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 white-washed 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, a 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 “O 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 dropped again, and Cosmo came to the conclusion that 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 recognise 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 yardarm or other.”

“I envy you 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 licence 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 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, inquired 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 on his legs. I cured both complaints. Not without some risk to myself, as you 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—Dr. 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 recognise 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 Dr. 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, for I assure you, 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 the 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 the 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 recognised 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 that 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 want 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-turned from him when Spire shut the door.