Lady William seemed to be following her own

thoughts with a sort of impassive abstraction. Cosmo felt himself at

liberty to go on with his observations, and sweeping his glance round

noticed, sitting half hidden by the back of the armchair Adèle had

vacated, the dark girl with round black eyes, whom he had seen that

morning. To his extreme surprise she smiled at him and, not content with

that, gave other plain signs of recognition. He thought he could do no

less than get up and make her a bow. By the time he sat down again he

became aware that he had attracted the notice of all the ladies seated

before the fire. One of them put up her eyeglasses to look at him, two

others started talking low together with side glances in his direction,

and there was not one that did not look interested. This disturbed him

much less than the fixed stare of the young creature, which became

fastened on him unwinkingly. Even Lady William gave him a short look of

curiosity.

"I understand that you have just arrived in Genoa."

"Yes. Yesterday afternoon late. This is my first appearance."

He meant that it was his first appearance in society and he continued:

"And I don't know a single person in this room even by name. Of course I

know that it is Count Bubna who is talking to the Marquis, but that is

all."

"Ah," said Lady William with a particular intonation which made Cosmo

wonder what he could have said to provoke scepticism. But Lady William

was asking herself how it was that this young Englishman seemed to be

familiar with the freakish girl who was an object of many surmises in

Genoa, and whose company, it was understood, Count Helion of Montevesso

had imposed upon his wife. Meantime Cosmo, with the eyes of all the

women concentrated upon him with complete frankness, began to feel

uncomfortable. Lady William noticed it and out of pure kindness spoke to

him again.

"If I understood rightly you have known Madame de Montevesso from

childhood."

"I can't call myself really a childhood's friend. I was so much away

from home," explained Cosmo. "But she lived for some years in my

parents' house and everybody loved her there; my mother, my father, my

sister--and it seems to me, looking back now, that I too must have loved

her at that time; though we very seldom exchanged more than a few words

in the course of the day."

He spoke with feeling and glanced in the direction of the group near the

console where the head of Adèle appeared radiant under the sparkling

crystals of the lustre. Lady William, bending sideways a little, leaned

her cheek against her hand in a listening attitude. Cosmo felt that he

was expected to go on speaking, but it seemed to him that he had nothing

more to say. He fell back upon a general remark.

"I think boys are very stupid creatures. However, I wasn't so stupid as

not to feel that Adèle d'Armand was very intelligent and quite

different from us all. Her very gentleness set her apart. Moreover,

Henrietta and I were younger. To my sister and myself she seemed almost

grown up. A couple of years makes a very great difference at that age.

Soon after she went away we children heard that she was married. She

seemed lost to us then. Presently she went back to France, and once

there she was lost indeed. When one looked towards France in those days

it seems to me there was nothing to be seen but Napoleon. And then her

marriage, too. A Countess de Montevesso didn't mean anything to us. I

came here expecting to see a stranger."