PART II (continued 2)

"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."

Cosmo checked himself. It was impossible to say whether Lady William had heard him, or even whether she had been listening at all, but she asked:

"You never met Count Helion?"

"I haven't the slightest idea of the man. He is not in this room, is he? What is he like?"

Lady William looked amused for a moment at the artless curiosity of the Countess de Montevesso's young friend; but it was in an indifferent tone that she said:

"Count Helion is a man of immense wealth which he amassed in India somewhere. He is much older than his wife. More than twice her age." Cosmo showed his surprise, and Lady William continued smoothly: "Of course all the world knows that Adèle has been a model wife."

Cosmo noted the faintest possible shade of emphasis on those last words and thought to himself: "That means she is not happy and that the world knows it." But, several men having approached the circle, the conversation became general. He vacated his seat by the side of Lady William and got introduced by Adèle to several people, amongst whom was a delicate young woman splendidly dressed and of a slightly Jewish type who, though she was the wife of General Count Bubna, commander-in-chief of the Austrian troops and the representative of Austria at the Court of Turin, behaved with a strange timidity and appeared almost too shy to speak. A simple Madame Ferrati, or so at least Cosmo heard her name, a lady with white tousled hair, had an aggressive manner. Cosmo remarked in the course of the evening that she seemed rather to be persecuting Lady William, who, however, remained amiably abstracted and did not seem to mind anything. The Marquis, getting away from the console, had seated himself near the little Madame Bubna. This, Cosmo thought, was an unavoidable sort of thing for him to do. A young man with a grave manner and something malicious in his eye, apparently a First Secretary of the Embassy, informed Cosmo shortly after they had been made known to each other that "the wife of the general would not naturally be received in Vienna society," and that this was the secret of Bubna sticking to his Italian command so long, even now when really all the excitement was over. Of course he was very much in love with his wife. He used to give her balls twice a week at the expense of the Turin Municipality. Old Bubna understood the art of pillaging to perfection, but apart from that he was a parfait galant homme and an able soldier. Bonaparte had a very great liking for him. Bubna was the only friend Bonaparte had in this room. He meant sympathy as man for man. Years ago when Bubna was in Paris he got on very well with the Emperor. Bonaparte knew how to flatter a man. It was worth while to sit up half the night to hear Bubna talking about Bonaparte. "I am posting you up like this," concluded the secretary, "because I see you are in the intimacy of the Marquis and of Madame de Montevesso here."

He went away then to talk to somebody else, and presently Madame de Montevesso, passing close to Cosmo, whispered to him, "Stay to the last," and went on without waiting for his answer. Cosmo amongst all the groups engaged in animated conversation felt rather lonely, totally estranged from the ideas those people were expressing to each other. He could not possibly be in sympathy with the fears and the hopes, strictly personal, and with the royalist-legitimist enthusiasms of these advocates of an order of things that had been buried for a quarter of a century and now was paraded like a rouged and powdered corpse putting on a swagger of life and revenge. Then he reflected that in this room, at any rate, it was probably nothing but scandalous gossip and trivial talk of futile intrigues. There was no need for him to be indignant. He was even amused at himself, and looking about him in a kindlier frame of mind he perceived that the person nearest to him was that strange girl with the round eyes. She had kept perfectly still on her uncomfortable stool like a captured savage. Her green flounced skirt was spread on each side of the seat. The bodice of her dress, which was black, was cut low, her bare arms were youthfully red and immature. Her hair was done up smoothly and pulled up from her forehead in the manner of the portraits of the 15th Century.

"Why do they dress her in this bizarre manner?" thought Cosmo. It couldn't be Adèle's conception. Perhaps of the Count himself. Yet that didn't seem likely. Perhaps it was her own atrocious taste. But if so it ought to have been repressed. He reflected that there could be nothing improper in him talking to the niece of the house. He would try his conversational Italian. With the feeling of venturing on a doubtful experiment he approached her from the back, sat down at her elbow, and waited. She could not possibly remain unaware of him being there.

At last she turned her head for a point-blank stare, and once she had her eyes on him she never attempted to take them away. Cosmo uttered carefully a complimentary phrase about her dress, which was received in perfect silence. Her carmine lips remained as still as her round black eyes for quite a long time. Suddenly in a low tone, with an accent which surprised Cosmo but which he supposed to be Piedmontese, and with a sort of spiteful triumph, she said:

"I knew very well it would suit me. You think it does?"

Her whole personality had such an aggressive mien that Cosmo, startled and amused, hastened to say, "Undoubtedly," lest she should fly at his eyes.

She showed him her teeth in a grin of savage complacency, and the subject seemed exhausted. Cosmo set himself the task to daunt her by a steady gaze. In less than two seconds he regretted his venture. He felt certain that she would not be the one to look away first. There was not the slightest doubt about that. In order to cover his retreat he let his eyes wander vaguely about the room, smiled agreeably, and said: "Your uncle is not here. Shall I have the pleasure of seeing him this evening?"

"No," she said. "You won't see him this evening. But he knows you have been here this morning."

This was, strictly speaking, news to Cosmo, but he said at once and with great indifference:

"Why shouldn't he? Probably Madame de Montevesso has told him. I used to know your aunt when she was younger than you are, signorina."

"How do you know how old I am?"

Cosmo asked himself if she would ever wink those black eyes of hers.

"I know that you are not a hundred years old."

This struck her as humorous, because there was a sound as of a faint giggle which, generally speaking, is a silly kind of sound but in her case had a disturbing quality. It was followed by the hoarse declaration:

"Aunt didn't. I told Uncle. I looked a lot at you in the morning. Why didn't you look at me?"

"I was afraid of being indiscreet," said Cosmo readily, concealing his astonishment.

"What silliness," she commented scornfully. "And this evening too! I was looking at you all the time and you did nothing but look at all those witches here, one after another."

"I find all the ladies in the room perfectly charming," said Cosmo.

"You lie. I suppose you do nothing else from morning till night."

"I am sorry you have such a bad opinion of me, but it being what it is, hadn't I better go away?"

"Directly I set eyes on you I knew you were one of that sort."

"And did you impart your opinion of me to your uncle?" asked Cosmo. He could be no more offended with that girl than if she had been an unmannerly animal. Her peculiar stare remained unchanged but her general expression softened for a moment.

"No. But I took care to tell him that you were a very handsome gentleman. . . . You are a very handsome gentleman."

What surprised Cosmo was not the downright statement but the thought that flashed through his mind that it was as dreadful as being told that one was good to eat. For a time he stared without any thought of unwinking competition. He was not amused. Distinctly not. He asked:

"Where were you born?"

"How can I tell? In the mountains, I suppose. Somewhere where you will never go. How can it possibly concern you?"

Cosmo offered his apology for his indiscretion, and she received it with a sort of uncomprehending scorn. She said after a pause: "None of those witches, young or old, ever speak to me. And even you didn't want to speak to me. You only spoke to me . . . Oh, no! I know why you spoke to me."

"Why did I speak to you?" asked Cosmo thoughtfully. "Won't you tell me?"

Upon the firm roundness of that high-coloured face came a subtle change which suggested something in the nature of cunning, and the rough, somewhat veiled voice came from between the red lips which had no more charm or life than the painted lips carved in a piece of wood.

"If I were to tell you would be as wise as myself."

"Where would be the harm of me being as wise as yourself?" said Cosmo, trying to be playful but somehow missing the tone of playfulness so completely that he was struck by his failure himself.

"If you were as wise as myself you would never come to this house again and I don't want you to stay away," was the answer, delivered in a hostile tone.

Cosmo said, "You don't! Well, at any rate it can't be because of kindness, so I don't thank you for it." He said this with extreme amiability. Becoming aware that people were beginning to leave, he observed, out of the corner of his eye, that nobody went away without glancing in their direction. Then the departure of Lady William caused a general stir and gave Cosmo the occasion to get up and move away. Lady William gave him a gracious nod, and the Marquis, coming up to him, introduced him at the last moment to General Count Bubna just as that distinguished person was making ready to take his wife away. Everybody was standing up and for the first time Cosmo felt himself completely unobserved. Obeying a discreet sign of the Countess Montevesso, he moved unaffectedly in the direction of a closed door, the white and gold door he remembered well from his morning visit. When he had got near to it and within reach of the handle he turned about. He had the view of the guests' backs as they moved slowly out. Adèle looked over her shoulder for a moment with an affirmative nod. He understood it, hesitated no longer, opened the door, and slipped through without, so far as he could judge, being seen by anybody.

It was as he had thought. He found himself in Madame de Montevesso's boudoir in which he had been received that morning.

IV

He shut the door behind him gently and remained between it and the screen. He had expected to be followed at once by Adèle. What could be detaining her? But he remembered the remarkable proportions of that suite of reception rooms. He had seen some apartments in Paris, but nothing quite so long as that. The old Marquis would no doubt conduct the little Madame Bubna to the very door of the anteroom. The ambassador of The Most Christian King owed that attention to the representative of His Apostolic Majesty and Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian troops. This was the exact form which his thought took. The Christian King, the Apostolic Majesty—all those submerged heads were bobbing up out of the subsiding flood.

He pictured them to himself in their mental simplicity and with their grand air; the Marquis magnificent and ageing, and the dutiful daughter by his side with her radiant head and her divine form. It was impossible to believe that these two had also been submerged at one time.

All those people were mere playthings, reflected Cosmo without a pang. But who or what was playing with them? he thought further, boldly, and remained for a moment as if amused by the marvellousness of it, in the manner of people watching the changes on the stage. But what could have become of them?

She might next moment be opening the door. Could she have made him stay behind because she wanted to speak with him alone? Why, yes, obviously. Cosmo did not ask himself what she wanted to talk to him about. It was no wonder that he felt, it was a subtle emotion resembling impatience for the arrival of a promised felicity of an indefinite kind. All this was by no means poignant. It was merely delightfully disturbing.

"I shall have a tête-à-tête; that's clear," he thought, as he advanced into the room. The air all around him was delightfully warm. Whatever she would have to say would be wonderful because of her voice. He would look her in the face. She did not intimidate him and it was impossible to have too much of that. After all, he thought, immensely amused, it was only Adèle, Ad——

His mental monologue was cut short by the shock of perceiving, seated on the painted sofa, a man who was looking at him in perfect silence and immobility. The fact was that Count Helion, having come into the boudoir sooner than his wife had expected him to do, had directed his eyes to the screen ever since he had heard the opening and the shutting of the door. One of his hands was resting on his thigh, the other hung down holding negligently a number of some gazette which was partly resting on the floor. Though not very big, that piece of paper attracted Cosmo's eyes; and it was in this way that he became aware of the brown fingers covered with rings, of the gaunt legs encased in silk stockings, and of the crossed feet in dress shoes with gold buckles, almost before he took in the impression of the broad but lean face which seemed to have been stained with walnut juice long enough for the stain to have worn down thin, letting the native pallor come through. The same tint extended to the bald top of the head. But what was really extraordinary was the hair: two patches of black behind each temple, obviously dyed. The man, as to whose identity Cosmo could have no doubt, got up, displaying the full length of his bony frame, in a tense and soldierly stiffness associated with cross-belts and a cowhide knapsack on the back. "A grenadier," thought Cosmo, startled by this unexpected meeting, which also caused him profound annoyance, as though he had been induced to walk into a trap. What he could not understand was why the man should make that grimace at him. It convulsed his whole physiognomy, involving his lips, his cheeks, and his very eyes in a sort of spasm. The most awful thing was that it stayed there. . . . "Why, it's a smile," thought Cosmo, with sudden relief. It was so sudden that it broke into a smile without any particular volition of his own. Thereupon the face of Count Helion recovered its normal aspect and Cosmo heard his voice for the first time. It proceeded from the depths of his chest. It was resonant and blurred and portentous with an effect of stiffness somehow in accord with the man's bearing. It informed Cosmo that Count Helion had been waiting in the Countess's boudoir on purpose to make his acquaintance, while in the man's eyes there was a watchfulness as though he had been uttering a momentous disclosure and was anxious as to its effect. A perfectly horizontal, jet-black moustache underlining the nose of Count Helion, which was broad at the base and thin at the end, suggested comic possibilities in that head, which had too much individuality to be looked upon by Cosmo simply as the head of Adèle's husband; and Cosmo hardly looked at it in that light. His hold on that fact was slippery. He preserved his equanimity perfectly and said that he himself had wondered whether he would have the pleasure of making the Count's acquaintance that evening. Both men sat down.

"My occupations kept me late to-night," said the Count. "The courier came in."

He pointed with his fingers to the gazette lying on the floor, and Cosmo asked if there were any news.

"In the gazette, no. At least nothing interesting. The world is full of vanities and scandals, rumours of conspiracies. Very poor stuff. I don't know any of those people the papers mention every day. That's more my wife's affair. For years now she has spent about ten months of every year in Paris or near Paris. I am a provincial. My interests are in the orphanage I have founded in my native country. I am also building an asylum for . . ."

He got up suddenly, approached the mantelpiece in three strides, and turned round exactly like a soldier in the ranks of a company changing front. He was wearing a blue coat cut away in front and having a long skirt, something recalling the cut of a uniform, though the material was fine and there was a good deal of gold lace about it, as also on his white satin waistcoat. Cosmo recalled the vague story he had heard about Count de Montevesso having served in more than one army before being given the rank of general by the King of Piedmont. The man had been drilled. Cosmo wondered whether he had ever been caned. He was a military adventurer of the commonest type. Some of them have been known to return with a fortune got by pillage and intrigue and possibly even by real talents of a sort in the service of oriental courts full of splendours and crimes, tyrannies and treacheries and dark drama of ambition, or love.

"He is the very thing," Cosmo exclaimed mentally, gating at the stiff figure leaning against the mantelpiece. Of course he got his fortune in India. What was remarkable about him was that he had managed to get away with his plunder, or at any rate a part of it, considerable enough to enable him to make a figure in the world and marry Adèle d'Armand in England. That was only because of the Revolution. In royal France he would not have had the ghost of a chance; and even as it was, only the odious laxity of London society in accepting rich strangers had given him his opportunity. Cosmo, forcing himself to envisage this dubious person as the husband of Adèle, felt very angry with the light-minded tolerance extended to foreigners characteristic of a certain part of London society. It was perfectly outrageous.

"Where the devil can my wife be?"

Those words made Cosmo start, though they had not been uttered very loudly. Almost mechanically he answered: "I don't know," and noticed that Count Helion was staring at him in a curiously unintelligent manner.

"I was really asking myself," muttered the latter and stirred uneasily, without however taking his elbow off the mantelpiece. "It's a natural thought since we are, God knows why, kept waiting for her here. I wasn't aware I had spoken. Living for many years amongst people who didn't understand any European language—I had hundreds of them in my palace in Sindh—I got into the habit of talking aloud, strange as it may appear to you."

"Yes," said Cosmo, with an air of innocence. "I suppose one acquires all sorts of strange habits in those distant countries. We in England have a class of men who return from India enriched. They are called nabobs. Some of them have most objectionable habits. Unluckily their mere wealth . . ."

"There is nothing to compare with wealth," interrupted the other in a soldierly voice and paused, then continued in the same tone of making a verbal report: "When I was in England I had the privilege to know many people of position. They were very kind to me. They didn't seem to think lightly of wealth."

Each phrase came curt, detached, but it was evident that the man did not mean to be offensive. Those statements originated obviously in sincere conviction; and after the Count had uttered them there appeared on his forehead the horizontal wrinkles of unintelligent worry. Cosmo asked himself whether the man before him was not really very stupid. Under the elevated eyebrows his eyes looked worn and empty of all thought.

"Lots of money, I mean," M. de Montevesso began again. "Not your savings and scrapings. Money that one acquires boldly and enough of it to be profuse with."

"Is he going to treat me to vulgar boasting?" thought Cosmo. He wished that Adèle would come in and interrupt this tête-à-tête which was so very different from the one he had been expecting.

"I daresay money is very useful," he assented, with airy scorn which he thought might put an end to the subject. But his interlocutor persisted.

"You can't know anything about it," he affirmed, then added unexpectedly: "Money will give you even ideas. Lots of ideas. The worst of it is that any one of them may turn out damnable. Well, yes. There is of course danger in money, but what of that?"

"It can scarcely be if it is used for good works, as you seem to use it," said Cosmo with polite indifference. He meant it to be final, but Count de Montevesso was not to be suppressed.

"It leads one into worries," he said. "For instance, that orphanage of mine, it is really a very large place. I am trying to be a benefactor to my native province, but I want it to be in my own way. Well, since the Restoration, the priests are trying to get hold of it. They want to turn it to the glory of God and to the service of religion. I have seen enough of all sorts of religions not to know what that means. No sooner had the King entered Paris than the Bishop wrote to me pointing out that there was no chapel and suggesting that I should build one and appoint a chaplain. That Bishop is . . ."

He threw up his head suddenly and Cosmo became aware of the presence of Adèle without having heard even the rustle of her dress. He stood up hastily. There was a short silence.

"I see the acquaintance is made," said Adèle, looking from one to the other. Her eyes lingered on Cosmo and then turned to her husband. "I didn't know you would be already here. I had to help my father to his room. I would have come at once here but he detained me." Again she turned to Cosmo. "You will pardon me."

"I found Count Helion here. I have not been alone for a minute," said Cosmo. "You owe me no apologies. I was delighted to make your husband's acquaintance, even if you were not here to introduce us to each other."

This was said in English and Count Helion by the mantelpiece waited till Cosmo had finished before he asked, "Where's Clelia?"

"I have sent her to bed," said Countess de Montevesso. "Helion, my father would like to see you this evening."

"I am at the orders of M. le Marquis."

The grenadier-like figure at the mantelpiece did not stir, and those words were followed only by a slight twitch in the muscles of the face which might have had a sardonic intention. "To-night, at once," he repeated. "But with Mr. Latham here?"

"Pray don't mind me, I am going away directly," said Cosmo. "It is getting late."

"In Italy it is never late. I hope to find you here when I return. As the husband of a daughter of the house of D'Armand I know what is due to the name of Latham. Am I really expected at once?"

Adèle moved forward a step or two, speaking rapidly. "There has been some news from Elba, or about Elba, which gives a certain concern to my father. As you have been to the public knowledge in direct touch with people from Elba my father would like to have your opinion."

Count Helion changed his attitude, and leaning his shoulders against the mantelpiece addressed himself to Cosmo.

"It was the most innocent thing in the world. It was something about the project for the exploitation of the Island of Pianosa. Napoleon sent his treasurer here to get in touch with a banker. I am a man of affairs. The banker consulted me—as a man who knew the spot. It's true I know the spot, but if you hear it said that it is because of my relations with the Dey of Algiers, pray don't believe it. I am in no way in touch with the Barbary States."

He made a step forward, and then another, and stood still. "You two had better sit down and talk. Yes, sit down and talk. Renew the acquaintance of your early youth . . . your early youth," he repeated in a faint voice. "Those youthful friendships . . ." he made a convulsive grimace which Cosmo had discovered to be the effect of a smile. "There is something so charming in those youthful friendships. As to myself I don't remember ever being youthful." He stepped out towards the door through which Cosmo had seen Clelia enter that morning. "Let me find you when I return, enjoying yourselves most sentimentally. Most delightful."

His long stiff back swayed in the doorway and the door came to with a crash.

Cosmo and Adèle looked at each other with a smile. Cosmo, hat in hand, asked just audibly, "I suppose I had better stay?" She made an affirmative sign and, moving away from him, put her foot on the marble fender of the fireplace where nothing was left but hot ashes hiding a reddish glow.

V

Cosmo, ill at ease, remained looking at her. He was in doubt what the sign she had made meant, a nervous and imperious gesture, which might have been a command for him to go or to stay. In his irresolution he gazed at her, thinking that she was lovely to an incredible degree and that the word "radiant" applied to her extraordinary aptness. Light entered into her composition. And it was not the cold light of marble. "She actually glows," he said to himself, amazed, "like ripe fruit in the foliage, like a big flower in the shade."

"Don't gaze at my blushes," said Madame de Montevesso in an even tone tinged with a little mockery and a little bitterness. "Would you believe that when I was a girl I was so shy that I used to blush crimson whenever anybody looked at me or spoke to me? It's a failing which does not meet with much sympathy. And yet my suffering was very real. It would reach such a pitch at times that I was ready to cry."

"Shall I go away?" asked Cosmo in a deadened voice. He waited for a moment while she seemed to debate in her mind the answer to the question. In his fear of being sent away he went on: "God knows I don't want to leave you. And after all the Count is coming back and . . ."

"Oh, yes, he is coming back. Sit down. Yes. It would be better. Sit down. . . ." Cosmo sat down where he could see her admirable shoulders, the roundness of her averted head, coiffée en boucles and girt with a gold circlet, the shadowy retreating view of her profile. The long drapery of her train flowed to the ground in a dark blue shimmer. . . . "He is inevitable. He has always been inevitable," came further from her lips which he couldn't see, for the mirror above the mantelpiece reflected nothing but her forehead with the gold mist of her hair above.

Cosmo remained silent. For nothing in the world would he have made a sound. He held his breath with expectation; and in the extreme tension of his whole being the lights grew dim around him, while her white shoulders, the thick clustering curls, the arm on which she leaned, and the other bare arm hanging inert by her side, seemed the only source of light in the room.

"You don't know me at all," began the Countess de Montevesso. "I don't charge you with forgetting; but the little you may remember of me cannot be of any use. It is only natural that I should be a stranger to you. But you cannot be a stranger to me. For one thing you were a boy and then you were not a child of outcasts without a country, of refugees with a ruined past and with no future. You were a young Latham, as rooted in your native soil as the old trees of your park. Even then there seemed to me something enviable about you."

She turned her head a little to glance at him. "You had no idea what it was like after we had gone to London. My ignorance of the world was so profound that I felt ill at ease in it. I hoped I had an attractive face, but I only discovered that I was pretty from the remarks of the people in the street I overheard. I spent my life by the side of my mother's couch. I never went out except attended by my father or by Aglae. My only amusement was to play a game of chess now and then with an old doctor, also a refugee, who looked after my mother, or listen to the conversation of the people who came to see us. Amongst them there were all the prominent men and women of the old régime. Refugees. They seldom spoke the truth to each other, and yet they were no more stupid than the rest of the world. Nobody could be more good-natured and better company, more frivolous or more inconsiderate. I have seen women of the highest rank work ten hours a day to get bread for their children, but they also slandered one another, told falsehoods about their conduct and their work, and quarrelled among themselves in the style of washerwomen. Morals were even looser than in the times before the Revolution. Manners were forgotten. Every transgression was excused in those who were regarded as good royalists. I don't mean this to apply to the great body of the refugees. Some of them led irreproachable lives. Round our Princes there were some most absurd intrigues. I didn't know much of all this, but I remember my poor father's helpless indignations and my own appalled disgust at the things I could not help hearing and seeing."

She turned her head to look at Cosmo. "I am telling you all this to give you some idea of the air I had to breathe," she said in a changed tone. "I don't think it contaminated me. I felt its odiousness; but all this seemed without remedy. I didn't even suffer much from it. What I suffered most from was our domestic anxieties; my mother's fears lest the small resources we had to live on should fail us altogether. Our daily crust of bread seemed to depend on political events in Europe, and they were going against us. Battles, negotiations, everything. A blight seemed to have fallen on the royalist cause. My mother didn't conceal her distress. What touched me more still was the careworn, silent anxiety of my poor father."

She paused, looking at Cosmo intently, meeting his eyes fixed on her face. "I was getting on for sixteen," she continued. "No one ever paid the slightest attention to me. The only genuine passion in my heart was filial love. . . . But is it any good in going on? And then I can't tell what you may have heard already."

"All I have heard," said Cosmo in a tone of profound respect, "is that Adèle de Montevesso's life has been irreproachable."

"I remember the time when all the world was doing its best to make it impossible. Would it shock you very much if I told you that I don't care at all about its good opinion now? There was a time when it would put the worst construction possible on my distress, on my bewilderment, on my very innocence."

"Why should the world do that to you?" asked Cosmo.

"Why? But I see you know nothing. I met my husband first at a select concert that was given by the music-master of the late Queen of France. My mother was feeling a little better and insisted on my going out a little. Those were small fashionable affairs. I had a good voice myself, and that evening I sang with Madame Seppio. An English gentleman—his name doesn't matter—presented M. de Montevesso to me as a friend of his just returned from India and anxious to be introduced to the best society. What with my usual shyness and the unattractive appearance of the man, I don't think I received his attentions very well. There was really no reason I should notice him particularly. It wasn't difficult to see that he had not the manners of a man of the world. Where could he have acquired them? He had left his village at seventeen, he enlisted in the Irish Regiment which served in France, then he deserted, perhaps. I only know that some years afterwards he was a captain in the service of Russia. From there he made his way to India. I believe the governor-general used him as a sort of unofficial agent amongst native princes, but he got into some scrape with the company. By what steps he managed to get on to the back of an elephant and command the army of a native prince I really don't know. And even if I had known then it would not have made him more interesting in my eyes. I was relieved when he made me a deep bow with his hand on his heart and went away. He left a most fugitive impression, but the very next morning he sent his English friend to ask my parents for my hand. That friend was a nobleman, a man of honour, and the offers he was empowered to make were so generous that my parents thought they must tell me of them. I was so astonished that at first I couldn't speak. I simply went away and shut myself up in my room. They were not people to press me for an answer. The poor worried dears thought that I wouldn't even consent to contemplate this marriage; while I, shut up in my room—I was afraid, remembering the way they had spoken to me of that offer, that they would reject it without consulting me any further. I sent word by Aglae that I would give my answer next day and that I begged to be left to myself. Then I escaped from the house, followed by Aglae, who was never so frightened in her life, and went to see the wife of that friend of my present husband. I begged her to send at once for General de Montevesso—at that time he called himself General. The King of Sardinia had given him this rank in acknowledgment of some service that his great wealth had enabled him to render to the Court of Turin. That lady of course had many scruples about doing something so highly unconventional, but at last, overcome by the exaltation of my feelings, she consented."

"She did that?" murmured Cosmo. "What an extraordinary thing!"

"Yes. She did that, instead of taking me home. People will do extraordinary things to please a man of fabulous wealth. She sent out two or three messengers to look for him all over the town. They were some time in finding him. I waited. I was perfectly calm. I was calmer than I am now, telling you my story. I was possessed by the spirit of self-sacrifice. I had no misgivings. I remember even how cold I was in that small drawing room with a big coal fire. He arrived out of breath. He was splendidly dressed and behaved very ceremoniously. I felt his emotion without sharing it. I, who used to blush violently at the smallest provocation, didn't feel the slightest embarrassment in addressing that big stiff man so much older than myself. I could not appreciate what a fatal mistake I was committing by telling him that I didn't care for him in the least and probably never should; but that if he would secure my parents' future comfort my gratitude would be so great that I could marry him, without reluctance and be his loyal friend and wife for life. He stood there stiff and ominous and told me that he didn't flatter himself with the possibility of inspiring any deeper feeling.

"We stood there facing each other for a bit. I felt nothing but an inward glow of satisfaction at having, as I thought, acted honourably. As to him I think he was simply made dumb with rage. At last he bowed with his hands on his heart and said that he would not even ask now for the favour of kissing my hand. I appreciated his delicacy at that moment. It would have been an immense trial to my shyness. I think now that he was simply afraid of putting my hand to his lips lest he should lose his self-control and bite it. He told me later, in one of those moments when people don't care what they say, that at that moment he positively hated me, not the sight of me, you understand, but my aristocratic insolence."

She paused, and in the youthful sincerity of his sympathy Cosmo uttered a subdued exclamation of distress. Madame de Montevesso looked at him again and then averted her face.

"I heard afterwards some gossip to the effect that he had been jilted by a girl to whom he was engaged, the daughter of some captain on half-pay, and that he proposed to me simply to show her that he could find a girl prettier, of higher rank, and in every way more distinguished that would consent to be his wife. I believe that it was this that prevented him from drawing back before my frankness. As to me, I went home, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, caring for nothing, as though I had done with the world, as though I had taken the veil. I can find no other comparison for the peace that was in me. I faced my mother's reproaches calmly. She was of course very much hurt at my not confiding in her at this crisis of my life. My father, too. But how could I have confided in them in this matter on which their security and welfare depended? How could I have confided in any of the men and women around me who seemed to me as if mad, whose conduct and opinions I despised with youthful severity as foolish and immoral? There was one human being in the world in whom I might perhaps have confided, that perhaps would have understood me. That was your father, Cosmo. But he was three hundred miles away. There was no time. Tell me, did he understand? Has he cast me out of his thoughts for ever?"

"My father," said Cosmo, "has lived like a hermit for years. There was nothing to make him forget you. Yes, he was a man in whom you could have confided. He would have understood you. That doesn't mean to say that he would have approved. I wish he had been by your side. He would have brought pressure on your parents with the authority of an old and tried friend."

"And benefactor," struck in the Countess de Montevesso. "My father, I believe, had an inkling of the truth. He begged me again and again to think well of what I was doing. I told him that I was perfectly satisfied with what I had done. It was perfectly true then. I had satisfied my conscience by telling my suitor that I could never love him. I felt strangely confident that I could fulfil the duties of my new position, and I was absorbed by the happiness of having saved my parents from all anxiety for the future. I was not aware of having made any sacrifice. Probably if I had been twenty or more I would have been less confident; perhaps I wouldn't have had the courage! But at that age I didn't know that my whole life was at stake. Three weeks afterwards I was married.

"As you see, there was no time lost. During that period our intercourse was of the most formal kind only I never even attempted to observe him with any attention. He was very stiff and ceremonious, but he was in a hurry, because I believe he was afraid from his previous experience that I would change my mind. His usual answer to the expression of all my wishes and to most of my speeches was a profound bow—and, sometimes, I was amused. In the lightness of my heart a thought would come to me that a lifetime on such terms would be a funny affair. I don't say he deceived me in anything. He had brought an immense fortune out of India and the world took him at its face value. With no more falsehood than holding his tongue and watching his behaviour he kept me in the dark about his character, his family, his antecedents, his very name. When we first were married he was ostentatious and rather mean at the same time. His long life in India added the force of oriental jealousy to that which would be in a sense natural to a man of his age. Moreover, his character was naturally disagreeable. The only way he could make the power of his great fortune felt was by hurting the feelings of other people, of his servants, of his dependents, of his friends. His wife came in for her share. An older and cleverer woman with a certain power of deception and caring for the material pleasures of life could have done better for herself and for him in the situation in which I was placed, but I, almost a child, with an honest and proud character and caring nothing for what wealth could give, I was perfectly helpless. I was being constantly surprised and shocked by the displays of evil passions and his fits of ridiculous jealousy which were expressed in such a coarse manner that they could only arouse my resentment and contempt.

"Meantime we lived in great style—dinner parties, concerts. I had a very good voice. I daresay he was anxious enough to show off his latest acquisition, but at the same time he could not bear me being looked at or even spoken to. A fit of oriental jealousy would come over him, especially when I had been much applauded. He would express his feelings to me in barrack-room language. At last, one evening he made a most scandalous scene before about two hundred guests, and then went out of the house, leaving me to make the best of it before all those people. It caused the greatest possible scandal. The party of course broke up. I spent the rest of the night sitting in my bedroom, too overcome to take off my splendid dress and those jewels with which he always insisted I should bedeck myself. With the first signs of dawn he returned, and coming up into my room found me sitting there. He told me then that living with me was too much of a torture for him and proposed I should go back to my parents for a time.

"We had been married for a little over a year then. For the first time since the wedding I felt really happy. They, poor dears, were delighted. We were all so innocent together that we thought this would be the end of all our troubles, that the man was chivalrous enough to have seen his mistake in the proper light, and to bear the consequences nobly. Hadn't I told him I could never love him, exactly in so many words?

"I ought to have known that he was incapable of any generosity. As a matter of fact I didn't think much about it. I, who had overcome my shyness enough to become, young as I was, a perfect hostess in a world which I knew so little—because after all that sort of thing was in my tradition—I was really too stupid, too unsophisticated for those ten months to have been a lesson to me. I had learned nothing, any more than one learns from a nightmare or from a period of painful illness. I simply breathed freely. I became again the old Adèle. I dismissed M. de Montevesso from my thoughts as though he had never lived. Can you believe this, Cosmo? It is astonishing how facts can fail to impress one; brutalities, abuse, scenes of passion, mad exhibitions of jealousy, as long as they do not attack your conception of your moral personality. All this fell off me like a poisoned robe, leaving hardly a smart behind. I raised my head like a flower after a thunderstorm. Don't think my character is shallow, Cosmo. There were depths in me that could be reached, but till then I had been only tormented, shocked, surprised, but hardly even frightened. It was he who had suffered. But my turn was to come."

"I don't think you were ever a person of shallow feelings."

"One's feelings must mature like everything else, and I assure you I had not yet stopped growing. The next six months were to finish my education. For by that time I had lost all my illusions. While I was breathing freely between my father and mother, forgetting the world around us, Montevesso was going about the town with his complaints and his suspicions; regretting he had let me go and enraged that I should have gone from him so easily. And you may be sure he found sympathizers. A rich man, you understand! Who could refuse sympathy to so much wealth? He was obviously a much ill-used man, all the faults of course were on my side; in less than a month I found myself the centre of underhand intrigues and the victim of a hateful persecution. Friends, relatives, mere acquaintances in the world of emigration entered M. de Montevesso's service. They spied on my conduct and tampered with the servants. There were assemblies in his house where my character was torn to shreds. Some of those good friends offered him their influence in Rome for the annulation of the marriage, for a consideration of course. Others discovered flaws in the marriage contract. They invented atrocious tales. There were even horrid verses made about that scandal; till at last he himself became disgusted with the wretches and closed his house and his purse to them. Years later he showed me a note of their names and the amounts paid for all those manifestations of sympathy. He must have been impressed and disgusted by the retrospect, because it was a big lot of money. As to the names, they were aristocratic enough to flatter his plebeian pride. He showed the list to me just to hurt my feelings.

"Some sinners have been stoned, but I, an innocent girl of seventeen, had been pelted with mud beyond endurance. It was impossible to induce him to come to any sort of arrangement that would leave me in peace. All the world, influenced by his paid friends, was against me. What could I do? Calumnies are hard to bear. Harder than truth. Even my parents weakened. He promised to make amends. Of course I went back to him, as one would crawl out of the mud amongst clean thorns that can but tear one's flesh. He received me back with apologies that were as nearly public as such things can be. It was a vindication of my character. But directly he had me with him again he gave way to his fits of hatred as before, such hatred as only black jealousy can inspire. It was terrible. For even jealousy has its gradations, coloured by doubts and hopes, and his was the worst, the hopeless kind, since he could never forget my honest declaration."

The Countess of Montevesso's voice died out and then Cosmo looked up. She was a little pale, which made her eyes appear darker than ever he had seen them before. Cosmo was too young yet to understand the full meaning of this confession, but his very youth invested the facts with a sort of romantic grandeur, while the woman before him felt crushed by the feelings of their squalid littleness. Without looking at him she said:

"We went travelling for a year and a half, stayed for a time in Paris, where he began to make me scenes again, and then we went oh to Italy. The pretext was to make me known to some of his relations. I don't believe he could remember his mother, and his father, an old dealer in rabbit skins, I believe, had died some time before. As to the rest, I think his heart failed him notwithstanding the brutal pride he used at times to display to me. He took me to see some decayed people living in old ruined houses whom I verily believe he bribed to pass for his more distant connections. It was a pilgrimage amongst the most squalid shams, something that you cannot conceive, yet I didn't rebel against the horrible humiliation of it. It was part of the bargain. Sometimes I thought that he would kill me in one of those wild places in some lost valley where the people, only a degree removed from peasants in their dress and speech, fawned upon him as the wealthy cousin and benefactor. I am certain that during those wanderings he was half distracted. It was I who went through all this unmoved. But I don't suppose my life was ever in any danger. At that time none of his moods lasted long enough to let him carry out any definite purpose. And then he is not a man of criminal instincts. After all, he is perhaps a great adventurer. He has commanded armies of a hundred thousand men. He has in a sense faced the power of England in India. The very fact that he had managed to get out of it with so much wealth and with quite a genuine reputation shows that there is something in him. I don't know whether it's that obtained for him a very gracious reception from Bonaparte when he dragged me back to Paris."

VI

Madame de Montevesso paused, looking at the white ashes in which the sparks had not died out yet. "Yes," she went on, "I lived near Paris through the whole time of the Empire. I had a charming house in the country. Monsieur de Montevesso had established me in a style which he considered worthy of himself if not of me. He could never forgive me for being what I am. He was tolerated by the returned emigration for my sake, but he grew weary of his own unhappiness and resolved to live by himself in his own province where he could be a great personage. Perhaps he is not altogether a bad man. He consented eagerly to my parents, who had obtained permission to return to France, joining me in the country. I tasted again some happiness in the peace of our semi-retired life and in their affection. Our world was that of old society, the world of returned nobles. They hated and despised the imperial power, but most of them were ready to cringe before it. Yes, even the best were overawed by the real might under the tinsel of that greatness. Our circle was very small and composed of convinced royalists, but I could not share their hatreds and their contempts. I felt myself a Frenchwoman. I had liberal ideas. . . ."

She noticed Cosmo's eyes fixed on her with eager and friendly curiosity, and paused with a faint smile.

"You understand me, Cosmo?" she asked. The latter gave a little nod without detaching his eyes from the face which seemed to him to glow with the light of generous feelings, but already Madame de Montevesso was going on.

"I did not want to be patronized by all those returned duchesses who wanted to teach me how to feel and how to behave. Their own behaviour was a mixture of insolence and self-seeking before that government which they feared and despised. I didn't fear it but neither could I despise it. My heart was heavy during all those years but it was not downcast. All Europe was aflame and the blaze scorched and dazzled and filled one with awe and with forebodings; but then one always heard that fire purifies all which it cannot destroy. The world would perhaps come out better from it."

"Well, it's all over," said Cosmo, "and what has it done? The smoke hangs about yet and I cannot see, but how do you feel?"

Madame de Montevesso, leaning on her elbow on the mantelpiece, with one foot on the fender, looked down at the ashes in which a spark gleamed here and there.

"I feel a little cold," she said, "and dazed perhaps. One doesn't know where to look."

Cosmo got up and made a step forward. His voice, however, was subdued. "Formerly there was a man."

"A man, yes. One couldn't help looking towards him. There was something unnatural in that uniqueness, but do you know, Cosmo, the man was nothing. You smile, you think you hear a royalist speaking, a woman full of silly aristocratic prejudice; a woman who sees only a small Corsican squire who hadn't even the sense to catch the opportunity by the hair as it flew by and be the restorer of the Bourbon dynasty. You imagine all that of me! . . . Of me!"

She kept her pose, desolate, as if looking down at the ashes of a burnt-up world.

"I don't think you could be stupid if you tried," he said. "But if the man was nothing, then what has done it?"

Madame de Montevesso remained silent for a while before murmuring the word "Destiny," and only then turned her head slightly towards Cosmo. "What are you staring at in that corner?" she asked, after another period of silence.

"Was I staring?" he said with a little start. "I didn't know. Your words evoked a draped figure with an averted head."

"Then it wasn't that," she said, looking at him with friendly eyes. "Whatever your fancy might have seen it was not Destiny. One must live a very long time to see even the hem of her robe. Live a very, very long time," she repeated in a tone of such weariness, tinged by fear, that Cosmo felt impelled to step forward, take up the hand that hung by her side, and press it to his lips. When released, it fell slowly to its previous position. But Madame de Montevesso did not move.

"That's very nice," she said. "It was a movement of sympathy. I have had very little of that in my life. There is something in me that does not appeal to the people with whom I live. My father, of course, loves me; but that is not quite the same thing. Your father, I believe, sympathized with the child and I am touched to see that the son seems to understand something of the woman; of an almost old woman."

Cosmo would have been amused at the tone of unaffected conviction in which she called herself an old woman had it not been for the profound trouble on that young face bent downwards, and at the melancholy grace of the whole attitude of that woman who had once been the child Adèle; a foreign, homeless child, sheltered for a moment by the old walls of his ancestral home, and the sharer of its life's stately intimacies.

"No," he said, marvelling that so much bitter experience should have been the lot of such a resplendent figure. "No. Destiny works quickly enough. We are both still young, and yet think of what we have already seen."

He fancied she had shuddered a little. He felt ashamed at the thought of what she had lived through, how she had been affected in her daily life by what to him had been only a spectacle after all, though his country had played its part, the impressive part of a rock upraising its head above the flood. But he continued: "Why, the Man of Destiny himself is young yet. You must have seen him many times."

"No. Once or twice a year I went to the Tuileries in the company of some reconciled royalist ladies and very much against my wish. It was expected from Madame de Montevesso and I always came away thankful to think that it was over for a time. You could hardly imagine how dull that Empire time was. All hopes were crushed. It was like a dreadful overdressed masquerade with the everlasting sound of the guns in the distance. Every year I spent a month with my husband to save appearances. That was in the bond. He used then to invite all the provincial grandees for a series of dinners. But even in the provinces one felt the sinister moral constraint of that imperial glory. No doubt all my movements were noticed and recorded by the proper people. Naturally I saw the Emperor several times. I saw him also in theatres, in his carriage driving about, but he spoke to me only once."

"Only once!" exclaimed Cosmo under his breath.

"You may imagine I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, and I did not belong to the Court. It was on the occasion of a ball given to the Princess of Baden. There was an enormous crowd. Early in the evening I found myself standing in the front row in the Galerie de Diane between two women who were perfect strangers to me. By and by the Court came in, the Empress, the Princess, the Chamberlains in full dress, and took their place on a platform at the end. In the intervals of dancing the Emperor came down alone, speaking only to the women. He wore his imperial dress of red velvet, laced in all the seams, with white satin breeches, with diamonds on the hilt of his sword and the buckles of his shoes and on his cap with white plumes. It was a well-designed costume but with his short thick figure and the clumsiness of his movements he looked to me frightful and like a mock king. When he came opposite me he stopped. I am certain he knew who I was, but he asked me my name. I told him.

"'Your husband lives in his province?'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'Your husband employs much labour, I hear. I am grateful to him for giving work to the people. This is the proper use of wealth. Hasn't he served in the English army in India?'

"His tone was friendly. I said I didn't know that, but I did know that he had fought against them there.

"He smiled in a fascinating manner and said, 'That's very possible. A soldier of fortune. He is a native of Piedmont, is he not?'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'But you are French, entirely French. We have a claim on you. How old are you?'

"I told him. He said, 'You look younger.' Then he came nearer to me and, speaking in a confidential tone, said, 'You have no children. I know. I know. It isn't your fault, but you should try to make some other arrangement. Believe me, I am giving you good advice.'

"I was dumb with astonishment. He gave me again a very gracious smile and went on. That is the only conversation I ever had with the Emperor."

She fell silent with downcast eyes, then she added: "It was very characteristic of him." Cosmo was mainly struck by the fact that he knew so little of her, that this was the first intimation he had of the Montevessos being childless. He had never asked himself the question before, but this positive if indirect statement was agreeable to him.

"I did not make any other arrangements," began Madame de Montevesso with a slightly ironic intonation. "I was only too thankful to be left alone. At the time the Russian campaign began I paid my annual visit to Monsieur de Montevesso. Except for the usual entertainments to local people I was alone with Count Helion, and as usual when we were quite alone he behaved in a tolerable way. There was nobody and nothing that could arouse his jealousy and the dormant hatred he nurses for me deep down in his heart. We had only the slight discussion, at the end of which he admitted, gnashing his teeth, that he had nothing to reproach me with except that I was what I was. I told him I could not help it and that as things were he ought rather to congratulate himself on that fact. He gave me only a black look. He can restrain himself wonderfully when he likes. Upon the whole I had a quiet time. I played and sang to myself, I read a little, I took long walks, I rode almost every day, attended by Bernard. That wasn't so agreeable. You remember Bernard?"

Cosmo nodded.

"For years he had been a very devoted and faithful servant to us but I suppose he, too, like so many of his betters, fell under the spell of Monsieur de Montevesso's wealth. When my parents rejoined me in France he had his wish at last and married Aglae, my mulatto maid. He was quite infatuated with her and now he makes her terribly wretched. She is really devoted to me, and there cannot be any doubt that Bernard has been bribed by my husband to play the part of a spy. It seems incredible but I have had it from the Count in so many words. Bernard let himself be corrupted years ago, when M. de Montevesso first sent me back to my parents in a rage and next day was nearly out of his mind with agony at having done so. Yes, it dates as far back as that. That man so faithful to us in our misfortunes allowed himself to be bought with the greatest ease. Everybody, from the highest to the lowest, was in a conspiracy against a poor girl whose only sin was her perfect frankness. When Bernard came over to France with my parents I was already aware of this, but Aglae wanted to marry him and so I said nothing. She probably would not have believed me then."

"And could you bear that wretch near you all those years?" exclaimed Cosmo, full of indignation. She smiled sadly. She had borne the disclosure and had kept the secret of greater infamies. She had all her illusions about rectitude destroyed so early that it did not matter to her now what she knew of the people about her.

"Oh, Cosmo," she exclaimed suddenly, "I am a hardened woman now, but I assure you that sometimes when I remember the girl of sixteen I was, without an evil thought in her head and in her ignorance surrounded by the basest slanderers and intrigues, tears come into my eyes. And since the baseness of selfish passions I have seen seething round the detestable glory of that man in Elba, it seems to me that there is nowhere any honesty on earth—nowhere!" The energy of that outburst, contrasted with the immobility of the pose, gave to Cosmo the sensation of a chill.

"I will not mention us two," said Cosmo, "herein this room. But I know of at least two honest men on earth. They are your father and mine. Why didn't you write to Father, Adèle?"

"I tell you I was a child. What could I write to him? Hasn't he retired out of the world for so many years only not to see and not to hear? That's one of your honest men. And as to my poor father, who is the soul of honour, such is the effect of long misfortune on the best characters and of temptations associated with his restored rank, that there have been moments when I watched his conduct with dread. Caste prejudices are an awful thing, but thank God he had never a thought of vengeance in his mind. He is not a courtier."

"I have heard about it," interrupted Cosmo, "from the Marquis himself. He is a dear old man."

The two by the mantelpiece exchanged dim smiles.

"I had to come here with him," said Adèle. "He cannot do without me. I too was glad to get away from the evil passions and the hopeless stupidities of all the people that had come back without a single patriotic feeling, without a single new idea in their heads, like merciless spectres out of a grave, hating the world to which they had returned. They had forgotten nothing and learned nothing."

"I have seen something of that myself," murmured Cosmo. "But the world can't be put back where it was before you and I were born."

"No! But to see them trying to do it was intolerable. Then my husband appeared on the scene, hired this Palazzo, and insisted on us all living here. It was impossible to raise a rational objection to that. Father was never aware of half I went through in my life. I learned early to suppress every expression of feeling. But in the main we understand each other without talking. When he received Count Helion's letter offering us this house he just looked at me and said, 'I suppose we must.' For my part, I go through life without raising any objections to anything. One has to preserve one's dignity in some way; and is there another way open to me? Yes, I have made up my mind; but I must tell you, Cosmo, that notwithstanding that amazing tour we made ten years ago amongst M. de Montevesso's problematic relations, those two sisters and that niece have been a perfect novelty to me. I only hope I never betrayed my surprise or any feeling at all about it." The Countess raised her eyes to Cosmo's face. "I have spoken of it to you as I have never spoken to anybody in my life, because of old memories which are so much to me and because I could not mistrust anybody of your name. Have you been wearied by this long tale?"

"No," said Cosmo. "But have you thought how it is going to end?"

"To end?" she said in a startled tone which affected Cosmo profoundly. "To end? What do you mean? Everything is ended already."

"I was thinking of your endurance," said Cosmo.

"Do I look worn out?" she asked.

Cosmo raised his head and looked at her steadily. The impression of her grace and her strength filled his breast with an admiring and almost oppressive emotion. He could find nothing to say, not knowing what was uppermost in his mind, pity or admiration, mingled with a vague anger.

"Well, what do you see in my face?"

"I never have seen such serenity on any face," said Cosmo. "How sure of itself your soul must be!"

Her colour became heightened for a moment, her eyes darkened as she said in a grateful tone, "You are right, Cosmo. My face is not a mask."

But he hardly heard her. He was lost in wonder at the sudden disorder of his thoughts. When he regained his mental composure he noticed that Madame de Montevesso seemed to be listening.

"I wonder whether the Count is still with my father," she said. "Ring that bell on the table at your hand, Cosmo."

Cosmo did so and they waited, looking at each other. Presently the door swung open, and at the same time the cartel above it began to strike the hour. Cosmo counted eleven and then Madame de Montevesso spoke to Bernard, who waited in silence.

"Is M. le Comte still with my father?"

"I haven't seen him come out yet, Madame la Comtesse."

"Tell your wife not to wait for me, Bernard."

"Yes, Madame la Comtesse." Bernard backed out respectfully through the door.

"How fat he is, and what sleek hair," marvelled Cosmo. "And what a solemn manner. No wonder I did not recognize him at once. He showed me into your father's room, you know. He looks a Special Envoy's confidential man all over. And to think that he is your household spy! I wonder at your patience."

"Perhaps if I had anything to conceal I would have had less patience with the spy," she said, equably. "I believe that when we lived in Paris he wrote every week to M. de Montevesso, because, you know, he can write quite well. I wonder what he found to write about. Lists of names, I suppose. Or perhaps his own views of the people who called with bits of overheard conversations."

"It's incredible," murmured Cosmo. "It's fantastic. What contempt he must have for your husband."

"The most remarkable thing," said Madame de Montevesso, "is that I am convinced that he doesn't write any lies."

"Yes," said Cosmo, "I assume that. And do you mean that the Count is paying him every week for that sort of thing. It's an ugly farce."

"Don't you think," said the Countess, "that something serious may come of it some day?" Cosmo made a hopeless gesture.

"The man you married is mad," he said with intense conviction.

"There have been times when I felt as if I were mad myself," murmured Madame de Montevesso. "Take up your hat," she added quickly.

She had heard footsteps outside the door. A moment after, Count Helion came in and fixed his black glance on his wife and Cosmo. He did not open his lips and remained ominously by the door for a time. The strain of the silence was made sinister by the stiff bearing of the man, the immobility of the carven brown face, crossed by the inky-black moustache in harsh contrast with the powdered head. He might have been a sergeant come at the stroke of the hour to tell those two people that the firing squad was waiting for them outside the door. Madame de Montevesso broke the dumb spell.

"I did my best to entertain Mr. Latham, but we had given you up. He was just going."

She glanced serenely at Cosmo, whom the sweetness of her tone, her easy self-possession before that barrack-room figure, stung to the heart. At that moment no words could have expressed the intensity of his hatred for the Count of Montevesso, at whom he was looking with a smile of the utmost banality. The latter moved forward stiffly.

"Your father hopes you will see him for a moment presently," he said to his wife. "He has not gone to bed yet."

"Then I will go to him at once."

Madame de Montevesso extended her hand to Cosmo, who raised the tips of her fingers to his lips ceremoniously.

"I will see Mr. Latham out," said the Count, bowing to his wife, who went out of the room without looking at him. Cosmo, following her with his eyes, forgot Count Helion's existence. He forgot it so thoroughly that it was with a perceptible start that he perceived the Count's eyes fixed on him in an odd way. "He will never look at ease anywhere," thought Cosmo scornfully. A great part of his hatred had evaporated. "I suppose he means to be pilot. I wonder how he looked on the back of an elephant."

"It was very good of you to wait so long for my return," said Count Helion. "I have been detained by an absurd discussion arising out of probably false reports."

"The time passed quickly," said truthful Cosmo; but, before the black weary glance of the other, hastened to add with assumed care, "We talked of old times."

"Old times," repeated Count Helion without any particular accent. "My wife is very young yet, though she must be older than you are. Isn't she older?"

Cosmo said curtly that he really did not know. When they were running about as children together she was the tallest of the three.

"And now," took up the inexpressive voice of Count de Montevesso, "without her high heels she would be a little shorter than you. As you stood together you looked to me exactly the same height. And so you renewed the memories of your youth. They must have been delightful."

"They were no doubt more delightful for me than they could have been for Mme. la Comtesse," said Cosmo, making a motion towards taking leave.

"A moment. Let me have the honour to see you out." Count Helion walked round the room blowing out the candles in three candelabras in succession and taking up the fourth in his hand.

"Why take this trouble?" protested Cosmo. "I know my way."

"Every light has been extinguished in the reception rooms; or at least ought to have been. I detest waste of all kinds. It is perhaps because I have made my own fortune, and by God's favour it is so considerable in its power for good that it requires the most careful management. It is perhaps a peculiar point of view, but I have explained it to Mme. de Montevesso."

"She must have been interested," muttered Cosmo between his teeth, following across the room and round the screen the possessor of these immensely important riches, who, candelabra in hand, preceded him by a pace or two and threw open the door behind the screen. Cosmo, crossing in the wake of Count Helion the room of the evening reception, saw dimly the disarranged furniture about the mantelpiece, the armchair in which Lady William had sat, the great sofa in which little Countess Bubna had been shyly ensconced, the card table with the chairs pushed back and all the cards in a heap in the middle. The swaying flames of the candles, leaping from one long strip of mirror to another, preceded him into the next salon where all the furniture stood ranged expectantly against the walls. The next two salons were exactly alike except for the colour of the hangings and the size of the pictures on the walls. As to their subjects, Cosmo could not make them out.

Not a single lackey was to be seen in the anteroom of white walls and red benches; but Cosmo was surprised at the presence of a peasant-like woman, who must have been sitting there in the dark for some time. The light of the candelabra fell on the gnarled hands lying in her lap. The edge of a dark shawl shaded her features with the exception of her ancient chin. She never stirred. Count Helion, disregarding her as though she had been invisible, put down the candelabra on a little table and wished Cosmo good-night with a formal bow. At the same time he expressed harshly the hope of seeing Cosmo often during his stay in Genoa. Then with an unexpected attempt to soften his tone he muttered something about his wife—"the friend of your childhood."

The allusions exasperated Cosmo. The more he saw of the grown woman, the less connection she seemed to have with the early Adèle. The contrast was too strong. He felt tempted to tell M. de Montevesso that he by no means cherished that old memory. The nearest he came to it was the statement that he had the privilege to hear much of Madame de Montevesso in Paris. M. de Montevesso, contemplating now the dark peasant-like figure huddled up on the crimson seat against a white wall, hastened to turn towards Cosmo the black weariness of his eyes.

"Mme. de Montevesso has led a very retired life during the Empire. Her conduct was marked by the greatest circumspection. But she is a person of rank. God knows what gossip you may have heard. The world is censorious."

Brusquely Cosmo stepped out into the outer gallery. Listening to M. de Montevesso was no pleasure. The Count accompanied him as far as the head of the great staircase and stayed to watch his descent with a face that expressed no more than the face of a soldier on parade, till, all at once, his eyes started to roll about wildly as if looking for some object he could snatch up and throw down the stairs at Cosmo's head. But this lasted only for a moment. He reëntered the anteroom quietly and busied himself in closing and locking the door with care. After doing this he approached the figure on the bench and stood over it silently.

VII

The old woman pushed back her shawl and raised her wrinkled soft face without much expression to say:

"The child has been calling for you for the last hour or more."

Helion de Montevesso walked all the length of the anteroom and back again; then stood over the old woman as before.

"You know what she is," she began directly the Count had stopped. "She won't give us any rest. When she was little one could always give her a beating but now there is no doing anything with her. You had better come and see for yourself."

"Very unruly?" asked the Count de Montevesso.

"She is sixteen," said the old woman crisply, getting up and moving towards the stairs leading to the upper floor. A stick that had been lying concealed in the folds of her dress was now in her hand. She ascended the stairs more nimbly than her appearance would have led one to expect, and the Count of Montevesso followed her down a long corridor, where at last the shuffle of her slippers and the tapping of her stick ceased in front of a closed door. A profound silence reigned in this remote part of the old palace which the enormous vanity of the upstart had hired for the entertainment of his wife and his father-in-law in the face of the restored monarchies of Europe. The old peasant woman turned to the stiff figure which, holding the candelabra and in its laced coat, recalled a gorgeous lackey.

"We have put her to bed," she said, "but as to holding her down in it, that was another matter. Maria is strong but she got weary of it at last. We had to send for Father Paul. Shameless as she is she would not attempt to get out of her bed in her nightdress before a priest. The Father promised to stay till we could fetch you to her, so I came down, but I dared not go further than the anteroom. A valet told me you had still a guest with you, so I sent him away and sat down to wait. The wretch to revenge himself on me put out the lights before he went."

"He shall be flung out to-morrow," said M. de Montevesso in a low tone.

"I hope I have done nothing wrong, Helion."

"No," said M. de Montevesso in the same subdued tone. He lent his ear to catch some slight sound on the other side of the door. But the stillness behind it was like the stillness of a sick room to which people listen with apprehension. The old woman laid her hand lightly on the sleeve of the gorgeous coat. "You are a great man . . ."

"I am," said Count Helion without exultation.

The old woman, dragged out at the age of seventy from the depths of her native valley by the irresistible will of the great man, tried to find utterance for a few simple thoughts. Old age with its blunted feelings had alone preserved her from utter bewilderment at the sudden change; but she was overpowered by its greatness. She lived inside that palace as if enchanted into a state of resignation. Ever since she had arrived in Genoa, which was just five weeks ago, she had kept to the upper floor. Only the extreme necessity of the case had induced her to come so far downstairs as the white anteroom. She was conscious of not having neglected her duty.

"I did beat her faithfully," she declared with the calmness of old age and conscious rectitude. The lips of M. de Montevesso twitched slightly. "I did really, though often feeling too weary to raise my arm. Then I would throw a shawl over my head and go in the rain to speak to Father Paul. He had taught her to read and write. He is full of charity. He would shrug his shoulders and tell me to put my trust in God. It was all very well for him to talk like that. True that on your account I was the greatest person for miles around. I had the first place everywhere. But now that you made us come out here just because of your fancy to turn the child into a Contessa, all my poor senses leave my old body. For, you know, if I did beat her, being entrusted with your authority, everybody else in the village waited on a turn of her finger. She was full of pride and wilfulness then. Now since you have introduced her amongst all these grandissimi signori of whom she had only heard as one hears of angels in heaven, she seems to have lost her head with the excess of pride and obstinacy. What is one to do? The other day on account of something I said she fastened her ten fingers into my gray hair. . . ." She threw her shawl off and raised her creased eyelids. . . . "This gray hair, on the oldest head of your family, Helion. If it hadn't been for Maria she would have left me a corpse on the floor." The mild bearing of the old woman had a dignity of its own, but at this point it broke down and she became agitated.

"Many a time I sat up in my bed thinking half the night. I am an old woman. I can read the signs. This is a matter for priests. When I was a big girl in our village they had to exorcise a comely youth, a herdsman. I am not fit to talk of such matters. But you, Helion, could say a word or two to Father Paul. He would know what to do . . . or get the Bishop . . ."

"Amazing superstition," Count Helion exclaimed in a rasping growl. "The days of priests and devils are gone," he went on angrily, but paused as if struck with a sudden doubt or a new idea. The old woman shook her head slightly. In the depths of her native valley all the days were alike in their hopes and fears as far back as she could remember. She did not know how she had offended her brother and emitted a sigh of resignation.

"What's the trouble now?" Count Helion asked brusquely.

The old woman shrugged her shoulders expressively. Count Helion insisted. "There must be some cause."

"The cause, as I am a sinner, can be no other but that young signore that came out with you and to whom you bowed so low. I didn't know you had to bow to anybody unless perhaps to the King who has come back lately. But then a king is anointed with holy oils! I couldn't believe my eyes. What kind of prince was that?" She waited, screwing her eyes up at Count Helion, who looked down at her inscrutably and at last condescended to say:

"That was an Englishman."

She moaned with astonishment and alarm. A heretic! She thought no heretic could be good-looking. Didn't they have their wickedness written on their faces?

"No," said Count Helion. "No man has that, and no woman, either."

Again he paused to think. "Let us go in now," he added.

The big room (all the rooms in that Palazzo were big unless they happened to be mere dark and airless cupboards), which they entered as quietly as if a sick person had been lying in there at the point of death, contained amongst its gilt furniture also a few wooden stools and a dark walnut table brought down from the farmhouse for the convenience of its rustic occupants. A priest sitting in a gorgeous armchair held to the light of a common brass oil lamp an open book, the shadow of which darkened a whole corner of the vast space between the high walls decorated with rare marbles, long mirrors, and heavy hangings. A few small pieces of washing were hung out to dry on a string stretched from a window latch to the back of a chair. A common brazier stood in the fireplace and, near it, a gaunt, bony woman dressed in black with a white handkerchief on her head was stirring something in a little earthen pot. Ranged at the foot of a dais bearing a magnificent but dismantled couch of state were two small wooden bedsteads, on one of which lay the girl whom Cosmo knew only as "Clelia, my husband's niece," with a hand under her cheek. The other cheek was much flushed; a tangle of loose black hair covered the pillow. Whether from respect for the priest or from mere exhaustion she was keeping perfectly still under her bedclothes pulled up to her very neck so that only her head remained uncovered.

At the entrance of the Count the priest closed his book and stood up, but the woman by the mantelpiece went on stirring her pot. Count Helion returned a "Bonsoir, Abbé" to the priest's silent bow, put down the candelabra on a console, and walked straight to the bedstead. The other three people, the gaunt woman still with her pot in her hand, approached it too but kept their distance.

The girl Clelia remained perfectly still under the downward thoughtful gaze of Count Helion. In that face half buried in the pillow one eye glittered full of tears. She refused to make the slightest sound in reply to Count Helion's questions, orders, and remonstrances. Even his coaxings, addressed to her in the same low, harsh tone, were received in obstinate silence. Whenever he paused he could hear at his back the old woman whispering to the priest. At last even that stopped. Count Helion resisted the temptation to grab all that hair on the pillow and pull the child out of bed by it. He waited a little longer and then said in his harsh tone:

"I thought you loved me."

For the first time there was a movement under the blanket. But that was all. Count Helion turned his back on the bed and met three pairs of eyes fixed on him with different expressions. He avoided meeting any of them. "Perhaps if you were to leave us alone," he said.

They obeyed in silence, but at the last moment he called the priest back and took him aside to a distant part of the room where the brass oil lamp stood on the walnut-wood table. The full physiognomy of Father Paul Carpi with its thin eyebrows and pouting mouth was overspread by a self-conscious professional placidity that seemed ready to see or hear anything without surprise. Count de Montevesso was always impressed by it. "Abbé," he said brusquely, "you know that my sister thinks that the child is possessed. I suppose she means by a devil."

He looked with impatience at the priest, who remained silent, and burst out in a subdued voice:

"I believe you people are hoping now to bring him back into the world again, that old friend of yours." He waited for a moment. "Sit down, Abbé."

Father Carpi sank into the armchair with some dignity while Count Helion snatched a three-legged stool and planted himself on it on the other side of the table. "Now, wouldn't you?"

Something not bitter, not mocking, but as if disillusioned seemed to touch the lips of Father Carpi at the very moment he opened them to say quietly:

"Only as a witness to the reign of God."

"Which of course would be your reign. Never mind, a man like me can be master under any reign." He jerked his head slightly towards the bed. "Now what sort of devil would it be in that child?"

The deprecatory gesture of Father Carpi did not detract from his dignity. "I should call it dumb myself," continued Count Helion. "We will leave it alone for a time. What hurts me often is the difficulty of getting at your thoughts, Abbé. Haven't I been a good enough friend to you?" To this, too, Father Carpi answered by a deferential gesture and deprecatory murmur. Count Helion had restored the church, rebuilt the presbytery, and had behaved generally with great munificence. Father Carpi, sprung from shopkeeping stock in the town of Novi, had lived through times difficult for the clergy. He had been contented to exist. Now, at the age of forty or more, the downfall of the Empire, which seemed to carry with it the ruin of the impious forces of the Revolution, had awakened in him the first stirrings of ambition. Its immediate object was the chaplaincy to the Count of Montevesso's various charitable foundations.