Returning that evening to the Palazzo Brignoli, Cosmo found the lantern under the vaulted roof lighted. There was also a porter in gold-laced livery and a cocked hat, who saluted him, and in the white ante-room with red benches along the walls two lackeys made ready to divest him of his cloak. But a man in sombre garments detained Cosmo, saying that he was the ambassador’s valet, and led him away along a very badly lighted inner corridor. He explained that His Excellency the Ambassador wished to see Monsieur Latham for a few moments in private before Monsieur Latham joined the general company. The ambassador’s cabinet into which he introduced Cosmo was lighted by a pair of candelabras. Cosmo was told that His Excellency was finishing dressing, and then the man disappeared. Cosmo noticed that there were several doors besides the one by which he had entered, which was the least conspicuous of them all, and in fact so inconspicuous, corresponding exactly to a painted panel, that it might have been called a secret door. Other doors were framed in costly woods, lining the considerable thicknesses of the walls. One of them opened without noise, and Cosmo saw enter a man somewhat taller than he had expected to see, with a white head, in a coat with softly gleaming embroideries and a broad ribbon across his breast. He advanced, opening his arms wide, and Cosmo, who noticed that one of the hands was holding a snuff-box, submitted with good grace to the embrace of the Marquis d’Armand, whose lips touched his cheeks one after another, and whose hands then rested at arm’s-length on his shoulder for a moment.

“Sit down, mon enfant,” were the first words spoken, and Cosmo obeyed, facing the arm-chair into which the marquis had dropped. A white meagre hand set in fine lace moved the candelabra on the table, and Cosmo good-humouredly submitted to being contemplated in silence. This man in a splendid coat, white-headed, and with a broad ribbon across his breast, seemed to have no connection whatever with his father’s guest, whom as a boy he remembered walking with Sir Charles amongst damp shrubberies, or writing busily at one end of the long table in the library of Latham Hall, always with the slightly subdued mien of an exile, and an air of being worried by the possession of unspeakable secrets which he preserved even when playing at backgammon with Sir Charles in the great drawing-room. Cosmo, returning the gaze of the tired eyes, remarked that the ambassador looked old, but not at all senile.

At last the marquis declared that he could detect the lineaments of his old friend in the son’s face, and in a voice that was low and kindly put a series of questions about Sir Charles, about London and his old friends there; questions which Cosmo, especially as to the latter, was not always able to answer fully.

“I forget! You are still so young,” said the ambassador, recollecting himself. This young man sitting here before him with a friendly smile had his friends amongst his own contemporaries, shared the ideas and the views of his own generation which had grown up since the Revolution, to whom the Revolution was only an historical fact, and whose enthusiasms had a strange complexion, for the undisciplined hopes of the young make them reckless in words, and sometimes in actions. The marquis’s own generation had been different. It had had no inducement to be reckless. It had been born to a settled order of things. Certainly a few philosophers had been indulging for years in subversive sentimentalism, but the foundations of Europe seemed unshakable. He noticed Cosmo’s expectant attitude and said:

“I wonder what my dear old friend is thinking of all this.”

“It is not very easy to get at my father’s thoughts,” confessed Cosmo. “After all, you must know my father much better than I do, Monsieur le Marquis.”

“In the austerity of his convictions your father was more like a republican of ancient times,” said the marquis seriously. “Does that surprise you, my young friend? . . .” Cosmo shook his head slightly. . . . “Yet we always agreed very well. Your father understood every kind of fidelity. The world had never known him, and it will never know him now. But I, who approached him closely, could have nothing but the greatest respect for his character and for his far-seeing wisdom.”

“I am very glad to hear you say this,” interjected Cosmo.

“He was a scornful man,” said the marquis, then paused and repeated once more: “Yes. Un grand dédaigneux. He was that. But one accepted it from him as one would not from another man, because one felt that it was not the result of mean grievances or disappointed hopes. Now the old order is coming back, and whatever my old friend may think of it, he had his share in that work.”

Cosmo raised his head. “I had no idea,” he murmured.

“Yes,” said the marquis. “Indirectly, if you like. All I could offer to my princes was my life, my toil, the sacrifice of my deepest feelings as husband and father. I don’t say this to boast. I could not have acted otherwise. But for my share of the work, risky, often desperate and continuously hopeless as it seemed to be, I have to thank your father’s help, mon jeune ami. It came out of that fortune which some day will be yours. The only thing in all the activities the penetrating mind of your father was not scornful of was my fidelity. He understood that it was above the intrigues, the lies, the selfish stupidities of that exile’s life which we all shared with our princes. They will never know how much they owe to that English gentleman. When parting with my wife and child I was sustained by the thought that his friendship and care were extended over them and would not fail.”

“I have heard nothing of all this,” said Cosmo. “Of course, I was not ignorant of the great friendship that united you to him. This is one of the things that the world does know about my father.”

“Have you brought a letter for me?” asked the marquis. “I haven’t heard from him for a long time. After we returned to France, through the influence of my son-in-law, communications were very difficult. Ten years of war, my dear friend, ten years.”

“Father very seldom takes a pen in hand now,” said Cosmo, “but . . .”

The marquis interrupted him. “When you write home, my dear friend, tell him that I never gave way to promptings of mean ambition or an unworthy vanity. Tell him that I twice declined the embassy of Madrid which was pressed on me, and that if I accepted the nomination as a commissioner for settling the frontiers with the representatives of the Allied Powers, it was at the cost of my deepest feelings, and only to serve my vanquished country. My secret missions had made me known to many European statesmen. I knew I was liked. I thought I could do some good. The Russians, I must say, were quite charming, and you may tell your father that Sir Charles Stewart clothed his demands in the form of the most perfect politeness; but all those transactions were based after all on the right of the strongest. I had black moments, and I suffered as a Frenchman. I suffered. . . .”

The marquis got up, walked away to the other end of the room, then coming back dropped into the arm-chair again. Cosmo was too startled by this display of feeling to rise. The ambassadorial figure in the laced coat exhaled a deep sigh. “Your father knows that, unlike so many of the other refugees, I have always remained a Frenchman. One would have paid any price almost to avoid this humiliation.”

Cosmo was gratified by the anxiety of a king’s friend to, as it were, justify himself before his father. He discovered that even this old Royalist had been forced, if only for a moment, to regret the days of Imperial victories. The marquis tapped his snuff-box, took a pinch of snuff, and composed himself.

“Of course, when this Turin mission was unexpectedly pressed on me, I went to the king himself, and explained that having refused a much higher post, I could not think of accepting this one. But the king pointed out that this was an altogether different position. The King of Sardinia was his brother-in-law. There was nothing to say against such an argument. His majesty was also good enough to say that he was anxious to grant me any favour I might ask. I didn’t want any favours, but I had to think of something on the spur of the moment, and I begged for a special right of entrée on days on which there are no receptions. I couldn’t resist so much graciousness,” continued the marquis. “I have managed to keep clear of prejudices that poison and endanger the hopes of this restoration, but I am a Royalist, a man of my own time. Remember to tell your father all this, my dear young friend.”

“I shall not fail,” said Cosmo, wondering within himself at the power of such a strange argument, yet feeling a liking and respect for that old man torn between rejoicing and sorrow at the end of his troubled life.

“I should like him to know too,” the marquis said in his bland and friendly voice, “that Monsieur de Talleyrand just before he left for Vienna held out to me the prospect of the London Embassy later. That, certainly, I would not refuse, if only to be nearer a man to whom my obligations are immense and only equalled by the affection I had borne towards him through all those unhappy years.”

“My father,” began Cosmo—“I ought to have given you his message before—told me to give you his love, and to tell you that when you are tired of your grandeurs there is always a large place for you in his house.”

Cosmo was surprised at the sudden movement of the marquis, who leaned over the arm of his chair and put his hand over his eyes. For a time complete silence reigned in the room. Then Cosmo said:

“I think somebody is scratching at the door.”

The marquis sat up and listened, then raising his voice: “You may come in.”

The man in black clothes entering through the hidden door stopped at some distance in a respectful attitude. The marquis beckoned him to approach, and the man bending to his ear, said in a low tone which was, however, audible to Cosmo, “He is here.” The marquis answered in an undertone, “He came rather early. He must wait,” at which the man murmured something which Cosmo could not hear. He became aware of the marquis looking at him irresolutely before he said:

“My dear boy, you will have to make your entrance into my daughter’s salon together with me. I thought of sending you back the way you came, but as a matter of fact the passage is blocked. . . . Bring him in and let him sit here after we are gone,” he directed the man in black, and Cosmo only then recognised Bernard, the servant of proved fidelity in all the misfortunes of the d’Armand family. Bernard withdrew without responding in any way to Cosmo’s smile of recognition. “In my position,” continued the marquis, “I have to make use of agents more or less shady. Those men often object to being seen. Their occupation is risky. There is a man of that sort waiting in the corridor.”

Cosmo said he was at the marquis’s orders, but the ambassador remained in the arm-chair tapping the lid of his snuff-box slightly.

“You saw my daughter this morning, I understand.” Cosmo made an assenting bow. Madame de Montevesso had done him the honour to receive him in the morning.

“You speak French very well,” said the marquis. “I don’t really know why the English are supposed to be bad linguists. We French are much worse. Did you two speak French together?”

“No,” said Cosmo, “we spoke in English. It was Madame de Montevesso’s own choice.”

“She hasn’t quite forgotten it, has she?”

“It struck me,” said Cosmo, “that your daughter has forgotten neither the language nor the people nor the sights of her early life. I was touched by the fidelity of her memory and the warmth of her feelings.”

His own tone had warmth enough in it to make the marquis look up at him. There was a short pause. “None of us are likely to forget those days of noble and infinite kindness. We were but vagrants on a hostile earth. My daughter could not have forgotten! As long as there is anybody of our name left . . .”

The marquis checked himself abruptly, but almost at once went on in a slightly changed tone. “But I am alone of my name now. I wish I had had a son so that gratitude could have been perpetuated from generation to generation and become a traditional thing between our two families. But this is not to be. Perhaps you didn’t know I had a brother. He was much younger than myself, and I loved him as though he had been my son. Directly I had placed my wife and child in safety, your father insisted on giving me the means to return to France secretly in order to try and save that young head. But all my attempts failed. It fell on the scaffold. He was one of the last victims of the sanguinary madness of that time. . . . But let us talk of something else. What are your plans, my young friend?”

Cosmo confessed that he had no plans. He intended to stay in Genoa for some time. Madame de Montevesso had been good enough to encourage him in that idea, and really there was such a feeling of leisure in the European atmosphere that he didn’t see why he should make any plans. The world was enjoying its first breathing-time. Cosmo corrected himself—well, no, perhaps not exactly enjoying. To be strictly truthful he had not noticed much feeling of joy. . . . He hesitated a moment, but the whole attitude of the marquis was so benevolent and encouraging that he continued to take stock of his own sensations, and continued in the same strain. There was activity, lots of activity, agitation perhaps, but no real joy. Or at any rate, no enjoyment. Not even now after the foreign troops had withdrawn from France and all the sovereigns of the world had gone to Vienna.

The marquis listened with profound attention. “Are those your impressions, mon cher enfant? Somehow they don’t seem very favourable. But you English are very apt to judge us with severity. I hear very little of what is going on in France.”

The train of his own thoughts had mastered Cosmo, who added, “What struck me most was the sense of security. . . .” He paused for an instant and the ambassador, bending forward in the chair with the air of a man attempting an experiment, insinuated gently:

“Not such a bad thing, that sentiment.”

In the ardour of his honesty Cosmo did not notice either the attitude or the tone, though he caught the sense of the words.

“Was it of the right kind?” he went on, as if communing with himself, “or was it the absence of sound thought, and almost of all feeling? Monsieur le Marquis, I am too young to judge, but one would have thought, listening to the talk one heard on all sides, that such a man as Bonaparte had never existed.”

“You have been in the society of returned exiles,” said the marquis after a moment of meditation, “You must judge them charitably. A class that has been under the ban for years lives on its passions and on prejudices whose growth stifles not only its sagacity but its vision of the reality.” He changed his tone. “Our present Minister for Foreign Affairs never communicates with me personally. The only personal letter I had from him in the last four months was on the subject of procuring some truffles that grow in this country for the king, and there were four pages of most minute directions as to where they were to be found and how they were to be packed and transmitted to Paris. As to my dispatches, I get merely formal acknowledgments. I really don’t know what is going on, except through travellers who naturally colour their information with their own desires. Monsieur de Talleyrand writes me short notes now and then, but as he has been himself for months in Vienna he can’t possibly know what is going on in France. His acute mind, his extraordinary talents, are fit to cope with the international situation, but I suppose he too is uneasy. In fact, my dear young friend, as far as I can judge, uneasy suspense is the prevailing sentiment all round the basin of the Mediterranean. The fate of nations still hangs in the balance.”

Cosmo waited a moment before he whispered: “And the fate of some individual souls perhaps.”

The ambassador made no sound till after a whole minute had elapsed, and then it was only to say:

“I suppose that like many of your young and even old countrymen, you have formed a project of visiting Elba.”

Cosmo at once adopted a conversational tone. “Half-formed at most,” he said. “I was never one of those who like to visit prisons and gaze at their fellow-beings in captivity. A strange taste indeed! I will own to you, Monsieur le Marquis,” he went on boyishly, “that the notion of captivity is very odious to me, for men, and for animals too. I would sooner look at a dead lion than a lion in a cage. Yet I remember a young French friend of mine telling me that we English were the most curious nation in the world. But as you said, everybody seems to be doing Elba. I suppose there are no difficulties?”

“Not enough difficulties,” said the ambassador blandly. “I mean for the good of all concerned.”

“Ah,” said Cosmo, and repeated thoughtfully, “All concerned! The other day in Paris I met Mr. Wycherley on his way home. He seemed to have had no difficulty at all, not even in Elba. We had quite a long audience. Mr. Wycherley struck me as a man of blunt feelings. Apparently the emperor—after all the imperial title is not taken away from him yet.”

The marquis lowered his head slowly. “No, not yet.”

“Well, the Emperor said to him: ‘You have come here to look at a wild beast’; and Mr. Wycherley, who doesn’t seem to be at a loss for words, answered at once: ‘I have come here to look at a great man.’ What a crude answer! He is telling this story to everybody. He told me he is going to publish a pamphlet about his visit.”

“Mr. Wycherley is a man of good company. His answer was polite. What would have been yours, my young friend?”

“I don’t think I will ever be called to make any sort of answer to the great man,” said Cosmo.

The marquis got up with the words: “I think that on the whole you will be wise not to waste your time. I have here a letter from the French Consul in Leghorn quoting the latest report he had from Elba. It states that Bonaparte remains shut up for days together in his private apartments. The reason given is that he fears attempts on his life being made by emissaries sent from France and Italy. He is not visible. Another report states that lately he has expressed great uneasiness at the movements of the French and English frigates.”

The marquis laid a friendly hand on Cosmo’s shoulder. “You cannot complain of me; I have given you the very latest intelligence. And now let us join whatever company my daughter is receiving. I think very few people.” He crossed the room followed by Cosmo, and Cosmo noticed a distinct lameness in his gait. At the moment of opening the door the Marquis d’Armand said:

“Your arm, mon jeune ami; I am suffering from rheumatism considerably this evening.”

Cosmo hastened to offer his arm, and the marquis with his hand on the door said:

“I can hardly walk. I hope I shall be able to go to the audience I have to-morrow with the King of Sardinia. He is an excellent man, but all his ideas and feelings came to a standstill in ’98. It makes all conversation with him extremely difficult even for me. His ministers are more reasonable, but that is only because they are afraid.”

A low groan escaped the ambassador. He remained leaning with one hand on Cosmo’s shoulder, and with the other clinging to the door-handle.

“Afraid of the people?” asked Cosmo.

“The people are being corrupted by secret societies,” the marquis said in his bland tone. “All Italy is seething with conspiracies. What, however, they are most afraid of is the Man of Elba.”

Cosmo for an instant wondered at those confidences, but a swift reflection that probably those things were known to everybody who was anybody in Europe made him think that this familiar talk was merely the effect of the marquis’s kindness to the son of his old friend. “I think I can proceed now,” said the marquis, pushing the door open. Cosmo recognised one of the rooms which he had passed in the morning. It was the only one of the suite which was fully lighted by a great central glass chandelier, but even in that only two rows of candles were lighted. It was a small reception. The rest of the suite presented but a dim perspective. A semicircle of heavy arm-chairs was sparsely occupied by less than a dozen ladies. There was only one card-table in use. All the faces were turned to the opening door, and Cosmo was struck by the expression of profound surprise on them all. In one or two it resembled thunder-struck imbecility. It didn’t occur to him that the entrance of the French king’s personal representative leaning on the shoulder of a completely unknown young man was enough to cause a sensation. A group of elderly personages, conversing in a remote part of the room, became silent. The marquis gave a general greeting by an inclination of his head, and Cosmo felt himself impelled towards a console between two windows against which the marquis leaned, whispering to him, “If I were to sit down it would be such an affair to get up.” The Countess de Montevesso advanced quickly across the room. Cosmo noticed that her dress had a long train. She smiled at Cosmo and said to the marquis anxiously:

“You are in pain, papa?”

“A little. . . . Take him away, my dear, now. He was good enough to lend me his shoulder as far as this.”

“Venez, Monsieur Latham,” said Adèle, “I must introduce you at once to Lady William Bentinck in order to check wild speculation about the appearance of a mysterious stranger. As it is, all the town will be full of rumours. People will be talking about you this very night.”

Cosmo followed Adèle across the room. She moved slowly and talked easily with a flattering air of intimacy. She even stopped for a moment under the great chandelier. “Lady William is talking now with Count Bubna,” she explained to Cosmo, who took a rapid survey of a tall, stout man in an Austrian general’s uniform, with his hair tied up in a queue, with black moustaches, and something cynical though not ill-natured in his expression. That personage interrupted suddenly his conversation with a lady no longer very young, who was dressed very simply, and made his way to the ambassador, giving in passing a faintly caustic smile and a keen glance to Cosmo.

“Let me introduce to you Mr. Cosmo Latham,” said Adèle. “He is the son of my father’s very old friend. He and I haven’t met since we were children together in Yorkshire. He has just arrived here.”

Cosmo bowed, and in response to a slight gesture took a seat close to the lady whose preoccupied air struck him with a sort of wonder. She seemed to have something on her mind. Cosmo could know nothing of the prevalent gossip that it was only the black eyes of Louise Durazzo that were detaining Lord William in Italy. He explained in answer to a careless inquiry as to the latest news from Paris that he had been travelling very leisurely, and that he could not possibly have brought any fresh news. Lady William looked at him as if she had not seen him before.

“Oh, I am not very much interested in the news, except in so far that it may make a longer stay here unnecessary for us.”

“I suppose everybody wants to see the shape of the civilised 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 arm-chair 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 eye-glasses 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 de 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 understand 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 fifteenth 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 did not 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 an 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 speaks 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 on a piece of wood.

“If I were to tell you, 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 won’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 de 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, as 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.