This site is full of FREE ebooks - Check them out at our Home page - Project Gutenberg Australia

A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook

Title:      Anthony Adverse (1933)
            (In 3 volumes - Volume 3)
Author:     Hervey Allen
eBook No.:  0200541ch.html
Language:   English
Date first posted:          August 2002
Date most recently updated: August 2002

This eBook was produced by: Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico.ca

Production notes: Nil

Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions
which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice
is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular
paper edition.

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this
file.

This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at
http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html

To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook

Title:      Anthony Adverse (1933)
            (In 3 volumes - Volume 2)
Author:     Hervey Allen

ANTHONY ADVERSE

by

HERVEY ALLEN

1933

VOLUME THREE

THE LONELY TWIN

VOLUME THREE

The Lonely Twin

In Which a Worldly Brother Is Acquired

REVERBERATIONS

Don Luis leaned back in the coach, which had been comfortably repaired at Dijon only a month before, and inhaled the scent of the vineyards about Livorno with considerable satisfaction.

He was nearing the end of a year's journey from Madrid by way of Paris, and the certainty of resting his bones in a good bed that night lent an additional charm to the admirable vistas along the ancient highway between Pisa and Leghorn.

These, however, he was fully prepared to admire for themselves alone.

After an absence of nearly twenty-five years upon his estates in Spain, the Marquis da Vincitata was returning to visit Tuscany, the land of his predilection. And he was thinking, as he leaned back in the luxurious, albeit somewhat faded upholstery that still lined his old-fashioned coach, that a return to Italy must ever be to every civilized European a home-coming.

He had even composed an epigram about it.

At the particular moment when he swept with a clatter of sixteen hoofs through the hamlet of San Marco he was attempting to write the epigram upon a small slate which he kept handy for the purpose. It was not often possible to write when travelling, although the coach was now slung upon the best steel springs. But so level and straight was the Roman highway, which had lately been repaired by Bonaparte--so smooth was the stone pavement upon which the coach was now rapidly and invincibly rolling, that in this instance Don Luis had no difficulty whatever in writing upon the slate without breaking the delicate point of his stone pencil.

At this triumph of modern engineering he looked up with an amused and faintly-pleased expression about the eyes. The crow's-feet on the pouches under his heavy lids contracted a little ironically and he started to drum with his thick, powerful fingers on the surface of the slate which rested on his knee. The scent of the vineyards had caused him to remember something that interfered with his epigrammatic style. Finally, with an angry motion of his club-like thumb, he obliterated what he had just written upon the slate. He looked at the smudge and laughed, for he had not really intended to wipe out the epigram but to destroy only the uncomfortable memory which had just been forced upon him.

During the course of his frequent journeys--and upon diplomatic business he still travelled a great deal--the marquis had composed several thousand epigrams. He first set them down upon the slate and later transferred them to an elegant, morocco-bound notebook that reposed together with a pack of cards, the latest French novel, some goat cheese, and a bottle of white wine in a small locker on the side of the coach. This alcove had once, long ago, held a figure of the Madonna belonging to his girl-wife.

It was a bright memory of the dead woman, vividly but unconsciously forced upon him by the odour of grape blossoms, that had interfered with his writing. He looked annoyed. He brushed his hand over his eyes, and went on again.

The peculiarly sardonic and sententious style in which Don Luis composed his epigrams was a balm to his injured ego which had never ceased to suffer from the wound inflicted upon it by the unfaithful conduct of his wife. It was for that reason that there were thousands and not merely hundreds of epigrams now safely copied into the morocco notebook. Don Luis had thus taken his revenge on fate by secretly continuing to drip vitriol upon everybody and everything under the sun. His sarcasm was a kind of spiritual pus that he wiped away privately with page after page of the notebook.

Outwardly Don Luis had scarcely changed at all. He even looked a little better preserved. Indeed, there was something about the marquis that reminded some close observers of a living mummy. One almost crippling attack of the gout had brought a Spartan diet into his regimen. He lived principally upon sour wine, cheese, and goat's milk. And he knew exactly how to physic himself after those banquets for which even a Spanish grandee and an old diplomat semi-occasionally had to unbutton.

For a man well up in his sixties the conde de Azuaga, as he was known in Spain, was really remarkable. But the most remarkable thing about him was that the world went on taking his spry, youthful vigour and unimpaired energy as a matter of course. It did not, except in a few cases of old men who enviously failed before him, remark his vigour at all.

In Estremadura, where Don Luis had spent a great deal of his time, the life was both healthy and hardy. Those who survived it in infancy usually lived to a vigorous old age. There were priests there who had been known to have had children at the age of ninety. And it was for that reason that the nobility in the neighbourhood of Don Luis' estates frequently sent to Valencia, or other provinces, for family confessors whose ripe old age was less likely to break forth into ridiculous blossoms. In Estremadura there was,--yes, undoubtedly,--there was something in the air. Don Luis had breathed it in calmly, and preserved its fire.

After a decade of retirement in Estremadura the marquis had gradually begun to resume his position of natural influence and inevitable emolument at the then much disordered court of Spain. For this he was excellently fitted by both inheritance and long practice. At the supine court of Charles IV he possessed an enormous advantage over even the most selfish of timeservers; he was no longer troubled by any social conscience whatever. Over those who matched him in this respect he was still superior, for his own selfishness was complex and conservative while theirs was simple and immediately voracious. Those dull glimmerings of virtue, which even the most lupine of statesmen occasionally employ as beacons of direction in an otherwise purely opportunist piloting, did not in the midnight oceans of Don Luis' soul mark even a distant headland. He steered only by the fixed star of self-interest with a Machiavellian craft. It was in this sense that the conde de Azuaga was in a very real way a "prince" among men.

The Marquis da Vincitata and conde de Azuaga had in fact been endowed by an all-wise Providence, that accomplishes its mysterious ends with the deadly foil of evil as well as the sword of justice, with an awful and profound mind. That the colour of his soul was Stygian was only natural, for it is in the darkness of night that mental lightning without thunder makes its finest display when it strikes. The marquis' self-interest consisted in what he was interested in, and that can be described most laconically as a passionate desire to hold back the hands on the clock of time. With that end in view he had gradually thrown himself back into the ways and places of influence, body and soul.

Don Luis had within him a strong sense of the trend of the age; of the becoming of men and peoples in the stream of time. And as this, when combined with the practical ability to influence events, is undoubtedly a trait of genius, the advent of the conde in his gloomy coach at the Escurial just before the French Revolution broke out had marked a distinct epoch of pause in the history of his own peninsula. He proposed to preserve it as a perfect Christian Tibet, and for a time he succeeded.

He left no record of his strange and stilling influence. He wrote nothing, except the epigrams in his notebook. His method was the ancient, and often most effective one in human affairs, of a devious personal influence. He attached himself to the right men and left them at exactly the right time. He drove hither and yon in his gloomy coach, which for many years had remained slung upon the chains with which he had furnished it for his wife's martyrdom. A call paid by the suave, and inevitably correct, conde in this vehicle driven by a cat-like coachman was like receiving the ambassador of smouldering subterranean powers whose force is known but whose depth has never been plumbed. Virtue and sanctimony were forced to listen to his wisdom with respect, while the superficially sinful were left both envious and scared. A few ardent young spirits who opposed him had been questioned as to the basis of their curious opposition during the last ample days of the Holy Office. Thus, opposition to Don Luis was always dangerous; co-operation inevitably paid. Consequently, the ends he fostered throve, and the web, which the constantly widening circle of the peregrinations of the coach left upon the map of Spain, found an ever more and more powerful and alert spider sitting upon the faded rose-coloured upholstery at its shifting centre.

Don Luis was not "popular," of course. It had never occurred to any mob to shout, "Long live Don Luis," or to any assembly of notables to drink his health. It would have seemed preposterous, unnecessary. He somehow carried with him everywhere, and under every conceivable circumstance, the suggestion that he would inevitably outlive and prevail over those with whom he dealt. All this was largely due to an unquenchable desire for revenge upon life which now directed the movements of the marquis' soul. He would have liked to stop all other life than his own. And in that event he would have valued his own existence only because it would have enabled him to watch over a universal calm. The marquis was therefore known as a "conservative."

Indeed, there was only one positive desire left in his still active but negative nature. It was an harassing sensuality that still hoped for long-protracted and callous intercourse. It constituted, as it were, the secret, youthful vigour of his senility, and, when actively exerted, held a certain kind of mysterious and unexpected charm for older women. It was for this reason that the marquis as he made his rounds always kept at least one of his drooping eyelids half open, and he was no longer at all particular as to where he could slake a passion that was both dull and violent at the same time.

His reactionary hopes, however, had not prevented him from making those necessary outward concessions to change without which even a "conservative" cannot conserve. These were for the most part exhibited in his astute political manœuvres, his meticulous dress, and in the constant, almost affectionate, rehabilitation of the coach.

He liked to recall that he had won the coach from the Duc d'Orléans at a lucky run of cards in what he looked back upon as better days. For various reasons he had cherished it and rejuvenated it from time to time. The vehicle had almost become a part of him. In the course of time it received new tires, new wheels, new axle-trees and new shafts. It had been dragged over Spain, Portugal, and France by horses and mules that had died in its service and left the body of the coach behind them. Only that had remained the same. In its lines were expressed the luxurious amplitude and the heavy ruthlessness of the ancien régime. Its cat-like coachman had been promoted. He still rode upon the box in a coat-of-many-capes like a torn cat dressed in frills. But Sancho was now Don Luis' valet and general factotum, and the coach was driven by his son, a young man with grey hair, a round, ocelot-shaped head, and wide, greenish eyes. This personage, known as the "Kitten" in Madrid, flourished a whip and said nothing except to his horses or mules. These he occasionally addressed in a tempest of lewd squalls, while he drove with an uncanny skill that seemed to be reckless.

Towards the end of 1799 Don Luis had gone to Paris to try to arrange the little matter of transferring the southern part of Portugal to the prime minister of Spain. He and the First Consul Bonaparte had found that they understood one another. Pourparlers had rapidly changed into conversations during the course of which the character of the Prince of the Peace, the queen's favourite, and the general sorry mess of affairs at the court of Spain were amply discussed. These conversations were carried on with a masterful directness on the part of the first consul and a faultless, self-serving innuendo on the part of Don Luis that rapidly brought about an understanding between these two men as their admiration for each other increased. Napoleon saw in the marquis one whom it would be wise to favour in order to use; Don Luis beheld in Bonaparte a man whom it was imperative to serve well in order to profit amply. They got on.

"What sort of a man is the Prince of the Peace?" asked Bonaparte whirling about upon Don Luis, as he walked up and down looking out upon the gardens of the Luxembourg which he was just about to leave for the Tuileries.

"A man of large parts, citizen-general, necessary and assiduous in the service of Her Majesty both day and night."

Bonaparte smiled wanly.

"I have heard that he is also the friend of the king," he said. "Is there no one to whose interest it would be to enlighten His Catholic Majesty as to the state of his own domestic affairs?"

"Several, now in exile, have made the attempt," replied Don Luis. "But His Majesty's family party at the Escurial has been carefully arranged to insure the royal peace of mind. I might add that the unique relation the Prince of the Peace holds to the king has thrown a new and romantic light upon the power and privileges of a viceroy."

Napoleon smiled again, this time not so wanly. He began rapidly to discuss the basis of a new treaty with Spain in which the payment of a larger annual subsidy to France was the most important item. It was at this interview that Don Luis first mentioned to Napoleon the possibility of the cession of Louisiana to France. He merely suggested it, as it were. It was difficult to transfer bullion from Mexico to Spain on account of the British fleet but a continent could be transferred at Paris, by a stroke of the pen. Napoleon shook his head. It was ready money he wanted. But he remembered the suggestion and turned it over in his planetary mind.

The upshot of several such conversations was surprising to several persons. The Prince of the Peace failed to get his Portuguese principality but was assured of French support at the court of Spain. For this he could grind his teeth--and be thankful--to both Don Luis and Bonaparte. The precise way in which the gratitude was to be shown was carefully provided for and understood beforehand.

The Duke and Duchess of Parma were also surprised. It was agreed that they should pack up and move their thrones to Florence, as Napoleon had new arrangements for Italy in view and was graciously willing to endow their Etrurian Majesties-to-be generously, at the expense of a helpless ally. Don Luis was commissioned to inform them tactfully of the little surprise in store for them, after arranging certain details beforehand through the Spanish ambassador at Paris.

The mission to prepare the authorities at Florence was one which for several reasons filled Don Luis with a peculiar satisfaction. He liked moving royalties, who had to pretend to be thankful to him, like figures in chess. He liked returning to Italy, where the Renaissance had been taken seriously, he said. There was a decidedly Roman pagan side to Don Luis. He had finally reduced his Christianity to nothing but ritual with no moral implications. And a trip to Tuscany in particular coincided exactly with certain private business of his own in that region.

Thus, as usual, Don Luis was able to conduct his own and the public business as one. Before leaving Paris he had obtained certain letters from the first consul which insured the return of his confiscated estates in Tuscany. The dilapidated castle and small hill-town of Vincitata was nothing to Napoleon, who was therefore glad to return it to Don Luis upon whom he counted for further confidential advices when he should return to Spain.

In all of this Don Luis had been acting as the confidential agent of the Prince of the Peace. But he had seen fit to see eye to eye with the first consul, because perforce he must, and because as a matter of fact, it was in that way that he could make the best terms for Spain. At least he had obtained the promise of French support for the policies of Godoy, the queen's favourite, who was already anathema at home. Don Luis was also casting an eye into the future as every good diplomat should. A vague but stupendous outline of the plans of the young Corsican general with the Roman head had begun to dawn upon Don Luis. On one occasion the general in the coat with green facings had honoured the marquis with one of those metaphysical discourses on European affairs which so many people had made the mistake of not taking seriously. Don Luis did not indulge in that error. He had experienced a curious sensation while he listened to Napoleon, one of having participated in a similar interview somewhere else, very long ago. It had, he told himself, a kind of Trajanic ring about it. Just why, Don Luis could not be sure. But the experience of recall had been a powerful one. He dismissed that, but he retained in his head the vision of a great European empire with Paris as the new Rome. This suited the spiritual politics of Don Luis, and for the first time in many years there stirred within him an emotion akin to enthusiasm. For a minute or so the two men, who were conversing across a desk with the map of Italy laid out upon it, had been bound together in a profoundly deep and naturally flowing conversation as to the destinies of European civilization. It was above religion, national politics, and folk morals. For a minute or two what the Roman Empire had accomplished centuries before was reconstituted in a room over the portico of the Tuileries in Paris in 1800. Two free and ruthlessly candid intellects had dropped the petty conventions and prejudices of feudal provinces and looked upon Europe as a whole. Don Luis remembered afterward that Napoleon had lapsed into Italian in the excitement of finding himself understood, and he considered that to be the most majestic compliment which could have been offered him. Indeed, he looked back upon that interview as the crowning moment of his career. It had had about it the flavour of a meeting of Roman augurs, but of augurs who took themselves seriously and had eagles to unleash. Don Luis was able to add a few quotations and observations from some of the Sibylline books of the West. Then, as it were, the curtain had been withdrawn again. The sense of immediate communication in a mutual dream lapsed. Napoleon went on in French.

It was this that had caused Don Luis to smile ironically as he swept over the Roman highway, recently improved by Napoleon. It was only a small spur of the great system that had once linked Europe into one Latin whole. It was possible, however, that the whole system might now be repaved. He hoped so. It would give to life in the West a principle of direction in which every individual might participate with a sense not only of becoming, but of being with a sense of having been. At the present time society in Europe was composed of innumerable tangents from a curve that had dropped into a burst of shooting stars in the Renaissance and Reformation. Every person who was possessed of anything more than a purely conventional consciousness was now aware that he must steer by himself alone. Those remnants of the curve which still remained in Italy and Spain were hanging in limbo. It might be possible that a French segment would complete the old; no, a new and more magnificent Roman arch. Britain could go to hell her own way. What could be done with a people who had subordinated everything to a desire to trade? No, no, they were out of the arch forever. Barbarous! Don Luis reached for his slate again. The horses seemed to be galloping in hexameter.

It was at this point that the odour of grape blossoms had interrupted him. As an odour will, it recalled with extreme vividness certain scenes of his own secret life. The gears of his mind were suddenly shifted from impersonal politics to purely private considerations, as though a hand from without had been laid upon them. It was curious how those two seemingly disparate worlds were bound into one and made inseparable by the rapid and unceasing motion of the coach. As the vehicle rounded the curve at the southern end of the village of San Marco, Don Luis felt himself pressed back into the upholstery by the invisible hand that laid upon him the feeling of motion. He leaned against the momentum and stuck his head out of the window, bawling at Sancho not to go so fast. For some reason while the coach had swung him he felt angry. But the mood soon passed and, as he looked out over the landscape covered with vineyards in blossom, he was immediately presented gratis with a view of a somewhat similar countryside on a spring evening a quarter of a century before.

The coach he remembered was ascending a hill on a road through the midst of vineyards, approaching the Château of Besance. On the very seat where he was now riding sat his wife Maria. He remembered how the sunset had dazzled in her golden hair.

He turned, almost expecting to find her sitting beside him, and shivered a little at finding nothing there. The now faded rose of the old upholstery was merely touched into a sort of mockery of its ancient splendour by the approaching sunset. Here and there, over the back of the carriage, moved a few spots of shifting pentecostal fires.

The marquis felt suddenly as if he would like to get out of the coach. Where, after all,--where was it taking him? He felt for a minute that another hand than his own had really directed its motion. He had only collaborated with it. Perhaps he had not done so well in being sure he was always the master of its direction. A rare emotion crept upon him. He felt a little fearful of being all alone where only the lights and shadows of the outside world flickered over the inside of the old carriage--exactly as his thoughts flickered through his mind. He stuck his head out of the window again . . . "what, for instance, had become of Maria's child?" It might be a wise precaution to inform himself. The convent where he had left him was in the immediate neighbourhood--the "Convent of Jesus the Child." Don Luis smiled ironically again and decided to pay a visit to the mother superior. He could very easily concoct an excuse. Should he?

Just then they topped the rise of a small hill. In the valley beyond the marquis saw a large, rambling building with red roofs. An immense plane tree rose out of its midst about whose top a flock of pigeons was circling preparing to return for the night. It was this glimpse of the place which decided Don Luis to take advantage of its vicinity.

He called to Sancho and pointed. The man raised his eyes slightly and nodded. "So they were going to stop there again after all!" Sancho had wondered if they would. With the same grinding reverberations that the tires of the coach had aroused from the same stones twenty-five years before he caused the vehicle to pull up before the lane leading to the convent.

This time the marquis was somewhat longer in transacting his business at the convent than he had been on his previous visit. He had a long interview with the mother superior, whom he found to be an able and evidently painfully discreet woman. She was now directing the most exclusive convent-school for aristocratic young ladies in Tuscany. Mistaking Don Luis for a wise parent with a daughter to educate, she insisted upon showing him over the entire establishment. Don Luis was forced to be politely patient, and to look at kitchens, laundry, and schoolrooms. He reflected as he went through the kitchens, as a revenge for being bored, that everything that woman used even for cooking had been invented and was made by man. He afterwards entered this in his morocco book. In the courtyard, however, he lingered with genuine admiration. Never, he thought, had he seen so antiquely somnolent, so pagan and classic a fountain. The statue of the bronze boy, who stood staring at the water with those peculiarly blind eyes that Phidias had perfected in Western sculpture, caused the cold springs of the marquis' internal aesthetic tears to melt discreetly. He even murmured a few words of admiration to Mother Marie José, who, thinking them to be an ironical compliment, tried to hurry him through what was now a long-deserted portion of the establishment; one of which she was thoroughly ashamed.

As a matter of fact, Don Luis, as a connoisseur, would have liked to own the statue. He inquired as to the missing twin. The mother superior did not even know what he meant. She looked at the statue of the lusty young boy somewhat askance. It was unnecessarily exuberant, she believed. Rather an unfortunate representation of the Christ Child for a girls' school, she thought. She could not discuss that, however. "Probably the twin was carried off and lost during the Renaissance," reflected Don Luis; "lonely enough in some modern garden even now, perhaps. Ah, well, he could never hope to find the twin." They went on into the refectory where upwards of thirty young ladies, dressed in elegant, but unbelievably prim costumes stayed with whalebone, sat bolt upright saying nothing. A sad-faced sister read to them of the blessed poverty of St. Francis, while they ate an iced sherbet.

"The niece of the unfortunate Duchess of Parma," said Mother Marie José indicating a gypsy-like girl near by . . . "The young Countess of Monteficuelli," she whispered.

That young gypsy managed to look discreetly down her nose at Don Luis. Don Luis allowed the lace from his sleeves to droop a little more elegantly, and bowed. He might have been acknowledging the presence of the Empress of Austria. The compliment was at once discreet, impeccable, and tremendous. To a young girl overwhelming. The breath of the world he brought in with him caused the envious bosoms of the other young ladies to stretch tight against their whalebones even in the Convent of Jesus the Child. Mademoiselle Monteficuelli blushed. Don Luis felt suddenly much younger again.

". . . And we have many other noble names represented here," the mother superior was saying. It was her principal argument. "Permit me to show you the rolls for some years past." She had often won her bid by laying her face cards upon the table.

It was exactly what Don Luis had hoped for but had been at a loss to bring about. Once having begun on the records, he pretended great interest; he kept going back. It was not difficult at first. Every teacher will talk about her school, for since that is all of life that she knows, she thinks that is all there is in life to know how to talk about. But finally Mother Marie José became anxious. There were certain entries in the 1770's which she was not anxious for any prospective patron to see. The curiosity of the stranger, however, was insatiable.

"What is this?" said Don Luis, scowling, and looking somewhat scandalized. "An orphan boy, Anthony, apprenticed to the English merchant John Bonnyfeather, what! what!" Here his face darkened like a thundercloud. There could be no doubt he was shocked now.

"Dios!" thought Don Luis. "Who would ever have thought that? To his own grandfather! Impossible! No, true! Yes, it must have been Maria's child. Here was the receipt by the old merchant for the little madonna and his own ten gold pieces. Even the black bag and the cloak. Hers!" He felt her cold hands in his own again as on that night in the mountains. A sudden chill went to his heart. Life was not so simple as he had thought. He wished now he had left his wife's bastard in a basket in the mountains. Nature has a way with her. This unlooked-for eventuality actually gave him a headache as if he had received a blow between the eyes.

Mother Marie José felt much the same. She had always feared that entry would be misunderstood. She hastened to explain the presence of an orphan boy with the greatest detail. Don Luis now saw all the records. She forced them upon him. There could be no doubt about it. For a few moments he sat with an expression that almost reduced the protesting mother superior to tears. At last seeing the effect he was producing on the good woman, he rapidly recovered himself and reassured her.

"Believe me, I understand the matter fully," he said.

He determined to remove any unpleasant impression from her mind by an act of generosity. "After all the woman's worst failing is a little profitable snobbery," he thought. He would have to be careful, therefore, how he offered to confer a gift. The convent was no longer the home of charity. A way out of the difficulty came aptly to his mind.

"You have evidently mistaken my motives in visiting here, madame," he explained. "I myself am childless, but in former times my family were among the many noble patrons of this holy place. I have not been in Italy for many years, but, as I was travelling this way, I could not refrain out of a sentimental, yet I trust pious, prompting of the heart from paying you a visit. You will understand, therefore, that my curiosity about your records was a natural one, ahem . . . I might say an inherited one. Permit me to congratulate you upon your superbly judicious management; your highly distinguished clientele."

Mother Marie José blushed. The scar under her headdress burned with pride.

"It was my hope," continued Don Luis, "to confer some passing benefit upon you. Charity, of course, is now out of the question. Your excellent management! But I feel sure, or rather I make bold to hope, that you will not refuse a mere memento of my regard. That old statue by the fountain now--" Don Luis could look embarrassed when he liked--"it is . . . well, it is scarcely what one would choose as an item of ecclesiastical decoration under your present circumstances. The ancients were of course naïve even in their piety. We have become more chaste. More may now be left safely even to the imagination of religious young ladies. Do you not agree with me?"

Mother Marie José lowered her head.

"Of course! Well, it was my hope that you would permit me to have an elegant, modern bambino in the best Florentine style installed, and the--er--somewhat outmoded, not to say dilapidated statue now in the courtyard removed. I should make only one condition. The gift must be anonymous. I am going on to Livorno tonight. I will send the workmen some time this week. Do not give them anything, the rascals. They will be well paid."

He looked at her keenly.

The mother superior was making self-satisfied and pious noises in her throat. Not only had she swallowed the bait, she now seemed to be chortling over the sinker.

As she parted from Don Luis at the door, she gave him her blessing with such a genuine warmth and humility for having misjudged him that he was forced to bend low to hide his natural emotions under the touching circumstances.

In the coach it was not necessary to conceal them. He sat there, as evening fell and he began to approach Livorno, with a look of mingled grimness, curiosity, and amusement.

In settling his connection with the Bonnyfeather estate and closing up the old building which he had rented to his erstwhile father-in-law, there might be more to settle than he had supposed. Well, he was ready for it. In a very short time he would know.

Just as darkness came he drove into the courtyard of the old Casa da Bonnyfeather and got out of the coach. The place seemed to be deserted. He felt annoyed. He had sent word of his arrival. But, no. There was a light coming through the chink of a shutter. Somebody, a female, was coming out.

"Good evening, my good woman," said Don Luis.

Faith Paleologus looked at him and smiled.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

OLD FRIENDS GROWN OLDER

The Unicorn had been battered about the Bight of Benim and generally bedevilled by gales and head winds for many weeks after leaving the Rio Pongo. Captain Bittern finally fetched a tremendous leg away across the Atlantic before he put-about and beat back for Gibraltar, gradually edging north. In early April he at last made port at the Rock, where with two topmasts and most of the rest of his top-hamper blown away, he had to refit and revictual.

Anthony was at a loss what to do with the ship. His own nationality was so vague that he was afraid of serious legal complications over her prizes when he finally came to settle his affairs in London with Baring Brothers & Co. It might be difficult to explain to an English court how a gentleman who had taken an oath of allegiance to the King of Spain, and had for long run an establishment under the Spanish flag, also owned an English ship that had been preying on French and Spanish commerce in the meantime.

He finally decided to get rid of the Unicorn by sending her under Captain Bittern to London and having the Barings sell her while they were still acting as Mr. Bonnyfeather's executors.

This plan suited Captain Bittern to a "t." He asked only for the padded chair as a keepsake. He received the entire cabin furniture, plate and all.

"Very handsome, very handsome, indeed, Mr. Adverse," he said, turning a little red in the face. He had asked for the chair only to save £2.3, he told himself. He could never admit his one romantic slip. Somehow the wind had been taken out of his sails with getting the chair, and so much else, gratis. He almost wished he had waited for the auction. He was sure the chair would have gone for,--well, just about £2.3. Now it would only make a good elder's seat at the chapel in Spitalfields. Certainly not at the cottage. Certainly not!--after what had occurred on that chair. He wound the chronometer--his now--thoughtfully. It was a nice chronometer--but it was too late now. It would always be too late. All the time left to him was bound now to be highly respectable. Well, he had seen a good deal in his time--in the time that was past.

While Captain Bittern refitted, Anthony began to find his way about Gibraltar. With a good-sized draft awaiting him from the Barings and a fat letter of credit on London, there was not much trouble in doing so.

It was amusing to see, as a sort of foretaste of what might come later, that he easily and rapidly became a person whose importance was taken for granted; whose antecedents were honourably involved in property. Already a door-opening rumour of his being a young man of great wealth had gone the rounds. The Unicorn was thought to be his "armed yacht" which he had contributed to the cause of king and country--and, if his patriotism had proved profitable, who was there to cavil at that? Before a week went by he was "commanded" to dine with the governor.

Indeed, he found he might linger on at Gibraltar indefinitely, passing the clear, spring days, that slipped over from Africa so early with a breath of summer in them,--days that set the flowers in the quarry gardens on the Rock to blooming madly,--seeing people, eating dinners, riding, being introduced by and to hopeful mothers, who tactfully withdrew leaving him "alone" in the moonlight--while they watched.

He might go to tea every afternoon in neat, bare, little military houses with green jalousies outside and pretty women within pouring Bohea out of china more sinolesque than the Chinese. Would he have Scotch marmalade or ginger out of neat, blue jars covered with rattan? To tea or not to tea--that was the question. People like the Udneys, and cool, tall girls like Florence were everywhere. And it was all very pleasant, very pleasant indeed to be back again in this world of his own kind; a world of uniforms, bonnets, long white gloves that wrinkled at the elbows; of white bread, yellow butter; skirts with white, mousy slippers twinkling under them, and always tea, jam, cards, whisky; the boom of artillery from the heights, the ships' bells below, and the shouts of the stevedores. Then there were Sundays when all the sailors marched to church. And the purple-blue of the middle, mother-sea made a moat around it all.

What with the ships of the fleet coming and going and a big wartime garrison on the mysterious Rock, there were endless dances, receptions, and affairs. Innumerable boats were always going and coming with dapper little "snotties" in charge, who sprang out on the quay and drew their ridiculous dirks while they landed in charge of a boat's crew of great bearded fellows in glazed hats with a yard of ribbon falling over their left eye; men who could pull, and pull all together.

Here was all the assurance of British official society, naval and military, with its well-ordered social classes, the stratified atmosphere in which it lived and breathed. But with the dullness of peace times worn off. For these were stirring times. Security was given a fillip by the constant hazard of war surrounding it. Respectability was hurried while lovers and husbands made love as men who might never come back again to women who would be left behind. Everywhere was that unarguable moral fervour about "us and ours" that it is the peculiar genius of the English to manufacture and to store up in vast, static quantities before, during, and after a national fight. Like the sparks from a cat's fur, most potent in bracing weather, it snaps at the least stroke the wrong way in war time. Then the lion is feeling his best with his mane full of great and petty lightnings.

At first Anthony was almost taken-in by this inherent righteousness and moral potentiality generated by the necessity to win. It was overpowering, especially in the wardrooms of the fleet, or at an officers' mess ashore; over the port with the candles lit and gold epaulettes drooping down the shoulders of scarlet tunics. Then it was especially convincing from its calm self-assurance and quiet understood boasting and humour; in its ignorance of what it was really opposed to.

It was especially convincing to Anthony, since it was carried on in what he felt to be--more than any other--his native tongue. Of course, he was assumed to be of them, and therefore with them and for them. What other side could there be than "ours"? And besides it was not possible for them to understand one whose fate had turned him into a mere European, a wanderer of the West which no longer had even the ghost of an imperial political body in which to contain its oversoul. The age for that had gone by, or had not yet come. By accident he had fallen into that vanished age. Its ideal had been reinforced in him in Africa, where he had unconsciously looked back upon Europe as one. Now suddenly, suddenly as if into a steaming hot bath, he had stumbled back into Europe at Gibraltar to find it divided against itself and vapouring and seething in a kind of prolonged explosion.

Even in a few days' time at this English outpost Anthony had found himself both attracted and repulsed in an infinitely complex way by his brothers of blood and tongue. They were a delightful people, but they seemed to have forgotten something which he remembered and to be content not to look for something which he must find. If he had ever had any false spiritual pride he had left it in the valley with Brother François, yet he could not help but feel that he belonged to a larger unit than to any that all the stir of affairs and the social order at Gibraltar had now to do with. That society was self-sufficient. It was even too self-contained. It was insular, cut-off. He must look for a larger, perhaps a more empty country, he felt.

This was the essence he distilled from the total experience of plunging back into the world of the West at a British post. At Gibraltar the light of the days he was living in was concentrated into a narrow circle and made more intense by the broad sun-glass of the nation focused behind the fortress. Here England was projected in all its various colours in the living prisms of its garrison, men, women, and children. He thought of this one bright Sunday as he watched the garrison and the citizens of the English town being paraded, and parading to church, the Church of England.

He went in and listened to the service. He could do little more. Here were many of the forms he knew, strangely preserved but somehow having suffered a clammy sea-change. The many things which they were now about and still sought to embody were not the one thing which they were once devised to show. That supreme unity had somehow vanished. There was no doubt about it, only the god of England dwelt there. He was perhaps a captain, even an admiral in the British service. The Spirit of the World had gone. God was no longer Our Father, but the god of our fathers--and of "us"--our fathers' precious children. How had that happened? He did not know, but he felt it. Then he remembered something else like it otherwhere.

What was it Mrs. Jorham had felt uneasy about in the churches in Havana? Was that still another thing, too?

After the service he climbed with a party of officers up to the pinnacle of the Rock--that is forever England's--and looked out over Spain, and across the straits back and down into Africa. And he let his eyes wander freely over the blue sea and the arms of it betwixt and between. And again it all seemed equally good to him, part of the great indivisible world, of which, despite an already large dose of it, he knew he could never see and hear, taste and smell--and feel and think about enough. The range of cannon was surely not the criterion of the boundaries of it for those who were invisible spirits of another time; those who, even while the guns muttered, could slip between.

They descended the Rock again to Sunday evening tea and potted-ham, while a salute rang out in the harbour below. For Anthony it was a parting salute. He still might have gone on to London in the Unicorn. Next day he let her sail for "home" under Captain Bittern. He sent Juan "on leave" to Tarifa, his native town, nearby and regretfully sent Simba with him.

Taking the able little purser, Mr. Spencer, along with him, Anthony found passage for Malta in a naval supply ship. At Malta he hired a fast felucca and its crew to slip him into Livorno. They glided into the harbour one dark night only a few hours after Don Luis had dismounted from the coach in the court of the Casa da Bonnyfeather.

Anthony, Mr. Spencer, and a few chests and belongings, among which was the bundle taken from his room at Gallegos that had not yet been untied, were all quietly set ashore on the deserted quay of the Darsena.

----------

Anthony was standing again at the same corner where he and Father Xavier had shared the orange between them over fifteen years ago. He was sure now that he had received the larger half. Along the familiar water front the dark water lapped in the starlight. But the Darsena was well-nigh deserted. Since the French and English had been quarrelling, commerce had languished, especially by larger craft.

It seemed curious not to be going home. Surely, surely John Bonnyfeather would come down the old steps at the casa to greet him. The fire would be blazing under the portrait of King James and the misty room aglow. But he was gone and the casa was only a pile of stones now, one of a series of house fronts along the quays. Impossible! He could not resist going to see. It was only a few hundred paces away. He left Mr. Spencer sitting rather disconsolately on the piled luggage. Under the arches his heels echoed. This was the gate.

It was open, swinging a little in the night wind and creaking. There was not a light in the court. Overhead the stars burned like lights on a sable pall. The fountain was still. It had been turned off. A mysterious air of fear seemed to rest over the whole place. It was like looking at a tomb. What was that vast vague outline against the stars, a vehicle of some kind, a hearse?

He tiptoed in, reluctantly, aware of a kind of hostility that emanated from the great coach. Perhaps it was due to its strangeness, its great bulk, the dead windows agape in the night, the funereal droop of the trappings from the driver's seat. What was this catafalque doing here? In the vague starlight it took on for him the outlines of the hieroglyph of warning. It simply meant "beware." In the stables beyond a horse stamped three times hollowly. It seemed as if a curtain somewhere in the night was about to go up. He was vaguely aware of a stage lying behind it. All the stir and expectancy of a play was there, waiting. A cloud passed and the stars shone through. He turned away disappointed. For a minute it seemed as if he had been about to see through. The feeling of something grisly and oppressive returned. The Casa da Bonnyfeather was positively hostile. He had not expected that. He poked his head into the coach just to prove himself. It smelled of Malacca snuff. He tiptoed out. The gate creaked in the wind behind him. The arch boomed hollowly.

Mr. Spencer was still sitting on the luggage when he returned.

"Wait just a few minutes longer," Anthony said, "and I will get you help."

Anthony took the familiar short cut to the square of the Mayoralty and a few minutes later found himself knocking at the door of the old Casa da Franco. There was now nothing but a neat brass plate on the door with the legend "Herr Vincent Nolte, Banking and Foreign Exchange." But a light streamed out over the threshold as if there was someone living here and awake to welcome him. Nevertheless, he had to knock several times. He heard voices calling in German upstairs. Feeble steps approached and someone fumbled at the door chain. "Franko," the Swiss porter, stood there. "Why, he has grown old!" The man recognized him. "Mr. Adverse!" It was a glad cry, a welcome given unconsciously. The old fellow made quite a clamour over him. Someone looked over the banisters and giggled. A tall woman with corn-coloured hair and wide, blue eyes was coming down the stairs in a dressing gown and slippers. Anthony looked up at her rather startled. She was like a Valkyrie.

"Don't you know me?" she cried.

"Das kleine fräulein," whispered old Franko.

So it was. It was his little mädchen who used to sit knitting by the window.

"Du lieber!"

She came and kissed him laughingly on both cheeks. She led him upstairs holding onto his arm, stopping to tell him the family gossip on every step. By the time they got to the landing with the brass rail about it and the statue of Frederick the Great in its niche, they were both in gales of laughter.

"His Majesty Vincent is still asleep," she called out.

"The devil I am," sang out Vincent, his voice now grown richer and deeper. He had only waited to dress. He came down holding out both his hands. "We've been expecting you for weeks!" They stood grasping each other by the elbows. "My God!" said Anthony.

The tears sprang into their eyes as they looked at each other. "Come up," said Vincent, "and see how you like the bedroom with the new chintz curtains. Anna has been getting it ready for you every day for a month."

"I have not," she said. "It's been ready."

A faint reminiscence of beer and sauerkraut brought the room they were about to enter to Anthony's view before the door opened. And there it was; the long table and carved chairs, the pewter, the geraniums in the window and the bird cages with cloths over them. Franko was hurrying about lighting candles. One of the maids was setting a corner of the table evidently for a midnight supper. Old Frau Frank hurried in out of the kitchen whence savoury odours exuded. The lines on the side of her nose were much deeper. She peered more under her moony glasses. But the arms that came out of her short-sleeved wrapper were still rosy and strong. Her grey hair and cap belied her.

"Ach--ach!" Anyone would think Anthony had been her son.

"Do not kill the fatted calf, Frau Frank," he laughed.

"Nein, nein, shust a leetle snack. Kaffee und . . ." She disappeared into the kitchen again. The door banged on a clatter of dishes. A tray with Münchner and pretzels came. Excuses, more food would follow.

"Prosit."

Anthony, Vincent, and Anna.

They sat down and started to talk to one another all at the same time.

Anna was going to be married soon--"think of it, little Anna--ja wohl"--to a rich Düsseldorfer. A look of bland happiness overspread Anna's features suddenly making her look like a young mother with milk in her breasts. This approaching marriage was somehow the most important news. Anthony seemed to have come back just to hear about it. The girl described the home of her betrothed at Düsseldorf. Anthony sat watching and listening, all at once feeling a touch of melancholy. It was for this that his little mädchen had been knitting and sewing even years ago; even when she didn't know it. How naturally and inevitably some women fulfilled themselves! And yet the quality of life was rich for Anna. Yes, he knew that. There were tones in her voice, the way her hands moved, and her feet--to music--to the music. Not guitars in the moonlight. No, no, heavily-strung viols auf dem grünewald, deep, unhurried, low-toned instruments invisible where the sunlight filtered through the oak branches and the Kobolds could be heard clinking briskly in their smithies under the huge, dark roots. Sweet forest, strong and ancient and blithe. Her bracelets clinked like hammers on elf-gold. He sat dreaming about her, and the music welled up in his heart in a splendid chorus. A new experience. More than a tune, full-throated, manifold. She tossed her head in the lamplight. The suite ended at last with the sound of birds in the branches, and a flute somewhere away off in the cool, quiet glades. Dear Anna! He would give her something beautiful for her wedding, and there would be gifts for all her babies when they came. She looked at him, and seeing he understood the current of her life, suffused her eyes with his own. Vincent looked on in the current, too, and smiled. The flute ceased.

Frau Frank had come in with a pot of steaming coffee. She sat down wiping her hands on her apron while two tears ran down the runnels in her cheeks as she described Anna's trousseau. Schön, sehr schön. They began to eat pigs' feet and sausage. The wedding dress just basted together was shown him in a ribboned box. An immense cake powdered with nuts and cinnamon was brought in; more coffee, very black; more beer--wine. The world became softly rosy; the room delightfully bright and warm. Every shining pewter and silver thing duplicated it.

Vincent opened a new box of cigars with a small, gold knife on a chain. He rattled his seals. He was as much of a dandy as ever. But he dressed now with a careful solidity and a lambent good taste about him that just managed to be impressive and colourful without being crass. He dressed as if someone were just about to strike a beautifully polished brass gong--but had sounded a full rich tone on a harp instead. His was the latest French mode now. He felt the Continent was going that way--Bonaparte's. The English were in the offing for a while. He lived by Paris and not by London. While the armies and ships were deciding it between them--he lived on the Continent and made loans. He looked, and he was, prosperous.

Yes, he was going to Paris--had been waiting for Anthony to join him. They must talk it over, tomorrow. There was a great scheme under way amongst the bankers for floating the next French loan. Certainly he was in on it! And he had a proposition to make to Anthony. He had the very best connections now in Paris--the very best. There were some people he wanted Anthony to meet in Paris on his way to London. He took it for granted Anthony was going to London. But they could go as far as Paris together. "Think of it, my boy, Paris!--travelling together--old times again! Ach!"

"Herr Gott, Toni, I do luf you," he said suddenly overcome. "What a grand gentleman you have become. And now you are rich, too! Ooo--ooo--it is all coming true, everything we dreamed and more." He started to cry into the beer from sheer happiness and the tremendous, alcoholic sentimental implications of the divine past. Everything in which he himself had taken part was romantic to Vincent. Consequently the future was magnificent by implication, for some time in the future he would be looking back upon it as his past. The tears actually dropped into the foam on his dark beer. And yet Vincent Nolte was in all details of business the most practical of men. He was a sheerly German combination of moonlight playing across the hard marble of a banker's façade behind which the owner counted his marks with a nosegay of forget-me-nots on his counter. He kept his accounts of interest due in an iron safe with a knight painted on its oiled door, ate sausages--and cried or laughed over his beer. And in addition Vincent had spent most of his youth in Italy.

"Ach, Toni, I have great plans. You shall know them tomorrow."

They sat looking at each other very happy, pleased, agreeably surprised with the changes of time.

Anthony saw that from Vincent the last of the pink, rabbit-like impression was gone. His hair prematurely verged toward grey and stood up in a mane in which the ears were lost. His mouth had hardened. The eyes could be cold as they were blue. His high, white stock made him positively impressive with the expanse of splendid waistcoat beneath with a solid splurge of gold seals and a heavy chain across it. There was a round chin that might have been voluptuous if business had not hardened it sufficiently to make it look merely abundant and successful. He emanated an optimistic but convincing warmth. An able man on the make.

To Vincent there was still something decidedly mysterious and strongly reserved about Anthony. But the suggestion that this something might be vague and weak, in the final analysis not sure of itself and incapable of action, had vanished. As a banker Vincent, had already acquired a considerable knowledge of people. Some men he knew intended to do what they promised but could by no means do it. The signatures to the well-meaning promises of incapable men were the hardest and most necessary things to watch against. He had, at the first, accumulated a number of small signatures like that. They had cost him dear. "Bad paper." Really one was safer in dealing with a rogue than with people who under other circumstances become other men. The world was too much for them. Anthony was not one of those.

One did not know exactly who or what he was--that was the aloofness of him--but one was quite sure that Anthony himself knew what and who he was now; that he was secure within himself and that "there was good security there." And Vincent felt instinctively as he looked at him that evening with all the keenness and illumination of a fresh view, while he was still a stranger, that Anthony had seen much more of the world than he himself had. Vincent was a little jealous of that, and yet, he was proud of it, too. One could not place Anthony exactly as belonging to this class or to that profession--or to just one nation. He was fair and blue-eyed, northern, but browned now; bitten deeply by some land of constant sun. How tall and strong he was. And yet when he had first come in Vincent had not noticed it. It was the way he moved and dressed that concealed it. Obviously one could not think of Anthony's clothes as being put on. They seemed a part of him. Vincent had never quite been able to achieve that. No, there were always clothes on Vincent Nolte. And he knew it. He saw them himself. Yes, "there is a difference between being a mere man of the world and a gentleman at home in the universe," Vincent remembered. He had not read much lately--the new French loan, but it had been said in a good German book.

But that smooth grey suit, almost silken in texture, the easy roll of the collar, and the neat flamboyance of the cravat--how did it all manage to sit so quietly upon Anthony from his varnished boots to the grey pearl pin at the throat? How the head rose up from the wide shoulders that supported it! Yet he had thought of him as being slim. He must have found a tailor at Gibraltar. The English were good at that. "It will be interesting to see what he does with all the money," thought Vincent. "I wonder if he knows how much he has? Tomorrow," he began. . . .

The door at the end of the room opened and old Uncle Otto shuffled in. He was in slippers and a dirty dressing gown. Anthony jumped up to greet him. It was a shock to find that the old man's mind was nearly gone. He remembered Anthony, but he did not know that he had been away or that he had come back. Only his general kindliness remained as a vague sort of friendship for all that moved. He responded to the warmth of the greeting. Here was an occasion, a general-warmth. He sensed that. He even brightened a little. He clutched Anthony by the arms looking up at him, trying to remember something. "Thou," he said. He smiled immensely pleased at understanding so much. His teeth were gone. Then for a minute a queer look of instinctive, childlike understanding came into his face. "Thou hast found the light," he cried. "Thou hast it! Warm," he said. He tried to lay his withered old head on Anthony's shoulder. They led him away. Frau Frank was greatly embarrassed. She treated him like a child. "Be polite," she said and almost shook him. Uncle Otto objected.

He sat in a chair and gesticulated and made noises. It was impossible not to look at him. "Go to church," said he suddenly. "It is there. I found it. My wife hung bedclothes over it, sheets. But it is there. It shines through. God has given it to his little boy again. And I am so small, so small."

"Uncle, uncle," said Anna. "Here is a footstool. Do sit up now."

"Ja, give it to me. I will pray on it," he cried. "Anna, my little one, thou knowest, too. Let me."

She held him up soothing him. Vincent shook his head.

"We have had a hard time with him," he said.

"Die deutsche, evangelisch-lutherische, protestantische Kirche," exploded Uncle Otto.

"Ah, the poor little papa," said Frau Frank, wiping her eyes. "Do you know he seems to hate me now. He says I am lost." She could not keep from weeping. "It is terrible. And I am the mother of his children. You would think he might remember that. But no. He sits brooding. You would think he saw something away off. It is nothing that he looks at. Eyes like the sky, wide. Ever since Buonaparte came that day and he was arrested and locked up he has withered. Now he is just a moon-baby."

Anthony tried to comfort her.

"Buonaparte?" shouted the old man. He shuddered and seemed to wilt. "Brigand," he muttered. He looked around apprehensively and collapsed into a sort of breathing heap.

Vincent was much annoyed at having the evening impinged upon this way. He bundled the old man back to his room. But Frau Frank, who went along with him, came back afterwards to listen and sit with her hands folded in her lap, watching the young folks. Anna insisted on hearing from Anthony where he had been. He began to tell her something about it. He had to go on, and the hours slipped away rapidly. Vincent and Anna sat spellbound. Frau Frank finally tiptoed to bed unseen. They would not let him stop. At last the light began to come through the window. The birds in the cages began to stir.

"Good Lord," said Anthony, breaking away suddenly out of the midst of Africa, "it's morning, and that poor fellow Spencer is still sitting on my luggage at the quay!"

They roused Franko and sent him out with two boys, who returned in a few minutes with the boxes and the young Englishman. He drank some warm coffee and staggered off to bed with a pale, reproachful look. Anna giggled. They snuffed the candles and went to bed themselves.

Outside the dawn began to break in the square of the Mayoralty at Livorno. Anthony could see two tall poplar trees, one on each side of his window. "The best thing about Europe," he thought, "is the beds. No, it is friends! I am home." He slept till noon.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

WHAT BANKING IS ABOUT

Vincent Nolte was now doing most of the banking and financing for the port of Leghorn and the surrounding territory. He had been among the first to see that the struggle between England and France was going to be a long one, and to arrange his business accordingly. Regular trading had almost ceased, but there was considerable intermittent running of cargoes as the fortunes of war varied in and about the Mediterranean. Livorno had become the centre of this activity. Most of the travellers who came to Italy or crossed it still landed there. The profits on what cargoes did come into the port were enormous, and there was a large fleet of small craft, sloops and feluccas, that slipped from port to port, from Italy to France to Spain, and back again.

Vincent had promptly closed up the old merchant firm of Otto Frank and Co. about five years before and devoted himself to taking risks on cargoes. He made innumerable small loans to small shipowners at high rates. He took care of letters of credit, and slipped bills of exchange through the blockade whether it was the British or the French who were in the offing. In a short time he had concentrated in his hands a surprising volume of business. People in Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Venice depended upon him. The ruling families and bankers of the whole northern part of the peninsula now corresponded with him to transact innumerable affairs, from delivering letters to buying French wines or English manufactures for them or selling their oil. "Nolte can do it" rapidly became a byword.

From this kind of petty business it had been only a natural step to making larger loans of all kinds for short terms and at high rates. In the high financing of the various petty states of Italy Vincent was soon heavily involved. Into his schemes he had drawn bankers at Paris. In short, he was now embarked upon the troubled but interesting sea of European finance during the Napoleonic wars.

The whole lower part of what had been the old Frank warehouse was now taken up by Vincent's clerks, and the ground floor of the dwelling on the piazza was given over to his private bank, its agents and secretaries.

On the morning after Anthony's arrival he had spent the time as usual in his bureau, but at noon he informed his chief clerk he would be "absent from the city" for a day or so, and went upstairs to Anthony's room where they had luncheon together. He brought with him sheaves of papers. Seated together, looking out on the wide piazza, Vincent began to discuss with Anthony the state of his own and his friend's affairs. For the first time Anthony now had the opportunity of reading John Bonnyfeather's will.

The old man's business acumen and foresight were abundantly plain. For some years, prior to 1796, he had been busy rapidly converting his assets into cash, both his ships and merchandise. He had deposited these sums with northern bankers at Hamburg, Rotterdam, and London. In doing all this he had sustained some inevitable losses. But at the time of his death toward the end of 1799, his whole estate, which amounted as nearly as Vincent could then figure it to about £93,000 sterling, was in liquid cash assets concentrated in the hands of Baring Bros. & Co., of London, his executors.

The only items yet to be liquidated were the Unicorn, some merchandise which still remained in the vaults of the Casa da Bonnyfeather, and a lease on that building, which still had five years to run at rather a heavy rental. The fourteen prizes which the Unicorn had "accumulated" rather complicated matters, since nothing could be done with the funds which their sale had brought until the estate was finally settled. To do that "It will be absolutely essential for Mr. Adverse to hasten to London, after he settles his affairs at Leghorn, with as little delay as possible," wrote the Barings.

"Your affairs here," said Vincent, "consist in being identified and accepted as the legal heir under the will according to the forms of the local law. There will be little trouble over that, I feel sure, for I have retained your old friend Baldasseroni to look after the matter. But until you personally probate the will at Livorno the Barings write that they can do nothing in London but invest. You must arrive there with all papers in due form for proving your title as John Bonnyfeather's heir. Here is a list of the documents that will be necessary, sent on by their lawyers."

Anthony laughed to see that the Barings' solicitors were Messrs. McSnivens, Williams, Hickey & McSnivens. He now sent for Spencer and had him bring up the accounts and correspondence which the purser had brought with him from London. Most of this consisted of the accounts and disposition of the sums deposited from Havana for Anthony's share of the Gallegos trading. They amounted with interest to £16,834. Vincent whistled.

"You have lined your nest well, my boy," said he, not without a touch of envy. "I myself never know just where I stand as most of what I have is constantly being loaned out, and the best security is now liable to be swept out as the map changes. However, I guess I can take a risk on this."

He tossed the latest letter from the Barings across the table.

. . . we are greatly relieved to learn by your last advices that you have heard from Mr. Adverse from Gibraltar and that he will soon be in Leghorn. It is also exceedingly satisfactory to learn that you know him personally and are familiar with his antecedents as he is, of course, a complete stranger to us. Kindly advise him to make all haste with his affairs in Italy and impress upon him the convenient necessity of his repairing to London without delay. It will greatly oblige us if you will explain to the gentleman our desire to close-out our connection with the Bonnyfeather interests, as we are primarily merchants and traders, and have consented to act as executors of this estate only at the instance of the senior member of the firm, Sir Thomas Baring, Bart. He for personal reasons of ancient friendship consented. Our situation, however, is somewhat anomalous. Your good offices, Mr. Nolte, will be greatly appreciated in making our position clear. You may advance Mr. Adverse any sum up to £1,000 on our security, should he desire it, at the usual commission.

Latest advices from Paris indicate that a peace will probably be negotiated shortly, etc., etc., etc.

"Well, how much do you want?" asked Vincent, rattling his seals. "Shall we spend an hour or two haggling over the rate?" They both laughed. ^:

"Wait for a while till I see," said Anthony. "I brought a little gold with me from Africa. Now what else is there to do here besides probate the will? The merchandise still at the casa, of course . . ."

"And the lease. I advise you to buy out of that for a lump sum. The property, as you know, belongs to the Marquis da Vincitata, who, by the way, is now in town. He has made it convenient to come here to talk over with me certain details as to the forwarding and refunding of the Spanish subsidy to France, through Leghorn. You see the British watch the French ports like hawks, and sending bullion over the Pyrenees is a ticklish matter even when they can get it from Mexico. I have arranged a rather clever method of exchange through a neutral state." Vincent puffed himself a little and they both laughed. "Evidently the marquis wants to close out his own affairs here too and you will have to see him. He will want to sell you the old casa, but don't buy. Watch yourself, for he is brilliantly canny. Oh--there are also the legacies to some of the old servants, under the will. I see McNab comes off well. Well, now, I should say you could close-out all these matters in a week, get the will probated, and start with me for Paris, say, next Sunday."

"Why Paris?"

"I will tell you. Believe me, you are not the only one who has been doing things since you left here. I have a proposition to make to you, Toni. Now do listen to me." He ran his hand through his hair in considerable excitement.

"You see, it is like this. The expenses of a general European war have surpassed the most spendthrift imaginations. The royal mistresses of the ancien régime with all their intrigues; our formal old dynastic wars were positively impecunious adventures in bankruptcy compared to what has been going on now more or less continuously for over a decade. People who based their calculations of government expenditure on the experiences of other times cannot even imagine the demands of the present. To cope with modern conditions it has taken men of a new cast of mind, men whose mental and financial speculations leap across old national boundaries to embrace the affairs of the whole world in a planetary economy. Naturally, there have been only a few people capable of this scope of thought and management among either bankers or politicians. Certain Jews, of course, who have always understood the world to be one market, have profited. Then there is Pitt, and a few British merchants and bankers like the Barings who have understood. But above all others in his capacity to keep the wheels of finance moving under the brakes of war is G. J. Ouvrard, the great Parisian banker. That man is a genius.

"For some years now he has been finding the cash for both peaceful and war-time operations of the French government. I would also mention a certain Monsieur P. C. Labouchère connected with the important house of Hope & Co., at Amsterdam. He is a son-in-law, by the way, of Sir Francis Baring. I want you to keep M. Labouchère in mind--and--and there is also in the south of Europe," said Vincent with mock humility, "my humble self. Ja wohl, there is also Herr Vincent Nolte!"

In his excitement at this pleasant thought he offered Anthony a pinch of snuff in his best professional manner employed after the consummation of a successful deal. He began to walk up and down feeling his watch chain, while the tones of his voice became heightened and more metallic.

Indeed, as he went on explaining the intricacies of the majestic scheme he was engaged upon, the new and the old Vincent Nolte--the happy-go-lucky youth who liked to bet and take a chance on everything uncertain, and the new, staid young banker with a wise, knowing gleam in the corner of his eyes--twinkled in and out and played hide-and-go-seek with each other between the sentences as they fell from his plump mouth.

At one instant he was the incorrigible, gambling boy sticking out his tongue and licking his lips over some spicy anecdote of golden profit reaped by your lucky great-ones, and at the next the persuasive, solid, financial adviser and investor playing hypnotically upon the open vowels and deep gutturals of sonorous words as if a variation on his theme had emerged suddenly from a nest of wood instruments. Vincent was talking now in German and now in Italian. And frequently when he broke into the latter, there would be a sudden little bubbling run on a piccolo, a kind of plunging laughter. Then he would be brought up short, stopped suddenly by a feeling of boyish inferiority from the past as he looked at Anthony. He would be embarrassed, standing there laughing at himself, with his heavy watch seal in his smooth, rosy hand.

Anthony admired Vincent; was glad of his success and proud of his friendship--and yet, as he sat watching and listening, he could not help but wonder in the back of his head how it was that the affairs of a continent tended to drift into the smooth, rosy hands of men like Vincent. To what was that manual gravitation due? But another thing he saw at the same time quite plainly. It would not do to laugh with Vincent when he laughed at himself. He must permit him to bury the ridiculous contrast between his past and the so-important present which his own presence inadvertently evoked. "Yes," thought Anthony, "I must be careful how I recall old times to him. He is not sure of himself yet. The plaster of the professional manner is only beginning to set. It must not be jarred loose or the lathing will show through. I shall always, with Vincent--until a good many years have passed--always take the present enormously seriously." So he sat grave and silent, looking like a staid young merchant himself. On this basis the two young men continued to get along famously.

"And so," said Vincent all over again, but very much the banker now, and determined to remain so, "you see it is like this:

"What all the governments must have is bullion in immense quantities. And at the present time that is exactly what they haven't got. England must have it to pay her sailors and her subsidies to her allies to fight France: the French need it to pay their soldiers and buy colonial produce from neutrals while they fight England. At home both governments make their paper money go somehow. The Bank of England suspended specie payment five years ago, and French assignats also went clear out of business. Now it is francs. But try to get metal for them--try it! Yet both the English and the French have to have hard money when it comes to making their settlements abroad. Only victory or peace will make their paper money generally valuable, and no one knows who will win. No, they have to have cash--gold, silver. And who has it? Why, that placid old milch cow, Spain."

He nodded at Anthony wisely.

"But the money is not in Spain. Oh, no--that is the joke. Bonaparte would have had it long ago if it had been there. The bullion--immense supplies of it--is locked up in Mexico. For years now the veins of Potosi have been bleeding into the Mexican treasury and the great pool of silver lies dammed up there. Spain has not been able to tap it, for the British fleet sails between. It was M. Ouvrard who was the first to get around the difficulty, and more or less by accident. Bonaparte had played a joke upon him.

"Ouvrard had advanced great sums to the French treasury and had through influence received the contracts to furnish both French and Spanish fleets with supplies. In payment for that he was given by Bonaparte six useless Spanish royal drafts on the Mexican treasury for the accumulated sum of four millions of piastres. Finally Ouvrard, who was nearly ruined by this, sent his brother of the firm of Ouvrard De Chailles & Co., of Philadelphia, to Mexico. He reported that he had seen there the marked chests set apart as a separate deposit for the liquidation of the six royal drafts in Ouvrard's hands, and that besides that seventy-one millions of coined silver dollars were lying idle in the Mexican fiscus waiting to be shipped to Spain. It was in the next stroke that Ouvrard showed himself to be a financial genius.

"He knew that Pitt with his endless demands on the Bank of England had put the governors at their wits' end to furnish coin even for foreign subsidies, and he also knew that just at that time the East India Company was under the necessity of obtaining great sums of silver for Eastern trade. He, therefore, approached Pitt, through the neutral firm of Hope & Co., at Amsterdam--you remember I told you that Labouchère there was the son-in-law of Sir Francis Baring--and he was consequently able, through the pressure of the Barings on the prime minister, to agitate the matter of permitting at least some of the Mexican hoard to be released.

"Pitt was at first obdurate and blustered a good deal about trading with the enemy. But as hoarding continued and the stringency increased, Pitt became more and more inclined to listen to the representations of Sir Francis Baring. At last the matter was arranged, and although England was at war with Spain, four British frigates were dispatched by secret arrangement to Vera Cruz with orders on the Mexican treasury, supplied by Ouvrard through Hope & Co., at Amsterdam, for many millions of silver dollars. Just how much no one here knows. For these drafts on Mexico Ouvrard received drafts to a like amount on British merchants for colonial produce and merchandise, which was imported by way of Holland and the Hopes into France.

"It was said that the six chests marked for him were also brought over as 'tobacco.' I am not sure of that, but I do know that he sold the foreign merchandise all over Europe at enormous profit. The British, of course, received the silver dollars in England and some of them were restamped and put into circulation by the bank. The rest were poured into Europe and India. Those loosed in Europe soon gravitated, due to the exactions of Bonaparte, to France. Both the fiscal and commercial situations were relieved all round--and the war could go on."

"How did Ouvrard get his Spanish drafts for such large amounts?" asked Anthony.

"Oh, I thought I had made that plain," said Vincent. "Spain has by treaty been paying France an annual subsidy and Ouvrard took Spanish drafts on the Mexican treasury, which had been sent to France, in payment for his loans to Bonaparte. Bonaparte was glad to palm them off on him as they seemed uncollectable." Vincent laughed.

"Now bear with me," he continued, "and I will show you how we come in." He looked significantly at Anthony.

"The relief already experienced by this welcome supply of Mexican silver has been so considerable and profitable that the combination of Ouvrard, Hope & Co., and the Baring Bros, contemplates further action along similar lines. They have now under way a plan to get the bulk of the Mexican bullion to the United States and to reship it, or the goods which it purchases, from that neutral territory to England and Europe, chiefly, of course, through the Barings at London or the Hopes at Amsterdam. I may receive the southern consignments here at Leghorn, and, if even a few cargoes reach me, at the present price of colonial produce my fortune will be made. Ouvrard, of course, will continue to furnish the capital in the form of his drafts on Mexico, and the rest of the affair would be carried on by either English or American ships sailing from one neutral port to another. Ships consigned to the Barings or to Hope & Co., or their correspondents, and insured by Lloyds would run an excellent chance of being allowed to proceed even if searched by British cruisers. It is really a remarkable plan, don't you see? For those in the charmed circle the blockade is to be broken and both England and France will profit by the silver. That, of course, is a dead loss to Spain, but somebody must pay for war.

"Now here is what I want to interest you in, Toni, my boy. At several places in the United States it will be necessary for the Hopes, who are the go-between in this affair, to have confidential agents-resident for the purpose of receiving the Mexican bullion,, shipping it, turning it into neutral goods, and investing it for the time being until it can be safely and profitably transmitted to Europe in the most advantageous way. These agents will set up business as regular merchant firms, correspondents of the Barings and the Hopes, and the bullion will be turned over to them ostensibly as their operating capital. Naturally, as great sums will be involved and the whole success of the operations will depend upon the discretion, honesty, and ability of the agents-resident in America, the posts would be filled with carefully selected and marked young men. I need not add that it will be profitable--but above all it would be interesting.

"Your old friend David Parish, by the way, has been asked to go. I have also been asked to take-over at New Orleans, which is in Spanish territory, but a convenient place for receiving the dollars. I cannot go, however. My operations here are already too large and important to think of giving them up. In short, I have other plans. But you, my dear fellow, would be ideal for the post. You are footloose, well-off. You can speak English, French and Spanish. You have already engaged in deals with Spanish colonial officials and you are now on your way to see Sir Francis Baring himself in London.

"You see it all seems to point to you as the ideal man for the New Orleans post, and I believe you would like it. You always used to say you wanted to see the world. Well, here is a marvellous chance to go on seeing it and to engage in its affairs honourably, and I have no doubt with great profit. Why not, why not? Don't just shake your head. Herr Gott! Do you know, I have written about you already to Ouvrard, and to Labouchère at Amsterdam. I want you to meet them, the French bankers particularly, and that is the reason that I especially want you to go with me to Paris. Now do! It is only tentative as yet. At least come along and talk it over with them. That can do you no harm. That will be seeing--meeting--the world, Toni. And what else would you be doing anyway?"

"Ah, yes, that is true," thought Anthony, who was not over-persuaded. "What else shall I be doing?" At last he promised Vincent to think it over with more enthusiasm than he felt.

"So David Parish was still alive. Curious he should put it that way. And he might be seeing him again--see him? How many children did Florence have now?" he wondered, and sighed.

"Oh, it won't be as bad as that, really," said Vincent a little nettled.

"Dear Vincent," said Anthony, "I was thinking about something else. I appreciate all your thought of me. I--I was thinking of little Florence Udney." They both laughed together now. And this laughter was always a bond between them.

"Aha. I always suspected something there," said Vincent. "Well, Parish has not done so badly. Entertains Talleyrand at Hamburg, I hear. Mrs. Udney has been living with them. I'll bet she never plays 'Malbrouk' to Florence any more."

He whistled a snatch of the old tune that unexpectedly trickled like moonlight into Anthony's thoughts. Vincent smiled at his friend's expression. A clerk opened the door.

"His Excellency the Marquis da Vincitata is in the case asking to see Herr Nolte. We thought we had best tell you, sir," said the boy still looking a little pale about something.

"That's right," said Vincent. "Come on, Anthony. Let's go down. We both have business with him. Let's tackle this old fox together."

----------

Don Luis was sitting leaning forward on his gold-knobbed stick in the rather handsome room Vincent had fitted up for himself as his office. He managed to convey the impression to the two young men as they came in that they and not he were being received. Anthony was at first rather fascinated by the older man, whose manners were so suave, formal and polished as to carry even into the little case looking out into the square at Leghorn the atmosphere of the court of Spain. He treated Vincent with a consideration that was evidently flattering, though not without an ironical twinkle at times. And in his sardonic gravity Anthony was somewhat surprised to find himself included.

Vincent introduced Anthony by name, which conveyed nothing to Don Luis, and mentioned that Mr. Adverse was the young "Englishman" about whom--"you may remember, Your Excellency, we had some correspondence at Paris relative to his taking over the post as resident at New Orleans."

The marquis bowed a little more condescendingly than before.

"His Excellency, of course, is fully familiar with the Mexican matter I have just been explaining," added Vincent to Anthony, and then turned to Don Luis again. "I thought it might be well to invite Mr. Adverse to sit in with us on our discussion today before you and he take up the little matter of the Bonnyfeather lease. He is the heir, you know. I am anxious," smiled Vincent, "to enlist Mr. Adverse in the Mexican matter. You can rely on his . . ."

The marquis had started slightly. He turned half about in his chair to look at Anthony who was now sitting in the window with the afternoon sunlight streaming in from the square beyond. Anthony looked up. He was suddenly aware of a vital interest in the old man's stare. The old eyes licked over him from head to foot, half-veiled under their heavy lids. Anthony felt himself turning a little cold.

There was an instant's silence, extremely tense and awkward for some reason.

"You have no objection I hope, sir," added Vincent quite anxiously.

Don Luis recovered himself.

"Certainly, certainly not," he muttered. "No, proceed!" he added with sudden fervour.

"One would think he was giving directions to his coachman," thought Vincent, angered at the tone.

A curious uneasiness had now gripped everybody in the little room. Vincent's caution was awakened by it. He wrote something on a card, and calling one of the clerks, sent him out hot-foot for the advocate Baldasseroni. "The old fox! One can't be too careful," he thought, and began to discuss with Don Luis some of the Spanish ramifications of the plan to import bullion from Mexico.

In this scheme Don Luis was strongly interested. He had recently had long interviews with Ouvrard at Paris and he began to recount at some length the turn that affairs had taken there.

". . . As for the arrangements for the cargoes and the minted money which are to be landed here at Leghorn, you must make your own terms with M. Ouvrard in Paris yourself. He and I have come to a very satisfactory understanding, I might add, as to the honorarium to myself and the Prince of the Peace. We shall deduct that at Madrid," smiled the marquis. "All that arrives here you can figure on as net for yourself in computing your own percentage. I trust a fair part of the original value finally gets to Paris, Herr Nolte. We leave that to your discretion. Remember there will be more than one cargo." He grinned a little wanly, and continued.

"It has also occurred to me that the matter of shipping produce from the Spanish West Indies direct could be arranged--possibly--by securing from the Spanish authorities themselves certain licenses to trade made out in blank, you know. I forgot to mention that to M. Ouvrard in Paris. Will you do me the honour of suggesting it to him when you see him as a proposition coming from me? Neither of us need suffer if M. Ouvrard cares to perfect such an arrangement. Assure him, please, that I can bring it about. Someone who speaks Spanish well should come on to Madrid sooner or later to negotiate the matter. In the meantime . . ."

For nearly half an hour Vincent and Don Luis continued to discuss the details of trade, finance, and politics involved in the combination of M. Ouvrard, the Hopes, the Barings, and Herr Nolte.

Anthony listened surprised at the ramifications of the scheme; at Vincent's grasp of details and quick suggestions, which evidently kept Don Luis on the qui vive.

As time went on, however, he began to become more and more aware of Don Luis, and in an unpleasant way. The man filled him with an unaccountable dis-ease and an unreasonable hostility. Here was someone who, without the slightest reasonable cause for doing so, he felt was an enemy; a being to beware of.

As he sat in the window listening to the discussion the feeling became stronger and stronger. It was absurd, he told himself. The old man had hardly said two words to him as yet; had only favoured him with a few sidelong glances. Yet he was sure, was perfectly sure there was a hostile appraisal in those eyes. He felt toward him very much as he had felt toward Mnombibi that night when he had seen him in the glass. But why? There was something a bit toad-like, something of the sardonic Punchinello countenance in the older man. But why should that make him loathe the very way he wore the buckles at his knees?

His spine crept a little coldly as he looked again. He was glad of the sunlight striking warmly through the window onto his own coat. Well he would not look at him then. He would look away. Where was it he had felt that way recently; eerily repulsed--warned off? Ah yes in the courtyard at the casa the night before--and with Mnombibi.

Now that he came to think of it, now that he was looking away, he still seemed to be seeing Don Luis in a glass somewhere, somewhere--an ugly little fellow. The noise of the talk grew far away and buzzing--an ugly fellow, spider-like--"pshaw!"

He turned to the window and began to look over some bound magazines. Why did Vincent keep old things like that lying about? Some old consignment probably that had miscarried. The European Magazine--April--nine years ago! Good Lord! He turned it over and began to read with one part of his mind:

This extraordinary young man's taste for fame was so early displayed, that a female relation of his persists to say, that at the age of five years, when a relation of theirs had made him a present of a Delf bason with a lion upon it, he said, he had rather it had been an angel with a trumpet to blow his name about.

On quitting this female relation to go to London, he said, "I wish I knew Greek and Latin."

"Why," replied she, "Tom, I think you know enough."

"Aye, but," said he, "if I knew Greek and Latin, I could do anything; but as it is, my name will live two hundred years at least."--Chatterton used to say, that . . .

A sound in his ears like a distant pistol shot made Anthony suddenly look up. The marquis had sprung back the lid of his patent snuff box. The conversation with Vincent was evidently over. Don Luis took a pinch and brushed some loose grains off his vest. He snapped the lid to again. A faint odour of Malacca snuff drifted through the room. Instantly the coach in the courtyard and the clouded, starry sky of the night before came into the part of Anthony's mind which was not reading.

Don Luis was speaking to him.

At the other side of his mind, as if in a glass pressed close to the corner of his eye, a vision of the coach with light flashing from its windows streamed off into starry space against a rack of wild-looking clouds . . . "the . . ." he turned the page

. . . the greatest oath by which a man could swear was, by the honour of his ancestors.

The type on page 286 of the old European Magazine slipped uphill into oblivion as he closed it quickly, suddenly aware that the conversation which he was about to begin with the marquis was a dangerous one and concerned him vitally. At the very first tones of Don Luis' voice he had been instinctively on his guard. He had almost flinched as he heard them.

It had been no small test of Don Luis' now nearly automatic finesse that in the conversation with Vincent he had never fumbled once, although a great many ideas had been kept going. His mind too, had, as it were, divided into two parts. That facet directed toward Vincent was compact of politics, finance, and calm caution; that turned toward Anthony was in a rage and a secret turmoil. For when Vincent had introduced Anthony as Mr. Bonnyfeather's heir it had instantly occurred to the marquis that this was also the apprentice from the convent--Maria's child. It would be just like fate to play a grim trick like that on him. He went hot and cold at the thought. "Just like the humour of Beelzebub!"

During the talk with the young banker Don Luis had occasionally stolen glances from under his heavy lids at the other young man who sat in the window where the sunlight fell across his hair. And it had given the marquis a sick feeling about the heart to notice that the ends of that young man's curls, where they were thin and the light came through them, twinkled with red and golden glints as he bent over his book there--"damn him." For an instant Don Luis saw the face of Maria sitting in the coach bathed in the light of sunset as they rode along; as they rode along and along toward the Château of Besance twenty-five years ago. O God, how he had loved her--and hated her! And here was the son of the young Irishman seized of his grandfather's estate by an act of God--or the devil, who knew which,--reading a book. Oh, splendour of the white Corpse of God! It was true.

At that instant Don Luis felt that the Controller of Fate hated him--and he returned that sensation cordially. He hated the world, and he determined, as he had never determined before, to throw himself against it. In a way which only a Latin European could understand he took the course of events as a personal insult. Fate had outwitted him. He would be even with it yet. He writhed a little in his chair. Then he steadied himself, took a pinch of snuff--and turned to Anthony who had just closed his magazine.

"I understand you are to be congratulated as a very fortunate young man, señor," he began in a silken tone. "It is not every orphan who finds a benefactor and manages to inherit his estate. No doubt, if your parents were alive, they too would be charmed by your felicity." He smiled a little. Somehow he had managed to be insulting. The blood rushed to Anthony's face.

"I have been fortunate in some respects, sir. But I had no idea until shortly before the death of John Bonnyfeather that I was to be his heir. And I have no relatives I know of, no one to share with me in what you have been good enough to style my 'felicity.'"

"Of course, I did not intend to insinuate that you were a designing young person," resumed Don Luis. "My interest in you is, after all, a natural one. Perhaps you may recall that I had at one time the peculiar honour of being your benefactor's son-in-law?"

"And might have been his heir," thought Vincent pricking up his ears.

"I had never heard that," said Anthony obviously astonished.

"Do you mean to say," said Don Luis icily, getting out his pocket spectacles and looking Anthony over as if he were a curiosity, "that your--a--guardian never mentioned to you that the Marquis da Vincitata was his son-in-law?"

"Never," said Anthony, looking that nobleman over so calmly that Don Luis could scarcely sit still.

"The cool young liar," thought he.

"I heard your name mentioned once or twice casually as the owner of the premises upon which Mr. Bonnyfeather conducted his business. But nothing more."

"I will ruin you for that remark," thought Don Luis--and in the intense struggle of his inner feelings permitted himself an instinctive question which he would ordinarily have carefully suppressed. He seldom laid himself open to rebuff.

"Did the old Scotchman never mention his daughter to you at all?"

A thousand speculations were rushing through Anthony's head. He felt himself on the edge of a gulf into which if he could only look he might know his own mystery, but . . . "the greatest oath by which a man could swear . . ." and he seemed to hear the grave tones of the old man's voice in the courtyard that day exacting his promise. "Why was it? Why had Mr. Bonnyfeather made him promise? Who am I?" he thought. For an instant he looked with a peculiar speculation at Don Luis, with an expression of self-struggle that the marquis noted instantly as he leaned forward a little and gripped the arms of his chair.

"That is a point which it is a matter of honour with me never to discuss," said Anthony. "I am sure that Your Excellency will understand me if I put it that way."

"He knows," thought Don Luis. "I 'will understand,' eh--I do!"

The implacable look with which he favoured Anthony was not lost upon Vincent, either, who saw at the bottom of everything a financial trap. Doubtless Don Luis had in mind the possibility of contesting the will.

"I might add," said Vincent suavely in what was meant to be a soothing voice, "that the matter of probating the will has, of course, been carefully attended to."

"'You might add,'" repeated Don Luis witheringly, while preparing to go. "Well, adding is quite in your line, isn't it, Herr Nolte?" He turned swiftly.

"Good day, Don Antonio Adverso, perhaps we shall have the honour of meeting again." He bowed mockingly but with a grave face.

"Ah, who knows?" said Anthony in Spanish. The lines about Don Luis' mouth contracted a little. He took his stick and went out.

"Now what the devil?" said Vincent after he had left.

Anthony was striding up and down. "How those noblemen of the old school do despise us bankers! Well, I shall show him a thing or two." He called into the office to send up Signore Baldasseroni, the advocate. "Now as soon as this lawyer fellow shows up go out and get the matter of proving the will attended to instantly, my dear fellow. I hope that you do not mind my having lied a little for you. The old one is evidently on your trail."

"Do you think so, too?"

"I am quite sure of it," said Vincent. "If ever I saw one man hate another--"

"My God, what have I done?" said Anthony with a half-humorous, half-serious quirk.

"What is the use of moral speculations?" asked Vincent. "The thing to do now is to register the will. Will that lawyer never get here?"

The door opened and a fat, little man with a limp, carrying his hat in one hand and mopping his brow with a flaming orange bandanna, entered quite out of breath.

"Why, Signore Adverse," he panted, "this is a pleasure, an unexpected pleasure. I haven't seen you for years. La la, how you've thickened up!"

He went limping about, very effusive, clapping his hand to his tail every now and then. "Of course, I remember you." He made a wry face. "You were there when that M. Toussaint put a bullet in my behind. A sad, a memorable occasion, very sad." He launched out into a description of his acute sufferings as a cripple, meanwhile laughing and hopping about like a wren. The whole atmosphere of the room cheered up. The sulphur reek which Don Luis seemed to have left behind him was blown away by the breeze that had puffed in through the door with gay Signore Baldasseroni.

Vincent soon cut him short and explained the situation. Signore Baldasseroni produced a huge watch and noted that the office of registry would close in twenty-two minutes. He and Anthony gathered their papers together hastily and tore out. Down the sunlit street they went and across the piazza to the Mayoralty, with the little advocate hopping along with his hand on his hip and chattering.

They registered the will. For an increased fee the clerks kept the office open beyond the usual sacred closing hour. Every paper was stamped. Signore Baldasseroni produced the most grave and respectable witnesses, whom he seemed to keep on tap. "They will swear to anything," he whispered. "I hold them for a small monthly retainer. I trust, Mr. Adverse, you will see fit to repose your legal business at Livorno in my hands. My retainer is reasonable, my refreshers modest, my reputation unblemished. This I admit, signore, rests upon the questionable evidence of my own applause, but you may verify it if you will. Permit me to call one of my witnesses, Beppo."

Anthony laughed and clapped the little man on the back. "I feel quite safe in your hands," he said. "I shall instruct Herr Nolte to remember you from time to time on my account. What I want is someone who will keep an eye to my interests and not turn up as the counsel for the other side, witnesses and all. You know that sometimes happens here. But we, you know, have been through an affair of honour together and I am the star witness to your constancy during trials."

Tears sprang into the eyes of Signore Baldasseroni. "Ah, thou alone knowest to the full my bravery," he cried. "Toussaint and McNab they always laugh when we meet. If you would only tell the clerks here, signore, it would enhance my reputation."

"Some time when it will not embarrass your modesty as it would now, I shall do so," whispered Anthony.

They crossed the street together--friends for life--while the clerks looked over their gold coins and locked the big bronze door. In Vincent's case Anthony paid the spry little advocate a great many compliments and an astonishing retainer. They all had a bottle of wine together.

"You have done well," said Vincent after Baldasseroni had left. "You can depend on him now in the matter of the lease and everything else. And that is important. For Don Luis might otherwise persuade him to change clients. It is the curse of law practice here. Baldasseroni keeps a whole boarding-house full of witnesses, with costumes. He always wins my cases. Our old friend Signora Bovino, by the way, makes a wonderful witness in cases involving domestic disputes." Vincent grinned and put his feet over the arm of his chair. "Well, let's go up and see what the women are sewing on now. Anna's preparations are a triumph."

For the rest of the afternoon Anthony sat in the window under the bird cages while Anna, Frau Frank, and Vincent chattered; while the women and two sempstresses sat stitching at Anna's trousseau. There was something so bright and airy in the room, so domestic and homelike with the constant flashing of white thread and needles, with gold thimbles on white fingers twinkling in and out through soft folds of delicate cloth, that the two young men from time to time looked at each other in mutual enjoyment of peace, happiness, and home.

"After all, this is what banking is about, isn't it?" laughed Anthony as Vincent passed him to light his pipe in the kitchen.

"Ja wohl!" said Vincent.

Anna smiled quietly over her embroidery and held it up to the light.

"See," said she, "it is a white dove with a red rose in its mouth. Now what colour must I make its eyes?"

On the perch just above her, where the warm rays of the afternoon poured through the open window and the curtains waved in the breeze, a canary began to blow golden bubbles of sound from its throat. It sang as if its heart would burst.

"Ach," said Anna, "Ach, mein Gott! I am so happy."

Anthony looked out into the empty piazza. In the breast of his coat the proven will of John Bonnyfeather, merchant, of sound mind and sound body, crackled drily. A lump came into his throat.

In a few days all this would be gone forever. For some reason or other, just why he could not remember now, he was going to London.

The canary sang again and again.

CHAPTER FIFTY

DON LUIS REFLECTS BY CANDLELIGHT

The inn of the "Blue Frog" had for several generations been one of the best kept caravansaries of the Mediterranean littoral. Perhaps more than any other institution in Livorno--and it was an institution--it had realized the original dreams of the Medicean founders of the free port by attaining a complete cosmopolitanism.

Like all really great inns, it had not depended for support nor derived its atmosphere from a purely genteel clientele, which is so dully alike everywhere. It had catered to everybody, from travelling cardinals to sailors getting rid of their pay. And it had done so by sprawling out along the piazza, into various pavilions where each kind of man could find others like himself gathered together eating and drinking, playing and talking according to his nationality and class. In that respect the "Blue Frog" was unique.

But its reputation depended upon, and had been spread abroad chiefly by distinguished travellers; by prosperous ship captains and merchants who had tarried under its roof memorably. And the common item in their universal praise of the "Blue Frog" was always its abundant and tempting fare.

It was the boast of its proprietor, one Lanzonetti, that any guest at his inn could obtain there, not only the best in Italy, but that no matter from what remote portion of the globe the traveller hailed the inn kitchen could also supply him with his favourite, native dish. Lanzonetti had been able to do this by gradually assembling a bevy of remarkable cooks from sundry regions and by collecting from every traveller--who either condescended to take an interest in his "universal menu" or to order a strange dish--a recipe, which the innkeeper immediately proceeded to enter in a carefully cherished book, to experiment with and to improve upon.

A cellar of inspiring proportions and catholic selection contained everything from the rice wine of China to Canary vintages. It was especially rich in importations from England and Germany of brewed beverages of all kinds. In the next cave was a museum of choice sausages. Lanzonetti's main success as a host, however, had been due to two cardinal principles of cookery; he never permitted a woman to enter his kitchens, and he had a whole battalion of saucepans always bubbling over innumerable small fires.

In the late 1770's the "Blue Frog" had been at the height of its prosperity and glory. The art of eating and drinking had during that decade attained among the privileged classes in Europe a high crest of perfection from which it afterward for many confused decades declined. The traveller of the day was usually a landed, frequently a titled gentleman, with leisure and elegant discretion; possessed of taste as well as appetite. The nice craft of purveying to him might be rewarded by reputation as well as gold. Lanzonetti had won both. His recipes were much sought after and went out to all the world like tracts of a society for the propagation of the gastronomic gospel in foreign parts. As far away as "Strawberry Hill" Horace Walpole had learned how to coddle eggs in mulled wine.

Don Luis had stopped at Lanzonetti's at that, to him, regrettable period of his life when he had been making the arrangements for his marriage. On account of his present abstentious diet he remembered the place with more than the usual pleasure of an old epicure. It was only natural upon his return to Livorno even after a quarter of a century that he should again put up there. But alack and alas--the good "Blue Frog" had meanwhile suffered a sorrowful transformation.

To be sure, the main building of the inn still looked across the piazza at the establishment of Herr Nolte directly opposite, but it was no longer known as the "Blue Frog." It existed, or rather it languished, under the now fatal name of the Osteria del Inglese. A recent hasty attempt had obviously been made to obliterate the unlucky designation by painting out the last word of it with the device "Français." But the older letters were again showing through, and the now nearly ruined proprietor, a tall, thin Tuscan by the name of Fratelli Rabazzonie, could not even afford a little new gold-leaf to repair what amounted to a serious political error on the part of his sign. Indeed, in his own spare body the proprietor seemed to personify the lean and sickly times he had fallen upon.

Upon the night of his arrival Don Luis had looked Rabazzonie over doubtfully. He did not believe in thin innkeepers, and there was dirt on the man's apron. Nevertheless, since it was late he risked taking the front chamber on the second floor overlooking the piazza. He was quite tired, and although the room smelled mouldy and the bed was a distinct disappointment, he slept tolerably well. The marquis had left the coach at the Casa da Bonnyfeather, after having refused to stay there despite the preparations and the rather pointed welcome of Faith. For it had suddenly occurred to Don Luis as he descended from the coach in the courtyard that the matter of terminating the old lease had not yet been negotiated and he might be laying himself open to a technical charge of trespass by staying in the house. The horses, however, he had risked leaving in the deserted stables under the care of the Kitten. He brought Sancho along to the inn.

Don Luis was awakened shortly after dawn the next morning by the arrival of luggage under the charge of some noisy porters at Herr Nolte's just across the square. Breakfast was poor, luncheon terrible, and the unexpected encounter with Anthony that afternoon unnerving. On the evening of his second night in Livorno Don Luis sat in his dingy chamber at the Osteria del Inglese confronted with what for a man in his condition was a "ferocious" supper. The blue veins on his forehead stood out even farther than usual as he rang violently and demanded the proprietor.

"Landlord," said he, when that individual had entered and sat down without permission,--"another evidence of degenerate times," thought Don Luis,--"landlord, this food and this room," he swept his arm around overturning a decanter, "might be considered hospitality by shipwrecked sailors with desperate appetites and sea-sore bodies, but by no one else. Do you call this supper? The oil is rancid, the wine sour"--he went on for two minutes--"the servants decrepit and the beds Procrustean."

"No one has ever complained of being bitten by anything but fleas before," said the surprised host. "I tell you, citizen . . ."

"Citizen?" roared Don Luis. "Citizen of what? Don't you know they don't talk that way any more--not even at Paris?" (Twenty years ago, he reflected, he would have caned the man for a similar ignorant impertinence.) "But what the devil has happened to this inn? One used to be received here as a Christian gentleman instead of like a relapsed heretic at a country branch of the Holy Office. The bed! Do you expect to charge patrons for the privilege of being put to the question? Holy Zacharias--and Bellerophon . . ."

In the course of a quarter of an hour the landlord, who had at first sought to defend himself, was reduced to a few stealthy tears for his own misery and a lurid description of his misfortunes in order to stem the tide of steady abuse that flowed into his ears as if they had been manholes in a flooded street.

The man's misfortunes it so happened interested Don Luis, who now felt a little relieved at having successfully vented his spleen upon him. And he also saw in his story a certain confirmation of his own opinions as to the recent decline of civilization. Any inn, he felt, was a social barometer; this one in particular had been so for all Europe. And its glass was now low, ergo. Condescending to indulge himself in a bottle of fine, old Greek wine fetched by the landlord's suggestion from the last rack in the cellar, he finally put the tips of his stubby fingers together, leaned back, and listened to his host's recital with a philosophical air of "God help us all."

"It is the times, signore," said the man, coughing a little and spitting into his handkerchief,--"the terrible times that are responsible for your pitiable supper in what was once the abode of cooking. You remember it otherwise, you say. But consider, how can I help it? My wife, when I married her, was a woman well-off. It was her all that went to purchase this inn for me from the retiring owner, Lanzonetti. He agreed to help me supervise the business for a year. But he was a smooth one, that fellow, and he hated to see another going about in his place. He died only three months after I came--and would you believe it, sir,--but the jealous dog took his famous book of recipes into the grave with him. He had it buried in his coffin, clasped to his breast. It is with him now--in hell. My trade fell off--naturally! Distinguished Englishmen, for example, who ordered turtle soup and received frogs' legs instead, became violent. With my wife always in the kitchen, the old cooks soon left. To retrench my losses I gradually closed up one after the other the various extra pavilions along the square. The inn--he shrinks inward towards his great warm heart in the kitchen, year by year. In seventeen-ninety nothing but the main house is left. The frog has lost his legs! I change his name and hire me all new servants who remember not the times before. Seventeen-ninety-four--most of the men go with the army. No one remains to serve here but old women. The English have stopped coming. Seventeen-ninety-six--the great General Bonaparte, he arrives. Ah!-- all business ceases then. I am forced by decree to keep open. To live I must sell the fine, old wines to soldiers. I change the name again. But no good. All Frenchmen are in the army. No one travels. My wife goes off with an Austrian hussar to Vienna. Only two crones are left who stay on for bed and board. Eighteen-hundred-one--the very distinguished gentleman from Spain arrives and complains of his 'despicable' supper." He shrugged his cadaverous shoulders hollowly--"What would you, signore? What can I do?"

"There will be a peace shortly, I think," said Don Luis, sympathetic in spite of himself. "Your trade may pick up again."

"It will be too late," cried the innkeeper, letting his long hands fall loosely on his sharp knees. "I have the terrible sickness of the lungs. Long before peace comes I shall be hunting that swindler Lanzonetti with his book of recipes through hell."

"You will find him frying in his own grease in the most comfortable spot there," said Don Luis. "But tut-tut, man, it's not so bad as you think. (It's a great deal worse.) Cheer up. At least you are rid of your wife."

"Si?" said the man.

"Si!" said Don Luis.

He had been moved by certain items in this tale of woe and now wished to offer a certain modicum of sympathy. He dismissed him with more kindness than the man expected after paying him on the spot and right nobly for the wine, which had been offered as a present. The innkeeper could not resist gold, however. Wishing Don Luis good night in a mournful voice, he left him alone with the cobwebbed bottle and one candle.

"At least the fellow had enough sense to understand the delicacy of a disguised gratuity," thought the marquis. "He might have been a democrat and so insulted. Well, good luck to him--in hell.

"Yes," thought Don Luis, "he and I have lived through some strange times the last two decades or so. It was a better world when we were born. Nowadays the wives of innkeepers--and others--go off--ahem--with hussars. 'Eighteen-hundred-one,' as that fellow says, June twenty-third my own dear wife's bastard so unexpectedly turns up." He clenched his hands.

"'Anthony,' eh,--takes after his sainted mother. Has his father's reach. Leave him to Providence? Shall I? I suppose the sins of the fathers may still . . . I might try to help that idea along a little, circumspectly, of course. No more errors, no more going too much out of my way. Let opportunity serve." He sipped his wine slowly.

He did not mind so much finding that Anthony had inherited his grandfather's estate. He regarded that as merely a gratuitous insult, a quizzical prank of fate--a--a long deferred slap on the jowl after he had carefully and patiently wiped away the spittle of outrage from a too-trustful eye. Probably he might expect that in the nature of things. No, it was meeting again with the young gentleman at all that had upset him. He had done his best to prevent that. It had, in spite of him--occurred. And how much did the "young gentleman" know? Everything?

He gulped another glass of wine and wiped his lips, which were still red and a little too full like over-ripe cherries with a worm at the heart.

A number of frantic moths were circling rapidly about the big glass candle-shade on the table before him. To Don Luis they seemed to be making visible rings in the air as his eyes grew heavier and a little bleary. Behind them his mind was strangely active. Indignation and old Greek wine are peculiar stimulants. When he felt as he did tonight he often found relief in venting his thoughts on the morocco notebook. It was better than sheep over a stile at any rate.

Futile anger is the base counterfeiter of epigrams, he wrote. His hand trembled a little--and then: Three things never elicit any enthusiasm: a pregnant bride, a reasonable religion, soup without seasoning. "Perhaps I am drawing too much on my own past experience," he thought, "but the soup tonight was saltless. Why must everything be personal?" He dipped his pen again.

Men say they can discuss their affairs dispassionately in the terms of general propositions. But let a man make a remark about the enormous amount of quackery in medicine, for instance, and a woman will immediately wonder how much he owes his physician. In nine cases out of ten the woman is right. It is the tenth man, a genuine philosopher, however, whom she will set down as a fool. She understands the others. Why is it, then, that women seldom or never write poetry, which is the art of talking about one thing in the terms of another? There is a reason: In poetry women are talked about in the terms of something else. That appears to them to be a waste of time.

"Prolix," thought Don Luis. "I am tired, and ordinary in thought tonight. I have had better nights. Let me see." He fluttered the pages of the book backward scanning it listlessly. . .

"Education of the Young"

Boys should be kept in a monastery until they are old enough to be condemned to the galleys for life. Girls . . . "damn them!" He flipped a solid inch of pages and nearly broke the back of the book. The writing he was looking at now was firmer than usual. His hand had not trembled when he wrote this: Once tangle the threads of two lives firmly together, and no matter how apparently remote and disparate their future courses may become, it is quite likely that it will require the good offices of the blind lady with the shears to cut the final tangle.

Certainly the meeting this afternoon tended to confirm him there, he thought.

He dropped his quill and lay back pondering. He was in a state where, with his body too sleepy to write, his mind nevertheless galloped on; speculating; throwing off grand, shadowy visions; coining figures of speech and tags of phrases; watching itself and talking to itself about what was always going on in the old house just under the thatch.

"--which is now getting rather thin in spots under your wig," said a disgruntled voice with a note of suppressed terror in it.

"What is the use of thinking about that?" demanded another.

"In fact what is the use of thinking at all?" a whole crowd seemed to shout. A single-toned voice went on like the blood in the listener's ears:

"What you think is a candle there with the moths going around it--and around and around it--is really the planet Saturn."

"Yes, and wouldn't it just be a good idea to blow out Saturn and go to bed--be in a dark room, tired eyes."

"A dark room? Yes! With the Dutch countess whom you met travelling once, at Besançon--the dark room there, ah--here it would smooth out that inner palsy that you are still shaking with after being so angry this afternoon."

"He was there this afternoon."

"Well, we have not decided what to do about him yet. What--to do?"

"Let by--the countess was five years ago. And how are you now?"

"Can I still?"

"I?"

"Not a doubt--never!"

"Let's all get in the old coach then and drive around to the Casa da--Palazzo Gobo tomorrow where she is. Let's try."

"It's rather shameful at your age, though."

"Never think of it. No one need know. Who cares now if . . ."

"Get the lease arranged. Never mind him. Stay at your own house. She is still there. Do you remember you asked her when you were first seeing Maria what she was doing there--and she smiled just the same way? Why not? It will not be long now until no more beds--no beds at all--but one."

"Stop that. Think--what?"

"Why, how uncomfortable the bed here is. How the old house has tumbled down."

"Yes, it is like Europe. All the nice arts of living are being forgotten--and in a mad effort to make everybody comfortable and happy."

"But why not spread things out?"

"There never was enough to go round for everybody to have enough. No, it will all end in everybody, even those that have something now, having nothing--or getting things they don't want. What is life without land, rank, honour? Bonaparte, I tell you, has the right recipe for such philosophy--you stop it with soldiers. How to make them obey?--he knows."

"Aye, can't you see the inn 'shrinking,' as that fellow said? He didn't know why it was happening to him. Only a phrase, a name, 'Bad times, Bonaparte.' But it was that explosion in Paris that started to do away with the 'Blue Frog'--and other things--things I regret. Oh, what an ass was the sixteenth Louis! To let them come to Versailles. Even that day at the Tuileries the Swiss could still have stopped it. It was inevitable? Versailles had changed them into ceremonial kings. They couldn't act--only act. Versailles was a crest. Versailles was getting like something Hindu, Eastern, something completely conventional in art and life. It was a way, and something that could go on that way by itself. The West will never see anything like it again. Already they are forgetting what it was in itself. Bonaparte should have been--be king."

"I dedicate myself to making him so!"

"Don't be pompous."

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulders . . ."

"Rejoice, rejoice, the prince of war is born, eh?"

"Now you are being silly and impious."

"Not to myself. I know what I mean."

"Not to myself--umph!"

"None of this is meant for the book. No, no, don't rouse me--the me that writes. I know what I think. I pin my old hopes on this new man from the past. I talked with him in Paris. I remember. He is inevitable."

"It is all inevitable. The past is always inevitable. How could it have happened any other way than it did?"

"Is the future inevitable? Can't it happen any way?"

"No, it only seems to be open for anything. In reality it is already as inevitable as the past."

Here a wizened old man with very white hair and beard, who looked a good deal as Don Luis might at ninety, suddenly thrust up a wide, flat stone under which Don Luis knew he was always hiding. He stuck out his tongue and shouted, "You are a fatalist!" whereupon the stone fell down on him like a lid again. Some of the white hairs of his beard were caught under it. They kept on twitching in a horrible way, especially one pointed tuft.

Don Luis stirred uneasily in his chair. He had been expecting this to happen--he remembered now. The old party under the stone usually presaged trouble. He could orate the marquis into a nightmare when once aroused. Don Luis therefore hurriedly began an argument that he pretended was meant for himself alone. But out of respect for the head, which he knew was still listening under the flat stone, he addressed himself to himself in his suavest and most diplomatic manner.

"Let us, then, take an example," said he. "Was it inevitable that King Louis should stop the Swiss firing on the people that day at the Tuileries?"

The beard caught under the stone twitched violently. (Don Luis' face twitched in the candlelight.) He gasped. The old man was looking at him again.

"How can you ever know enough to argue that?" said the greybeard, and began raising the stone farther back like a lid. Don Luis suddenly slumped lower down in his chair.

"Well," said Don Luis defiantly, "let us take something I am thoroughly familiar with, then,--something from my book, for instance."

"Our book," corrected the head, his white throat beating like that of a snake or a frog when breathing.

"Ours," repeated Don Luis hastily, afraid the lizard body of the old man would appear, too. It was nevertheless some satisfaction to be corrected by someone who looked like himself.

"Ours--I will repeat the passage for you, Once tangle the threads of two lives together, and no matter how remote and disparate the course . . .

"I remember it," hissed the head testily, and threw the stone back with a bump. Don Luis felt a distinct ground-shock as if a distant powder magazine had exploded somewhere. It annoyed him. (He had just slipped off the chair onto the floor.) He shouted indignantly.

"I was merely going to apply the passage specifically to test the truth of it. I was merely going to ask myself how it is that after I, as a reasonable man, take all precautions to prevent it, this bastard turns up again. Don't you see that the truth of the passage we have written and the idea of inevitability, past and future, are bound up in that?"

"Certainly I see that," said the old man emerging triumphantly now and snatching the argument out of Don Luis' mouth--"since you ask me--" he added softly.

Don Luis groaned. He must get this terrible old man out of his head. He tried to brush him away like a fly. It was almost impossible to move his hands. He just managed to touch his forehead--and knocked off his wig.

"Certainly I can see that," continued the old man not at all disturbed. "It is all perfectly simple. Any event will do in a case like this, either King Louis's Swiss or your own meeting with the young gentleman this afternoon. All events in history are equally mysterious. They simply happen. We, as it were, merely stumble across them. One thread crosses another. But let us take your meeting this afternoon. Why did it happen? But you admit it is futile to ask why. How then? Well, I am not so sure you could show me how it happened. Let me see:

"By following your separate threads of existence backward and forward across the pattern of events it might be barely possible to see how the encounter this afternoon happened. But only partially. You do not know all the facts. It is quite true that your lives were once looped together long before when the child was born. For a short time they even ran in parallel lines, which, I might point out to you, became visible in the ruts made by your coach between the mountain inn where Maria died and the hole in the convent wall through which you, sir, so trustfully thrust the black bag, and the stuff that was in it, back onto the loom of God.

"You thought the parallel lines might safely be allowed to diverge and become lost in the general pattern of Europe after that. You were willing to chance that they might come together at infinity. You could settle the account then, you thought. Perhaps you forgot how deep and how far the heavy wheels of your coach have cut those lines-parallel into the roads of the past.

"With a little larger view of the nature of things, at the time, Don Luis, you might even have allowed for the tendency of threads which have once been brought so closely together by the teeth of the weaver's shuttle to run across each other again at some other point in the pattern. After all it is by an infinite number of such crossings that the dots in the pattern are made, and it is an infinite number of those dots, where one individual thread crosses another in the warp and woof of events, out of which whole scenes in the tapestry of history are woven.

"That web, a tapestry, or pattern--whatever one may conveniently call it, when considering it as a cross-section of a sliding future passing across a flat page,--is constantly being created and interwoven out of the stuff of human lives. It is now, at this instant, as it always has been before, made up of an incalculable number of separate threads marking the course of lives. These have in themselves each a certain amount of free will that resides in the essential tensile strength and the calibre to which they have originally been spun; in the colours of character in which they are dyed. And between the compulsion of the weaving shuttles and the free will of the threads there is always a certain amount of interplay in order that this piece of weaving with living matter upon the loom of history may proceed. For as every weaver knows, there must always be due allowance for unexpected give and take. It is only where the threads cross one another that they are firmly interlocked and loop-stitched together; tied up in a knot.

"But that living web must also proceed out of the past by some living compulsion dictated by a tendency in the general scheme of things akin to the particular compulsion in an egg or seed to change only along certain peculiar lines into what is always becoming something else, but always within certain bounds; never the maple into the oak tree. Thus as in the particular thing, so in the great general Thing of history--the huge exuding, creeping, weaving proceeding eternally and mysteriously goes on.

"This living web, which slides mysteriously out of the past from beyond the vaguest, fabled memory of things remembered, extends into the future complexly, strangely; utterly transcending the mightiest powers of even immediate anticipation. It grows, that is; it changes. And on either side invisible binding filaments of it extend beyond our human senses like the cords on the side of a piece of weaver's work that are afterwards cut off. These are what hold it on the frame of things and they are not even known to us. So now you have the loom backward and forward and from side to side.

"From above and underneath it is forever being worked upon by the moving shuttles that go and come and never pause, and by the wheels of direction that rack and shove the fabric on, always in one irrevocable direction. And now, you see, you have the loom from all sides.

"Thus any particular crossing of the threads, or knot in the fabric, any event, is merely a point at the centre of a sphere which has been tied or has come to pass because of forces working upon it from all sides at once. How then say that one thing is a cause and another an effect, when each is alternatively the other according to how we call it? Above all, on a flat page, how show conclusively how one knot in two threads got tied, much less project a general pattern?

"How, for instance, convince yourself, my dear sir, because you once carried a child in a coach from the hole in his mother's side to a hole in a convent wall that you must inevitably meet that child again when he has grown to be a man--and on a particular day in a certain banker's office in Leghorn, Italy? Or, to put it the other way, how could you be sure when you abandoned him to God that you would or would not meet him again? In fact, how can you be sure you will not keep on meeting him again, or never see him at all? Is it fate, or is it chance, is it cause and effect? Well, that depends finally upon the nature of the Eternal Weaver and his method of procedure. By the way, what do you think of Him, Don Luis? For it is upon your conception of his nature that you will act and conceive all other men to be acting. Not upon what he is, but upon what you conceive him to be. That is where your interplay as a thread in the fabric comes in, isn't that true? Well, what do you think of Him after all?"

To this demand of the voice there was in the soul of Don Luis no answer at all, only the sound of chanting in a cathedral.

The little man upon his stone now became visible again. He laughed and jumped up and down upon it till Don Luis struggled in his sleep. "So, you prefer to stick to your own particular little question and let the major premises alone. That makes action easy, of course. Even if it ends in disaster. Those who trouble the gods have little time for men. Now there is something for Your Excellency's morocco book." The shrill laughter of the little man with the beard caused the man slumped down beside his chair to groan in his sleep.

"Go back to hell," he said aloud. The chill echoes of his mumble boomed through the mouldy chamber of the old inn.

The little man suddenly flipped the stone upside down and disappeared into the earth. On what had been the bottom of the stone Don Luis now began to see a dull phosphorescent glow that slowly took on, while he watched it as if hypnotized, the changing, shifting character of the web he had been dreaming of.

On the table the candle which was now nearly burnt out began to jump and flicker. The wick fell flat and burst momentarily into a broader flame. The moths began circling more rapidly about it.

On the now glowing map before him Don Luis began to follow among a thousand other visions the future track of the coach. It led straight toward an immense range of mountains whose snowy pinnacles glittered distantly in an unearthly moonlight. The coach drove on across the plain. He and someone else were in it. Suddenly the face of the housekeeper at the Casa da Bonnyfeather looked out of it much painted and bedizened and with a supercilious, satisfied expression of vulgar pride that caused him to laugh. A look at the range of saw-toothed mountains ahead served to silence him.

His dream now gathered up into an overpowering sensation of speed. There was a chasm just ahead. The speed became unbearable. Don Luis felt himself in the coach, falling. He braced himself for the crash. It came as a nervous shock that half opened his eyes. The coach had hurtled off into space and burst against the opposite wall of the gorge amid a shower of sparks and little lights that twinkled out from and all over the map on the stone before him. This had now suddenly grown gigantic as if he were looking at a whole hemisphere at once. Its shifting outlines were so huge and so writhing with life as to be terrifying beyond thought. On it the gigantic mountains into which the coach had recently fled were now only tiny, glittering lines like a clump of glow-worms seen by their own light. All about them rolled and tossed the twinkling camp fires of armies. The red glare of burning cities coloured the night. Here and there puffs of white powder smoke shot through with vivid red lightnings broke out. Into the midst of these Don Luis was suddenly plunged. The smoke reek was intolerable. Men were killing each other in the darkness on all sides. A tremendous salvo of artillery burst out just above him. He tried to scream but could not.

Clear over the face of the map, usurping it and taking its place, sprang out the Roman features of the little Corsican general to whom he had been talking in Paris across the desk only a short time before. It was like looking at a Caesar's head on an Augustan cameo ten miles high. The laurel wreath on the brows glowed intolerably as with the concentrated blue light of millions of diamonds. The mouth opened to speak. Another terrific crash of artillery which lit the head with lambent flames woke Don Luis from his sleep.

He had slumped down onto the floor and was leaning in an agonizing position against the slipping chair behind him. A thunder-storm accompanied by violent bursts of wind and sheet lightning was passing over Livorno. The rain spattered through the shutters. On the table the draught had thrown the wick onto the candle drippings. Inside the big glass shade the table-cloth had taken fire and was smoking and rapidly running holes with sparks.

Don Luis dashed the lees of the wine over it. Muttering a few sleep-drugged imprecations upon everything in general, he staggered stiffly to his bed, stepping on his wig as he did so.

He was awakened next morning by the glare from the piazza beyond striking through a broken lattice of the decrepit shutters directly into his eyes. It was still quite early.

He rose, dashed a little cold water on his face, and going to the window with the towel still in hand threw the offending shutter open and looked out.

As fair and clear a June day as ever dawned on Italy after a thunderstorm filled the square at Livorno with sparkling light. The sky overhead was a faultless blue bowl. Against the wall of Herr Nolte's establishment opposite, someone in dressing gown and slippers was seated leaning over a cane in the sunlight and drinking in the first warmth of the morning with all the hunched-placidity of a crouching and withered old man. Don Luis looked at him while wisps of the dream of the night before gradually cleared from his head. To see someone so much older than he freezing in the sunlight while he still felt as strong and vigorous as he did that morning, unconsciously filled him with sudden joy.

"It is going to be a good day," he said and flipped the towel. "There is one old fellow over there whose thread in the general pattern has nearly ravelled out. What an idea the web was. I wish I could catch it up in a sentence or two for the book. Por Dios! what tricks the brain plays on us when it is going to sleep. Does it?--or do you see your ideas then? I shall have to tell Bonaparte about Europe and his head." He laughed, and then turned a little pale. "Madre! I must be getting senile myself. I shall soon be relating my dreams. Can't you see them muttering, 'Here he comes!' Old? Not yet, by Lazarus! There are a good many surprises left in this old carcass."

He began to rub his arm vigorously with the towel. A number of gamins gathered below looked up and pointed in his direction. In the sardonic features of the figure moving in the square of the window above, one of them had suddenly seen a likeness to Punchinello. A burst of laughter followed to which Don Luis paid no attention.

Carts laden with vegetables and flowers, with their wheels muddy from country roads and the storm of the night before, began to call upon their customers and to cross and recross the piazza, leaving a pattern of wheel marks on the washed flagstones of the square. The interlaced designs rapidly grew more intricate. A flock of milch goats making its morning round left here and there the seal of a small cloven hoof.

A convoy of convalescent soldiers going home rolled rapidly across the square, the wounded riding on caissons, wagons, and nondescript vehicles requisitioned from the countryside. Some sat silent, holding bandaged arms clasped to them painfully, others smoked. A small group on one wagon broke into a snatch of song. A peculiarly brazen trumpet rang out the notes of "Column right." Don Luis started. He had been looking at the growing pattern on the flagstones fixedly for some minutes now. It was hopelessly intricate; beginning to fade in the sun. He turned, rang for Sancho, and gave him orders to prepare his breakfast himself. "The food here," said he, "gives me the vapours. Or perhaps, it was that Greek wine last night."

"Your Excellency should drink only what we have brought along," said Sancho picking up the wig and removing the burnt table-cloth without comment. He tied a large napkin around Don Luis as if he had been a child. "Foreign wines give you indigestion now. You must remember, sir."

Don Luis leaned back and looked up at his whiskered servant, laughing a little.

"The bottle last night was in memory of my honeymoon here--some time ago. You remember, Sancho?"

"No, señor," replied the man looking at him solemnly.

"Thou art a comfortable servant, Sancho," said Don Luis.

"What would you think if I asked someone to travel with me in the coach back to Madrid, Sancho?"

"A duenna for your nieces? One is greatly needed. Certainly--an excellent idea."

Only Don Luis smiled now. "Have the coach around at nine this morning. I have some legal business to transact--about that lease."

"Sí," said Sancho and blew out a small spirit-lamp under the breakfast bowl.

"And tell that señorita at the casa to prepare for me after all. I can't stand it here any longer. The beds at the casa are at least comfortable."

"Sí," whispered Sancho.

"Now then--" said Don Luis.

Sancho raised the bowl of chocolate to his master's lips and held it there. His master's gnarled hands, like the paws of a monumental lion, lay heavily on the table as he leaned forward. The chocolate was exactly the right temperature.

Don Luis sighed.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

THE COACH AND THE BERLIN

In the cobbled area behind what had once been the ample stables of the "Blue Frog," Anthony and Vincent suddenly emerged from the door of the old coach-house, tugging together at the long shaft of a four-wheeled carriage.

The vehicle followed reluctantly out of the gloomy arch as though indignant at being forced into the light of day again.

"Come forth, Lazarus," shouted Vincent, heaving mightily.

Answering, ghostly squeaks from the rusty axles caused Anthony to explode. Just then the front wheels came upon the incline, and to a sound like that of a cat running across an organ keyboard an old berlin galloped its two frantic steeds in shirt-sleeves into the alley below. They swung the pole just in time to avoid being crashed into the wall opposite. The old carriage, its windows hung with cobwebs, came to a halt with a despairing screech.

Even the dying Rabazzonie--who for once had made a fortunate deal and sold something for more than it was worth--laughed until he coughed violently. He looked at the scarlet spray on his handkerchief--and put the coach-house keys back in his pocket, still surprised at finding them jingling on something else metallic there.

Having brushed off the straw and dust amid a good deal of back-slapping and mutual banter, the new owners of the old berlin resumed coats and began to examine their purchase with rueful faces and an occasional chuckle.

"I warned you not to buy it in the dark," said Vincent.

"You warned me!" replied Anthony hotly. "Why, you were so anxious to get it yourself that you kept bidding against me in there. No wonder Rabazzonie wouldn't take it into the light, though."

"Toni, it was mad of you to give hard coin for it. Look at it!"

"Not so bad after all," sniffed Anthony. "Wait till I'm through with it."

Yet he was forced to grin with Vincent, too.

For the relic of antiquity which stood resurrected before them was like all dilapidated old carriages in having about it an air of insufferable complacency. "In me," it seemed to say, "you behold the ne plus ultra of something that has so unfortunately passed. In me you behold the fate of all particular styles. Some day your own wheels will stand still in time."

Meanwhile, the spiders and cockroaches abandoned it to run back into darkness, as if they too knew where the past had gone, while the carriage remained to stick out its tongue at the present.

The green paint clung to it in scales and its mouldy leather curtains hung limply like folded bats' wings. Its roof was sadly buckled and swaybacked. Two large, dusty lanterns glared like a stage-dragon's eyes, one on each side of the box whose moth-eaten hangings hung down in elf-lock fringes. Behind, a high, hooded seat cocked itself up like an extravagant pump-handle tail, while the shaft in front burrowed into the ground. Standing there in the bright sunlight of the silent alley, the old berlin resembled a cross between a griffin and a snipe that had been disturbed hibernating but had now comfortably gone to sleep again in the very act of digging up a worm.

Anthony and Vincent kept on joking about it despairingly with the full, flat irony of young men while they continued to scramble in and out of it as if trying to wake it up; slamming its chattering doors, examining its wheels and axles, poking its cushions from which the mice leaped. Then with as much gravity as if they were driving to Schönbrunn for an audience they sat down in it together and burst into peals of laughter at their own expense.

"At least the wheels are all right," insisted Anthony.

"Yes, but we just can't go to France in it," groaned Vincent. "They will arrest us for émigrés trying to return disguised as ghosts in the family coach."

"It was you who suggested it," replied Anthony, poking him in the ribs. "'Member? You said that after the battle a year ago the Austrians requisitioned everything on wheels to retreat in and the French came and took everything that was left--or something logical like that--and that you can't sit a horse--and that this old berlin was a great idea--and that you were the only one that remembered its existence--and we should certainly be captured if we went by sea--and--"

Vincent groaned again. "That's right, rub it in."

"Of course," continued Anthony, now enjoying himself greatly, "it will look strange for that prosperous young banker, Herr Nolte, to drive into Paris in what looks like Richelieu's désobligeante exhumed." He bit off the end of one of his much prized Havana cigars philosophically and gave another to Vincent as a consolation.

Vincent sat back puffing it, gloomy enough. All that he had said about getting a carriage this side of the Alps was true. And he had set his heart on making the trip to Paris with Anthony not only in comfort but in privacy and luxury. The old berlin, which he knew had been accidentally overlooked by frantic quartermasters, was a last hope. The Tuscan posts were not only impossible, they were improbable.

And a saddle did give him piles. No doubt Anthony thought that was funny. It wasn't.

Having now reached an impasse on the subject of the berlin, they continued to sit in it quietly for some minutes, smoking their cigars in the warmth of the brick alleyway which was pleasant enough at that hour in the morning. Vincent was trying to rearrange his plans for getting to Paris. He was greatly disappointed at finding the old carriage hopeless.

It was all very well, he thought, for Anthony to sit there blowing smoke out of the windows as if they were already on the way. But he, Vincent Nolte, had important international business to transact at Paris. He had an appointment to keep with M. Talleyrand, and several bankers. And, as usual, he was being left to make all the practical plans. Undoubtedly friend Anthony was still somewhat of a dreamer. From the expression on his face now you would think he was a boy again playing coach--looking out of the window that way! Well, that would never get them to Paris--never!

"As a practical man of affairs, Vincent, did you ever consider the philosophy of modern travel?" asked Anthony suddenly. Vincent stirred uneasily.

"No."

"Well, it goes something like this: None of us are content any longer to live in the present and to enjoy things just as they are. We are always thinking about the past or the future; trying to readjust what has already happened to us or making plans ahead. The present under those circumstances hardly ever exists for us. It is always, in our days at least, just a time-between. In other words, we never are, we are always just about to be.

"Travel is the one exception to this perpetual uneasiness of always becoming. It is only when we are travelling that we exist as we were meant to exist; in the present. Everything then becomes quite vivid and real. We have left the past behind us and the future must wait. There is nothing to be done about it. So just for a little, in transit, we give up our dear rôle of being our own tin fates and live. Suddenly it is now--for a while. And we are happy; surprised how pleasant it is to live, to be ourselves. I have noticed that a great many people can find each other and be friends when they are travelling, but let them once arrive and they lose themselves and each other again. They wonder, 'How could I have ever found that fellow interesting on the ship or in the coach?'

"Do you know, when I first set out to see the world I thought it existed only in the places I was going to. I was in danger of becoming a series of deferred destinations. Now I know that travel, that 'in-between' is the time when one lives. I am going to try to turn all destinations into part of one journey, the long journey from the beginning to the end, you know."

"What a philosopher you are getting to be, Toni," laughed Vincent. "And just like all the rest of them. Here you are philosophizing about travel, and all that, while sitting still in a funny, old-fashioned, useless coach that won't go. No, I haven't thought about 'travel.' But I notice that I shall have to make the practical plans for this journey. It's lucky you know one or two men of affairs, my boy. But I have a little business to transact at the bank this morning." He started to go.

"Now, my son," said Anthony making him sit down, and returning his paternal manner with interest. "You're quite mistaken. The trouble is you are just like all the rest of the bankers, you can't even apply philosophy at second-hand."

"Fo!" said Vincent.

"No? Well, I'm going to prove it to you! 'As a matter of fact'--as you always say in your letters--I have a little surprise in store for you this morning. I am going to show you what money can do. You know you laughed at my making a strict, eight o'clock appointment with Rabazzonie, who, you say, has more time than anybody in Livorno. He hasn't; he has very little time left in Livorno. Didn't you see the red spots on his handkerchief? I took no chances and bought the berlin last night--cheap. I just let you bid it up this morning in your excitement and gave him the difference. After all, what are a few measly scudi more or less to a rising young banker? Now wait a minute. That isn't all. The play really begins at nine o'clock. I have arranged for a little meeting here, a kind of post-mortem over our deceased friend the berlin. They ought to be here soon."

"Who are they?" demanded Vincent a little sulkily.

"Our old friend McNab for one. I put this little matter into his hands."

"Oh, you know how to pick your agents well enough," yawned Vincent, pretending to be greatly bored and stretching his feet out on the opposite seat resignedly. "McNab can make a Spanish dollar weigh an English pound. Toni, you're an old fox to make me give Rabazzonie twelve scudi extra. I'll charge it on your account as expenses. I certainly will."

"He needs it," replied Anthony. "Call it charity."

They both grinned now. Since Anthony had come back he and Vincent had been matching wits in several directions. This was a rather unexpected score. They were now about even. They sat waiting for McNab and his work-gang to appear, smoking contentedly.

"Almost nine, now," said Anthony, taking out Mr. Bonnyfeather's watch.

"What a turnip it is," remarked Vincent. "And all that spread of heavy seals on the chain. I don't envy you that part of your legacy. A little old-fashioned, eh?"

"Tut, tut," said Anthony.

A rat scuttled along the ancient brick pavement of the alley and stopped to look them over. It was very quiet in the old berlin with the leather flaps hanging down. Vincent jogged Anthony's elbow. Through a slit in the front they could see that someone had entered the end of the alley from the square. He was standing relieving himself against the brick wall. It was Don Luis. They laughed. He was so furtive and yet hearty about it.

"The old goat," whispered Vincent. "Look how he stamps around. It's still a positive pleasure to him. If you want to know what a man's like, watch him against a wall, when he isn't looking. There's philosophy for you."

But just then Don Luis looked up suddenly becoming the marquis again. He had smelled cigar smoke. Glancing down the alley, he saw the grotesque old berlin with wisps of smoke curling up from it. Its lamps positively stared at him. He had a good mind to rout out the boys who must be in it, apprentices smoking their masters' cigars. "And the best Habana at that. The young thieves!" He gripped his cane.

In the berlin Vincent and Anthony held their breaths.

"Pshaw!" said Don Luis, and strode out of the alley. He was busy that morning getting the antique statue from the convent safely shipped off to Spain. They heard the door of a coach slam and the heavy wheels rolling away.

"Would you have run if he'd come after us?" laughed Vincent.

"Yes," said Anthony. "Do you know, I hate that man, Vincent."

"Why?"

"It's unreasonable, I know, but I hate him just the same. He makes me feel desperately uncomfortable and insecure. I can't help it. Damn him! I want to fight him--if he only wasn't too old."

"It's just as well then you let Baldasseroni close that matter of the lease with him instead of having a personal interview--even if you didn't come off so well."

"Oh, well, let him keep the stuff in the cellar, and the old furniture! The last time I went to the Casa da Bonnyfeather, the evening I landed, I walked up to the old place and looked around. And there was that great coach of his standing like a hearse in the court. Do you know, I felt warned-off. The coach smelled of snuff, and when I got the first sniff of it next day when I met the man in your case . . ."

"Oh, you're getting to be an old woman," said Vincent. "But here comes McNab. Now what is all this about? Here's the great Signore Terrini, too."

Not only were McNab and Terrini coming down the alley but half the master workmen in Livorno as well. There was Beppo Tulsi the blacksmith, Garnarlfie the cabinet-maker, and the little upholsterer with his apprentices. Their shoes clattered like a squad of soldiers. McNab spoke up rather proudly.

"It was na sae easy as you maun think, t' gather a' the great-hearts ye now see before ye togither for a tryst the morn, Mr. Anthony. They're a' sae bashfu' an' min at trustin' a body the noo. Sin' the French came every ass maun hae his hock in guid siller laid doon in his ain fist. Min' yoursel' or they'll be playin' nieve-nieve-nich-nack wie ye.

"Mon!" he cried, giving a start as his eyes for the first time took in the complete decrepitude of the berlin. "You'll no' be bamboozled into throwin' away guid, bright siller on yon negleckit, auld-warld trumbler, will ye? I wouldna ride a leaguer-lady o'er the plainstanes in it."

"Now, now, Sandy, hold your horses," laughed Anthony, "the money's not spent yet, and--"

"Na, na, but it's aboot to be," cried McNab, "and I'll hae na more to do wi' it." He continued to stay, however, out of curiosity.

"Terrini," said Anthony leaning out of the window and tapping that now shabby artist on the shoulder, "do you remember that sketch of me you did in Mr. Udney's library years ago, when I was a boy?" Terrini nodded uncomfortably. "Well, you have been using it ever since, haven't you, for the body and hands in the portrait of every merchant's brat you have daubed in Leghorn. I know how your best talents lie. Well, take the body of the old berlin and work it up into a fine modern portrait. Something fit to carry a prince of the blood travelling incognito through foreign dominions, something that will convey--without attracting undue notice--a sense of wealth, stability, and the utmost modern good taste. That's all I want you to do with the old lady, Terrini."

Vincent lay back beating a little dust out of the seat before him with his cane, whistling softly.

"I give you carte blanche, Terrini, as to materials, wages, and your own designs."

"Mon!" exclaimed Sandy as a last protest.

"The only stipulation is that you submit all your accounts to McNab for approval after the work is done."

Sandy grinned. "There, there," he said to the artist whose face had fallen. "I won't be cutting your own profit more than half and the costs two-thirds, rely upon it."

They all had to laugh, for McNab knew them and they knew McNab. He had not lived in Leghorn for half a century without learning the fiscal peculiarities of his neighbours.

Leaving the smith looking about under the carriage and the rest gathered about Terrini in earnest consultation, Anthony, Vincent and McNab strolled over toward Vincent's case across the square.

"Well, are you satisfied, Vincent?" asked Anthony. "Sandy here will, I hope, be able to find us some horses somewhere." They were all talking in Italian now.

"Aye," said Sandy with a rueful shake of the head. "But I hate to see you leaving Livorno again, Master Anthony."

"I'd take you along if you knew where you wanted to go, Sandy."

"Thank you, sir," replied the Scot, his face becoming sad and perplexed, "but there's the rub. Since you've distributed the old master's legacy, Faith is the only one of all the old crew left at the casa that knows what she wants. It's curious, but none of us seemed to realize that the old life there was really over until Baldasseroni settled that lease for you and the old landlord took over the place again. It was too bad about the furniture. I've slept in that bed of mine for two and forty years."

"I'm sorry about that," said Anthony. "I should have thought of it."

"No, no, there's nothing to reproach yourself about, sir. The old master left us all enough to buy--mony a guid bed and a wee house to put them into." He broke into Scotch for a phrase or two, apparently a little excited about something. "But there'll be nobody to lie in them but ourselves and it will be a bit lonely--for me at least," he added significantly. "You don't mean to say that Faith and Toussaint--" said Anthony.

"Aye," said Sandy.

"Was he happy?" asked Anthony.

"Like a boy with his first girl--for a while."

Anthony suddenly felt cold.

"Mon!" cried Sandy forcibly, "yon's a terrible woman. It must be inside the skull of her. Past middle-age and every new moon she's like a goat on the hills again. Did you ever see her eyes then, peerin' oot o' that great bonnet o' hers when she goes out? Do you know, Mr. Anthony?" They had come to a stop now. Vincent gave them a look and walked on. He was not in this, he saw.

"Yes, I know," said Anthony. McNab was still looking at him. His gaze became more searching.

"You don't mean to tell me that she bothered you when you were a boy, sir?" Anthony did not reply. He had grown silent again.

"Puir laddie!" exclaimed McNab. "Why didna ye come to me?"

"You know why," said Anthony looking at McNab. He had just guessed why himself.

"Aye," said the old man lowering his eyes. "We all paid there. And she's my ain cousin, too. But when she gave me the go-by and took up with Captain Bittern that time--"

"Oh, did she?" said Anthony. Suddenly they both laughed.

"By gad, she must have been sent into the world for educational purposes!" Anthony exclaimed. Somehow he suddenly felt relieved at what McNab had let slip. Since so many had shared in Faith she became a cosmic experience. He and McNab, and Toussaint, and Captain Bittern--and--and--were brothers. He linked his arm in McNab's and they went across the square. For the first time in their lives they were really talking to each other.

"Yes, sent into the world," replied McNab, "but not by God, by auld hornie. It's not her Scotch blood, of course."

Anthony grinned.

"Well, well," continued Sandy, "I suppose it's the mixture then. She's a kind of she mule, you know. Some mule mares are always in heat but Percheron, stallion or jackass makes no difference, they never gender. I suppose," speculated Sandy, "they want something they haven't got and keep trying for it. Yon woman's verra parseestant. It's the cradle and the grave with her." They had come to the steps of the office now and stopped.

"Will you come and have a talk; stay for dinner?" asked Anthony. "The Noltes, you know them from old times, they'd want you."

"No, no, thank you, sir, I'm moving to my new lodgings this afternoon. But I wish you'd send for Toussaint and talk with him, Mr. Anthony. You see the landlord, the marquis, is coming to stay at his own house. Toussaint and I have to get out but Faith is staying on, sir."

"What!"

"Yes, sir, there's no doubt of it. There's something up. Long before you came to the casa, in the old days, I think there was something between them. She was Maria Bonnyfeather's maid, and when the marquis came a-courting the old man's daughter, well, Faith was around, too. And--"

"I see," said Anthony. "Well, I shall send for Toussaint to come round for supper tonight. I wondered why I had been seeing so little of him. Good luck to you, Sandy, you know any time you . . . that is if you ever--"

"I know, sir, I know. And I'll keep in touch. It's the old blood that calls to us all. Good luck to you, Mr. Anthony--Adverse."

He shook hands and left Anthony standing on the steps pondering. The closed door again! He shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs.

Anna called down the stairs to him. "Come up, Toni, I want you to meet somebody." They were all talking German and laughing up there excitedly.

"So her prince from Düsseldorf had come, had he?"

Why was it as he ascended the stairs he began to think of Angela? Something in Anna's voice, he supposed.

Pearls!

Why hadn't he thought of it before? That was exactly the wedding gift for--Anna.

----------

In the courtyard of the Casa da Bonnyfeather, where the foul remains of stagnant water in the fountain were fast being licked up by the sun, leaving a film of green slime behind it, Toussaint Clairveaux was loading two small chests onto a cart. One contained his clothes and the other his library of second-hand books.

These, a few clothes, and the small legacy left him by Mr. Bonnyfeather were all that he had accumulated during about half a century of labour and existence. The legacy he had invested in a small cottage on the outskirts of Leghorn.

Faith stood on the steps watching the chests being carried out in the same mood that she had watched the departure of Mr. William McNab some hours before; that is, with considerable satisfaction. She had quietly completed her arrangements with Don Luis for remaining on as his housekeeper, and she was now seeing the last of the old régime depart with a complacency that bordered on enthusiasm.

The fact that for some time past she had allowed Toussaint, faute de mieux, an easy access to her bed made no difference to her feelings of relief at his departure. They had merely been left alone together with the establishment practically closed up, and it had amused and soothed her to allow Toussaint to think that his lifetime of devotion was being rewarded. McNab had merely laughed and let them alone.

Toussaint as usual had built up a romantic and blissful future on the basis of what he considered to be Faith's surrender to his long siege. "Her heart's citadel has at last capitulated," he assured McNab.

"Just temporarily starved-out," replied Sandy, and went his own way, waving off the demands of Toussaint for an apology as one would placate a child or a madman.

Toussaint on his part had bought the little cottage with vines about it some time before and furnished it charmingly. Since the great revolution had somehow failed, he and Faith would now live apart in a dream of happiness close to the heart of nature in the hills. He had even tried to read Emile to Faith. The embrace which followed after one paragraph he could never forget, never!

He now wiped the sweat from his forehead after lugging out the chest of books and arranged a sack on the seat.

"Tiens," said he. "All is ready, mademoiselle. Have you packed your bag? We can return for the trunks later." He stood waiting for her in a dramatic stance.

Twenty years before there had been something hawk-like and gallant about the little Frenchman, a kind of ardour which only the young intellectual fanatics who had brought on the revolution for the rights of man had possessed. It was their mode, the peculiar sign of their class and generation. It had not been funny then, because it was dangerous., genuine, and new. In his own mind Toussaint was still one of those, who, if you would only listen to him, could bring the golden-age out of a cocked hat. He extended his own, now frayed and worn-out, toward Faith, and stood waiting with his brown cloak at just the right droop from shoulder to ankle although it was a hot day. The "consummation of his love" had given him all his old confidence. The hat was even arrogant.

"Come, mademoiselle," said he.

To Faith the little man standing in the courtyard had nothing hawklike about him. He looked to her like an old bantam cock crowing defiantly upon a deserted dunghill. She smiled, and deliberately began to close the big double doors. She took out a great key from the ring on her belt.

"You may leave it in the keyhole," called Toussaint, climbing into the cart himself.

"May I!" she said and burst into a peal of mocking laughter.

He looked up startled--just in time to see the door close her in and him out, and to hear the lock shoot home.

The man on the cart burst into a roar of laughter. "Pretty neat that!" He hated the French anyway. They had taken his other horse.

Toussaint ran up the steps and beat at the big doors frantically. No answer. He poured through the keyhole the kind of eloquence that was out of date. That it came from his heart made no difference to the closed doors. Only the echoes in the courtyard replied to him. He heard them now. He heard his own voice. For the first time he recognized it for something frantic and ridiculous; something which even the stones hurled back. It struck him down. He lay on the steps and writhed while his ego withered. Then he lay still.

The man on the cart got down after a while, picked him up and dumped him like a sack into the back of the cart beside his chests. Toussaint, the works of Rousseau, and sundry out-of-date garments were drawn out into the country and deposited at the vine-covered cottage. The carter gave no change for the gold piece which the small man, with his head sunk on his breast, proffered mechanically while he sat on his library by the roadside. It was a hot day.

About twilight Toussaint got up and went into the silent, little house.

He sat there for some hours with his head in his hands. A full moon began to peer at him through the window. "Clair de lune," said he, and spat.

He went out now to one of the chests and opened it. From a compartment on one side of his books he took out one of a pair of duelling pistols. It had not been fired since his affair of honour with Signore Baldasseroni.

"I shall do even better this time," he said.

He removed the charge carefully and cocked the piece.

"Meldrun!" said Toussaint Clairveaux to the moonlight, and put a bullet through his brain.

About the same time at the Casa da Bonnyfeather Don Luis was climbing into the bed of his late father-in-law with almost pious grunts of satisfaction. Outside, the shadow of the coach stretched half-way across the court in the moonlight. The bed was undoubtedly a good one and the sheets smelt of lavender. Indeed, the marquis had every confidence in his new housekeeper.

He had even left the door of his room open.

----------

For Anthony, the news of Toussaint's mad little tragedy served to give a dark poignance to rejoicings at the Casa da Nolte over the marriage of Anna to her Düsseldorfer and to the brightly concealed agony of Frau Frank at her only daughter's departure with her husband. Anthony said nothing about it until Anna had gone. But he could less than ever abide the thought of the strange new order at the Casa da Bonnyfeather. There was now something distinctly gruesome about it. With Anna away, the life of the Franks' house seemed to have vanished, too.

The whole past at Livorno lay heavily upon him. He wished to be rid of it forever now and to settle his affairs in England. With a growing impatience he awaited the revamping of the old berlin by Signore Terrini. Some days went by. Uncle Otto continued to sit in the sun and mumble. Then late one afternoon Terrini himself drove around in the rejuvenated berlin and even McNab had to admit that the "siller" had been well spent. The carriage was a little masterpiece, much too smart, indeed, for the sturdy but rather plebeian nags harnessed to it.

The ridiculous high seat behind was gone. The vehicle had been slung evenly on new "C" springs so that it no longer seemed to be always about to bury its nose in the earth. The wheels were lacquered jet-black with bronze lions' heads worked on the hubs. The remodelled body was decorated with oval panels and the glass of the windows and the door was set in the same graceful shape. The top was no longer sway-backed but hip-roofed. And the whole carriage was enclosed with the fine, grained leather, enamelled in blue, for which Leghorn was famous. Furthermore, the top was so contrived that the rear half of it would let down as a hood, otherwise kept in place by two polished metal rods. All the seams of the leather were held together by a bronze filigree that traced itself over the entire upper half of the carriage as a metal vine. The box was covered with grey felt ending in dark blue tassels, and there were two bronze side-lamps held in the beaks of eagles, which Terrini himself had designed and cast.

The little artist, who for a long time had found no work in Leghorn except the designing and decorating of coaches, had surpassed himself, and he was obviously proud of his chef-d'œuvre.

"Of course, signore, with cost no consideration!--" He waved his hands as if the berlin could take wing and might be shooed away.

And indeed he had managed to express in its lines a lightness and grace that were astonishing. The long sweeping curve of the back with the platform for the trunks had bronze handles for the footman to cling to. It gave the final effect of a piece of flying light-artillery with metal gleaming in the sun.

"There will be nothing like it in Paris, Toni, not even the aimables who drive out in their 'Anglo-cavalcados' to Chantilly can rival you," said Vincent, who was a little envious.

"That is what I thought," replied Anthony and smiled a little. "I told Terrini here to give me the latest mode, and he has done so."

"Yes, I have done so. The Greek mode is going out. It is the Roman effect I have striven for," gratulated Terrini. "Look at the bronze chains on the poles and the harness fittings, classic. You must get better horses in France."

"We shall. But we might as well begin now on the present team here and the postilion and try to smarten them up."

Next day little Beppo, the Florentine vetturino, who had been engaged as one familiar with the passes over the Alps, was lifted out of his large jack-boots and leather coat and provided instead with a smart livery of bottle-green and a half-moon cocked hat with a tricolour cockade. He was also induced to drive from the box, although he preferred to ride one of the horses. That, however, was too old-fashioned to be tolerated.

Beppo drew double wages, for they had decided to go light and not to take on a footman until the other side of the mountains. Consequently he was effervescent with his unbelievable good luck in a slack time. In a few days he could manage his team like a charioteer even from the box. He cracked his bronze-handled whip while he rolled through the now comparatively deserted streets of the town on practice drives in the early morning. The blinds would be opened a little and excited voices behind them would comment upon the dashing appearance of the little berlin as it whisked by. Some oil meal, a clipping, a tail docking, and the removal of what had at first appearance looked like mops over the horses' feet, vastly improved them. At least they looked as if they might show a clean pair of heels.

Vincent attended to the passports. He had official friends. Otherwise there might have been difficulty for Anthony, who could not prove that he had been born. Described as a Tuscan gentleman on pleasure bent, he and Vincent set forth early one August morning in high spirits. There was an ample hamper of delicacies cooked by old Frau Frank, who kissed them both and saw them off with her blessing and tears.

As they trotted down the ancient street the last thing Anthony saw was the Swiss porter Franko bowing his affectionate thanks at the open door, and the already corpse-like face of Uncle Otto with his mouth open, asleep in the sun.

In the cool of the morning the horses whirled the little berlin on its slickly greased axles across the worn flagstones of the Mayoralty and flashed into the Strada Ferdinanda.

The team had just settled into a good spanking trot when a coach-and-four going at breakneck speed dashed out of a side alley and recklessly bore down on the berlin. The driver of the coach had evidently lost control of his horses and for some minutes the two vehicles galloped side by side, racing together down the Strada Ferdinanda toward the north gate. Poultry, and unfortunate fruit and flower vendors scattered before them like leaves in a gale.

Beppo had swerved only just in time. He was now doing all he could to rein in his own team, badly frightened, excited, and all for making a bolt of it. In this resolve they were much encouraged by the four splendid, coal-black horses racing beside them neck and neck. Ears laid back, eyes straining, and foam flying from their bits, the four galloped as one in their black collars, drawing after them easily and with a steady pull a huge, black coach piled high with luggage. It rolled along evenly upon its heavy iron tires that sang as they struck the paving like a dull bell.

There was something both ominous and thrilling in those iron tones. Anthony and Vincent had at first braced themselves for the crash that it seemed must inevitably follow. Then, as nothing happened, they sat back again tight-lipped, watching the familiar houses flash past and listening to the alarming, staccato tattoo of the galloping horses' hoofs. They were both thinking of the same thing. The arch of the Porta Pisa a short mile ahead was wide enough to admit only one vehicle at a time. Presently Anthony leaned back and laughed. Vincent looked at him as if he had just discovered he was riding with a madman.

The coach and the berlin, as though attracted by some invisible force, now gradually began to draw nearer to each other as they rushed down the middle of the broad avenue; dust rolling behind; spokes glimmering in a mist of speed.

The madness of the horses had spread its nervous contagion to both drivers, who were now exalted by excitement above all ordinary cares about life, limb, or happiness. They had now but one fatal end in view--to get to the narrow city gate first. Meanwhile, they began to abuse each other in the most provocative Spanish and Italian filth,--grandly pianissimo and fortissimo--and to pray profanely to the horses to burst their wheezing guts, but to get first to the gate. A mile of heartbreak had already made the sobbing nostrils of the poor beasts look like the bells of inflamed trumpets--then breed and skilful driving began to tell and the light berlin, which had a small lead, slowly but inevitably began to lose ground while the heavy coach gained.

A wail of all but feminine despair from Beppo, a tempest of chuckling squalls like the triumphant cries of a victorious tom cat from the box of the coach led the mere owners of the two racing carriages to suppose that they might now possibly be able to register an opinion with the drivers as to the immediate necessity of their deaths.

It was for that reason that both Anthony and Don Luis thrust their heads out of the precisely opposite windows of the coach and the berlin at the same moment--and found themselves looking searchingly into each other's faces. At the same instant the wheels of both carriages struck the smooth granite ramp that led to the narrow arch of the Porta Pisa.

"Good morning," called Anthony, leaning nearer. "We seem to be bound to meet."

Don Luis looked at Vincent, who was lying back in the berlin with a pale face; glanced at the black tunnel of the gate, where the guard was now beginning to run about frantically, and peered at Anthony again. In the three seconds which had thus passed the horses had taken as many strides nearer the inevitable crash.

The face of the young man only a few inches from the marquis was nevertheless quite calm and smiling. He seemed to be enjoying the situation. A reluctant gleam of approval widened the fixed smile on Don Luis' lips. The tires continued to sing brazenly. It was quite plain the coach could not gain enough in the short distance that remained to avoid collision.

"Well?" said Anthony.

"You pull up," shouted Don Luis. "I can't. 'My horses--" The rest was lost as the coach again forged ahead slightly.

"Beppo!" roared Anthony, "pull up."

The little Florentine, who was letting his horses rush toward the archway with the bits in their teeth, while he sat staring at death hypnotically, was suddenly awakened from his trance and stood up, jerking the heads of his team violently.

The coach passed the berlin in a flash.

It made straight for the archway. A sentry who was just running across the roadway with a chain suddenly thought better of it and darted back.

The whip licked out like a snake over the backs of the four coal-black horses. It burst like a series of pistol shots under the echoing vault of the arch through which the coach, now rocking frantically, disappeared with a sullen roar.

A tremendous running about of the military, in the same kind of a flurry that follows the disappearance of a fox from a raided hen yard, marked its transit.

The tardy fury of the guard was now vented upon the berlin which dashed up just in time to be halted by the chain. Vincent's well-meant and really profound thanks for the obstacle which had finally stopped them was taken for sarcasm. Both he and Anthony were arrested and rearrested as one sleepy officer after another was aroused to come down, rubbing his eyes and cursing at being awakened at dawn. The captain, who came down last, was chagrined at finding no one but the well-known banker Herr Nolte and his friend, both with passports in order, being detained apparently for nothing. He in turn cursed the guard and returned to bed. The runaway having been explained, drink money distributed, and the horses rested, the berlin was now permitted to proceed while a disappointed crowd dispersed.

The last familiar object which Anthony saw as they topped the first rise on the way to Pisa was the tree above the convent with the pigeons circling about it. "Contessina--where was she?" he wondered. He might stop--but it was only a passing thought. Vincent was in no mood for whims just now. Still pale, Vincent applied himself from time to time to a sumptuous array of silver flasks in a leather chest on the seat before him. His colour and eventually his high spirits began to return. Long before they reached Pisa his own remarkable calmness in the face of danger was thoroughly re-established in his own mind. As he looked at the place from a distance, not only the tower but the Baptistry seemed to be leaning.

They were approaching the walls and jumbled roofs of the town after sunset. It seemed fitting that they should drive through its grass-grown streets in the twilight. For Pisa appeared to Anthony to be a town glimmering upon the confines of sleep; the few cloaked citizens they passed, to be wandering somewhere in a detached dream.

Vincent had to be helped into the inn, Grande Albergo Accademia, a deserted, rambling place about whose doors a throng of whining beggars instantly gathered. They started up from holes and byways; they came gliding out of the dusk, exhibiting their sores, withered arms, crippled babies and filthy rags in the rays of the dim lanterns of the berlin, till their numbers became alarming. Vincent's ill-timed, drunken generosity brought more. The innkeeper at last fell on them with Beppo's whip and cleared a passage to his own door, shouting a warning to Beppo to keep a sharp eye on the luggage.

Supper, such as it was, being over, and Vincent asleep on a table, Anthony took a short turn in the starlight of the old square where the tower leaned and the dimly striped front of the Duomo and Baptistry, from which the town seemed to have receded in order to leave them alone to their own peculiar beauty as things memorable and apart from the ordinary affairs of mankind, served only in some sort to compose his mind. He felt curiously disgruntled tonight.

The first day of the trip by which he had set such great store had been disappointing. He had listened to Vincent talking, trying to reinstate himself after the fright of the runaway. He had listened mile after mile. He hoped by tomorrow that Vincent would be able to live with himself without talking about it. He decided if necessary to give him a day to sleep it off. He had something to do at Pisa that he did not wish to be disturbed in.

Perhaps, though, it was Italy that was disappointing. He had never realized how poor and how barren Italy was. Could it be he would find all of Europe like that? Africa and the West Indies had given him new eyes.

These old lands where people had lived for untold ages seemed worked-out. Or was it the climate? The soil itself seemed tired. Plants and animals were scarce. Travellers always talked about "the luxuriance of Italy." Where was it? People existed here on a round of the comparatively few things they could grow, grapes, wheat, poultry, and some reluctantly slaughtered domestic animals. They were ingenious in making many combinations of a few things. But underneath was poverty, the poverty of nature. He remembered the genuine luxuriance, the abundance of the plantations at Gallegos. And there were no taxes there either. Here the cost of being oppressed and thwarted was frightful. The supper tonight!--sour wine and macaroni--the crowd of beggars at the inn door--ancient, festering misery. He had never in the worst slave gangs seen anything like that.

These beggars could, of course, feast their eyes every day on del Sarto's St. Agnes in the Duomo--where Angela had sat on the steps starving, and had found Debrülle.

"Why had John Bonnyfeather asked to be buried in Pisa?" he wondered.

A wave of homesickness for the hill at Gallegos, with the moon on his palm trees and La Fortuna's lights twinkling in the river below, swept over him. Or--he would like to be going home to a good rum drink in Cibo's patio at Regia. And tobacco--Europe knew nothing about tobacco. What was snuff? A mere whiff. He lit one of his precious, black cigars and felt better. Havana--there was a town that knew what plenty meant! He sauntered back to the inn followed by a shadow that near the window, seeing he was a stranger, began to whine and hold out a hand. He turned about to curse it, man or woman. And then remembering Brother François, gave the hand a piastre he found in his pockets from old times.

Very tired, he slept soundly and cleanly on the rear seat of the berlin and was awakened by the loud crowing of the poultry in the stable yard. Vincent was not up yet. Except for a poisonous old woman who brewed him some coffee, there was no one about. He went into the square and looked about again. Surely this was another place, not the town of the night before.

On that magnificent early August morning Pisa was magical. Light with a red-purple tinge streamed from its stones. He thought he had never seen anything so fantastically beautiful as the Duomo and Baptistry alone there across the square. And the reason for the leaning tower was now self-evident. It gave the last, perfect, wizard touch. No, there was nothing like this anywhere. He took a deep breath of the cool morning air and plunged his head in the fountain where two young girls, one with her jar on her head, stood watching him with smouldering brown eyes. They went away laughing.

"Si può far 'un píccolo gíro della città, signore," said a mild-voiced old man, peering up at him from under the wreck of an incredible felt hat. Anthony finished drying his face.

"No," he said, and then relented. There was something curiously prepossessing about the figure of the old man before him, who was dressed exclusively in patches and had only one stocking.

"The other went yesterday," explained the old gentleman, for such he was by his accent. "It was silk, and you know, signore, even the aged must eat occasionally. True, I have not yet been able to stain my other leg. But I scarcely hoped to find custom this morning. Heaven has sent you. Accept me as I am. For a soldo I will--"

"Done," cried Anthony. "Do you know the Campo Santo?"

The old man raised his head and smiled. "Si," he whispered. "It is where the rich are sometimes buried even yet."

They slowly walked across the square talking; old harlequin in patches proving by every careful intonation and nice usage--as genteel poverty having worn out its good clothes must do--that he was the product of better days. His face looked drawn and transparent and he tottered a little. They sat down on the cathedral steps for a moment.

"Perhaps you will breakfast with me?" said Anthony after an erudite little talk about the beauties of the Duomo died away faintly.

The old man could not deny his Adam's-apple a twinge of anticipation.

"A glass of wine now?"

"Thank you, signore, I shall accept your first invitation with pleasure, but only after we return from the Campo Santo. To tell the truth, I have not eaten--at least not this morning," he added hastily. "Let us go while it is still cool."

Anthony accepted this compromise with the old man's pride. He rose and walked less hastily.

"Perhaps," said he after a little, "a host might be permitted to offer his guest an arm."

It was gratefully accepted. And with age leaning thus on youth they entered the frescoed cloisters of the Campo Santo with its low green mounds, where long shadows and the bright glints of morning mingled together along the grass and under the peaceful arcades like memories of grief and joy resolved.

And Anthony knew at once why John Bonnyfeather had asked to be buried at Pisa. Here the past could never be disturbed. Here he was deeply lapped in it forever. He had retired into the still green walls.

"Don't bury me at Leghorn near to that fellow Smollett," he had once said, as usual veiling his gentle humour in a half-serious joke. "I do not like his vibrant, Protestant twang. It would disturb me. Give me consecrated and silent earth." Anthony remembered now.

He stopped the old man from telling him how the earth in the place had been brought from Mount Calvary.

"Yes, I know," he said. "I am looking for a grave."

"If it is a new one I shall know where it is," said his companion. "There are not many who can afford to be buried here now," he added with a strange touch of pride.

"About a year ago," explained Anthony.

"Ah, the old merchant from Leghorn! Yes, he was the last. A very quiet funeral. It is over here, signore, close by the way out."

The grass had already covered the mound that they now stood looking down upon. In the crumbling remains of a low brick wall that crossed the place, probably the ancient foundations of some forgotten tomb, was set a new white stone. The inscription was in Latin, not of the best:

Near Here Rests in Peace

A Caledonian of Noble Blood,

The Last of his Name,

A Faithful and Loyal Subject

James III

King of England, Ireland, Scotland

and France

------- : -------

He lost his titles but conserved his honour.

God prospered him and he remembered

In turn the poor and the fatherless.

Pray for him

In trying to carry out the last request on the stone, Anthony found himself at last addressing his verbal thoughts to John Bonnyfeather. He could not think of him as dead. He seemed merely to have withdrawn himself into this quiet place as if he had gone down the hall at home and shut the doors of his room behind him. In the back of Anthony's mind arose a half-conscious impulse to knock at the stone and enter. He would find Mr. Bonnyfeather seated at his desk writing with a plume pen, or with his slippers on reading a book. Something in Latin. It would be cool and quiet there. And he would ask a question.

What was the strange tie that bound him to John Bonnyfeather? Was it blood?--"noble blood?" "The last of his name"--said the stone. Perhaps his race still went on. That smiling girl's face in the miniature--who was she? Something deeper than he could understand, something essentially mysterious but real linked him with this dust asleep in the Campo Santo at Pisa. He was sure of it now. What was it that he had promised never to try to know? Faith knew. That sardonic old marquis knew--something. He had been John Bonnyfeather's son-in-law. Great God! Could that man be his father . . . ? No, no, impossible! He knew his own body well enough to know he was not of that flesh. "To . . . the fatherless," said the speaking stone. Blessed comfort in that line of script.

It was curious, it was not grief he was feeling as he stood thus whirling a thousand things from the past through his mind, it was transcendental respect, an abysmal regret that he would never be able to make the old man know that his boy had grown up and come back again wise and feeling enough to understand and to be grateful. That was what he would have liked to try to whisper to him down through the short grass on his new grave; and to say: "Yes, I know now that honour is the best of all things and the hardest to keep, and that you were the most honourable of men. No dross could buy your sacred dreams and no vicissitudes purloin your self-respect,--and so I more than love you for it."

Then came grief. For he suddenly saw that such complete things can be said only to the dead when the caricature of the body has gone, leaving the portrait of the spirit clear and luminous; when we cannot even catch at their hands again to ask to be forgiven or to cry out that in all charity now--with the sorrow of life upon us and with the love of Christ, and of man, and of woman, and little children in our hearts--we too understand, forever, and too late.

A sigh from the old guide, whom he had utterly forgotten, roused Anthony. With a look of complete weariness and exhaustion the old gentleman had just sat down on one of the grass mounds to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead.

"I am sure," said he after a little, fanning himself weakly with his faded hat while looking up and smiling, "that whoever is beneath this mound will not grudge me just a moment's rest out of his easeful eternity. I am a little tired this morning." His mouth trembled faintly as he put on his hat again.

Anthony's heart troubled him that he had kept so pleasant an old man standing so long in the sun. There was a touch of half-ghastly, old-world grace about him and his patches. It was, he thought, a little like talking to the ghost of John Bonnyfeather disguised as a respectable Lazarus. A little like him--out of the corner of one's eye--a sort of ragged-glimmering of lost, coffined gallantries.

"Come," said Anthony, "did you think I had forgotten my breakfast invitation?"

"By no means," replied the old gentleman, again frankly grateful for the support of a young arm. "But you must not suppose I was thinking only of that, signore. I was truly,"--and he looked up ingenuously--"I was truly thinking of you. I, you see, have my own dead here in the Campo Santo. And I so much desire to speak of them this morning," he hurried on, "that I thought, as I looked at you--I thought you would understand how the hunger of the heart is sometimes greater than that of the belly, and that you would let me tell you their names just so they might be on the lips of the living again, in the morning light. Will you?"

"Why, yes,--of course," said Anthony.

"Well, then," said the old man, "lean down . . ." He whispered two names.

"My little girls, you know." He straightened up proudly as if the syllables had renewed his strength. "Here they are--only a few steps--this way. And we can go out that gate there. Here they are!"

It was quite evident that the old man was looking beyond the carpet of tenderly cared-for flowers that covered two small mounds side by side--that--to judge by the light in his face--he saw angels sitting in the tomb. His parchment-like skin shone with a reflected glow.

They stood there quietly for a minute or two.

"Thank you," said the old gentleman, as they went on out the gate and across the square. "To me you are no longer a stranger here," he continued still holding on to Anthony's arm. "The dust of both our families mingles in Pisa, signore. For me that gives you the freedom of my city. If I still had my own house, you should be my guest. It was that one over there." He pointed to what had once been a fine dwelling, now much dilapidated. "I come of an ancient family here, the Raspanti," he muttered. "And, I also am the last of my name."

For a moment before going into the inn they stood at the door and looked at the old house, where a collapsing balcony once beautifully carved staggered across a blind, shuttered front of flaking pink plaster. "None of us have ever been beggars, signore--may I ask your name?"

"Adverse," said Anthony. "But come, Signore Raspanti, it is only fortune that makes you my guest this morning. My good fortune," and he made the old man that stiff, old-fashioned bow that Father Xavier had taught him at the convent years before. He thought he had forgotten it.

The old man removed his hat with the true, antique flourish and put it under his left arm. He placed his right hand over his heart.

"You are very hospitable, a man of honest feeling, Signore Adverso," said he, and entered the inn with a sigh.

Vincent was already up and about with his high spirits renewed. Beppo was shaving him in a chair while he urged on the old woman who sat in the corner to hasten her plucking of several newly killed fowls. Vincent gave a shout as Anthony came in, and with the soap still on his face rose to meet Signore Raspanti with a gay formality. He shouted through the lather.

"Toni, we are going to begin our journey all over again today. That damned runaway shall not count as part of it. It was just bad luck."

"No, no," said Beppo. "They meant to drive us down. They flashed out on us from the alley on purpose like--that."

"Look out," roared Vincent, "you will cut my throat. Jesus!"

"But I am right, signore," insisted Beppo.

"Perhaps he is!" mused Anthony. "Here, landlord, a glass of wine for Signore Raspanti, my guest,--and some biscuits. Until breakfast comes, you know," he said to the old man, who looked grateful.

"Nonsense," roared Vincent. "It was just the horses. Anyway we are going to start all over again from Pisa this morning on top of a worthy and a proper, soul-sustaining breakfast. Ah, we are good at breakfast, aren't we, Toni? Do you remember? Some Asti, landlord. Look alive, man, get your spit going."

He sat up now looking fresh and pink after Beppo's scraping, rubbing his fat, full chin half comically and laughing from sheer inward good-nature just as he had when a boy. His spirits were catching to all.

A slight tinge of colour like rouge on a wax rose began to show even on the yellow parchment face of old Signore Raspanti. He sopped his biscuits in his wine and let them rest against his gums while he sucked without making a noise, noblesse oblige. He instinctively disliked disturbing noises. He hoped that the ticking of Signore Adverso's watch, for instance, which he had stolen from him in the cemetery, and which was now making an alarmingly vulgar noise in his own tattered waistcoat, would not disturb any ear but his own. One must think of others. He instinctively put his hand back over his heart in that gallant, old-fashioned way.

The landlord came in from the court dragging one of his half-naked brats by the hair, who whimpered as he was set to work at the spit.

"Four chickens! One apiece," bawled Vincent. "One for the guest and Beppo!" He waved toward Signore Raspanti, who rose and bowed, with his hand still on his heart in grateful but careful acknowledgment.

The landlord smiled. He began to lay the table for four. If the gentleman wished to eat with his servant, he had drunk enough wine that morning to have his eccentricities catered to. Before Signore Raspanti, however, he left only wooden spoons, and smiled again. Three law students from the university dropped in for coffee before lecture and sat looking on.

The old woman who had just split open the fourth chicken broke into a lament. It was a laying-hen full of ripe eggs. Everybody laughed at her dismay and profane lamentations.

"Put them in the gravy, mother," said a fat priest from the Duomo who just then wandered in. He gave everybody his blessing, including the law students who laughed at him, too.

"The father watches the inn chimney, signore," said one of them to Vincent. "When he sees smoke he comes over to extend the blessing of the church to those who are able to make the spit turn." The priest grinned sheepishly but with great good-nature.

"Even the light haze of an omelette will bring me running now," he admitted. "Since the French burned my little farm I grow lean." He took in slack on the immense rope about his waist. "That will do, I think, Pietro," said he to the urchin at the spit. "Let me see." He rose and going over to the fire twisted a wing from one of the chickens without even stopping the wheel. "Yes, it is quite done. Just at the turn, signore," he cried, turning to Vincent. "I like mine not too dry. Do you?" Everybody laughed at his cool impudence.

It was impossible not to include everybody. Indeed, nearly everybody was just waiting to be included.

"Draw the tables together--here," said Anthony.

"Gentlemen, will you join us?" shouted Vincent to the three law students. They looked at one another as the younger generation will when bidden too heartily by their elders, even to a feast.

"Do," said Anthony, "join us in our little celebration. It will have the blessing of the church, I am sure." He winked at the young men. Hesitation vanished. There was a great scraping of chairs being dragged over the tiles.

"What are your favourite wines, my friends?" asked Anthony. A babble of local vintages drove the old woman to the cellars with her hands over her ears.

"Two bottles apiece," roared Vincent after her. The students now looked impressed.

"Father," said Anthony, grinning.

The priest gabbled something in Latin while the steam from the fowls curled up from the table under his nose. It was a laconic grace.

The meal began with a clash. In a corner by the spit the young urchin looked on gnawing dreamfully on a drumstick.

The discovery of the morning proved to be the students and the new wine to which they introduced the company. It was the first of the local harvest and only lately pressed.

"In a few days, sir, it will be acid and ordinary," said the oldest of the trio, a tall lad with flashing eyes, a restless air, and an immense mane of jet-black hair that he continually tossed back out of his eyes. "But just at this stage of working it is full of bubbles and creams as you drink it." His gay talk in a strong French accent ran off the surface of things very much as the bubbles effervesced from the wine. The priest stuck to Canary and smiled. He had a good reason. The new wine was light to the taste but proved heady. In a short time the table was seething with talk and beggars were gathering about the inn, attracted by the noise and rumour of plenty.

"Open the door and let in the sunlight," bawled Vincent.

"And the rabble, too?" inquired the innkeeper. "Father, can't you do something?" the man asked, seeing the crowd outside.

The priest went out and closed the door behind him. They heard his voice for some time but could not hear what he said. When he came back he left the door open and no one was there.

The innkeeper nodded his acknowledgment and admiration of the father's powers of speech.

There was a sudden lull of talk as the sunlight streamed over the table.

"Saints and angels! What time is it?" queried the youngest and palest student anxiously. "Remember, you Jacopo, there is a lecture in the porch at nine."

"On the Code Justinian," mumbled the dark-headed boy into his mug. "Dry, oh dry!" He poured the remainder of the priest's wine into his own glass and drank to the company, giving the two "illustrious signori from Livorno" a neatly turned toast of thanks.

"Have you ever rolled in the dust of the civil law, signori? You would know then how I hate to leave this--and you," said he, putting down his glass. "But it must be almost nine, isn't it?"

Anthony fumbled for his watch.

The bell of the campanile began to toll the hour. Shouting to one another and calling their hasty farewells, the three students dashed out and raced down the street. They took the life of the party with them.

Silence fell on the little common-room of the inn. Anthony sat looking across the table at Signore Raspanti, who was apparently watching a spider on the opposite wall.

"You look ill, Toni," said Vincent. "Has the new wine been . . . ?"

Anthony waved him off and continued to stare at the old man.

"What time is it, Signore Raspanti?" he asked.

"The bell has just struck nine, I believe," answered the old gentleman with a little quaver. "Shall I go out and see?" he added, rising hopefully.

They were all looking at him now. The seconds ticked out by the stolen watch against the ribs of the old man measured his heart beats. His mouth fell open and he shook.

"Have you by any chance lost your watch, my friend?" said the priest to Anthony.

Anthony nodded. A rush of blood clouded his face.

"Give it to him, Raspanti," said the priest harshly.

The old man brought the watch with its dangling seals out of his breast and slowly pushed it across the table toward Anthony. Then he collapsed, weeping hopelessly with his head in the gravy plate.

"Pig!" shouted Beppo, jumping up and starting to shake him.

Vincent pulled him off. "Leave him to the police," he growled. "Go and get the horses harnessed and wait. We leave shortly."

"A word with you, signori," said the priest. He took them both over to a corner.

"Do not call the police, I beg you. Let me tell you something about this old man. He is a pitiable case. He married unhappily. His wife left him with two baby daughters. They both died on the same day, and as he had no means left but his house, he sold that to bury them both together in the Campo Santo. Otherwise it would have meant the common pit. He did not turn beggar as he might, but for years has acted as cicerone in Pisa. When travellers came here in the days before the war he made just enough to exist--and to get one of his daughters out of purgatory. Now only a few travellers come. He starves. Maria is in heaven and Euphemia in the fires. He says they both suffer at being parted, and it is his fault. Can you imagine that? It is only lately he has begun to take things. When a traveller comes now he gets what he can. The tick of your watch, you see, would have been heard in eternity."

"Hum!" said Vincent.

"Forgive him, signori, for the love of Christ." The fat priest's face worked painfully. "I am not his confessor, you know, or--" he put his hand over his mouth. "He goes to one of the canons at the cathedral. I saw the seals dangling from your waistcoat this morning, signore, when you went across the square with old Raspanti, and I thought--yes, when you came out of the Campo Santo with no seals dangling from your waistcoat, I thought--'Euphemia will soon be in paradise, provided I do not inform the canon. And if I inform the kindly looking young signore, Euphemia will not go to paradise and old Raspanti will go to jail.' I really came over here to see you both. The old man was hungry, too, no doubt of it. Well, you know what has happened. But I do not think the police are going to help. Anyway, you have your watch back, and--Well, he will be hanged, you know."

They all looked again at the old man lying with his head in the plate of gravy. He did not move.

"How long have his children been dead?" asked Vincent.

"Over ten years," replied the priest reluctantly.

"Gott im himmel! and all that time this canon what's-his-name has been sharing the poor old devil's tips. What do you make of that, Toni?" shouted Vincent. "The lousy swine!"

The priest put his fat hands over his ears now. Anthony pulled them down again.

"How much?" said he, "to get Euphemia out of the canon's hands?"

"About twenty soldi will see her through--now, I think."

"You think? Perhaps I had best go to your metropolitan here."

"No, no, I am sure of it."

"You will tell him so before I leave?"

A reluctant nod gave assent.

Anthony went over to Raspanti and raised him up on his chair. He wiped the tears and giblets off his twitching old face. Then he took his watch and put it back into the old scarecrow's waistcoat. Then he threw his cloak around his shoulders.

"You make a mock of me, signore?" gasped the old man. "I did not lie to you in the cemetery. They are my children there."

"I love you," said Anthony and kissed his dirty, smeared old face.

"Great God!" said Vincent in complete disgust.

"Now, father, you tell him!" insisted Anthony.

"Landlord, landlord," shouted Vincent, "the bill!"

"Come on, Vincent. He'll find us soon enough," cried Anthony, and rushed out still sick at heart.

"You're drunk," laughed Vincent as he stumbled down the corridor after him.

They climbed into the berlin just as the anxious landlord dashed out after them waving both his apron and the bill frantically. He was paid.

Anthony detained him, talking to him for some minutes in rapid Tuscan. Money changed hands. "Si, si, si, si, si. A place at my own table from now on. A bed. The Scotchman from Leghorn will see to it, you say. Have no fear . . . Yes, certainly it was the priest. The canon! that is a good one. The French hanged him a year ago. The wrong man, you say. No, they were right there, too. But here comes the one they missed."

The priest rushed out of the door, his face a fiery red. "Gone?" he shouted to the landlord. "You let them go when . . ." Then seeing the berlin he stopped short and tried to grin.

Some beggars began to close in about the coach whining.

"Here are your twenty-five soldi," said Anthony, pouring them into the priest's hands.

"Five extra for possible accidents in limbo," he growled.

"Signore, signore, stop, let me thank you," screamed old Raspanti, coming down the corridor. "My children are in paradise. I thought . . ."

"Get on, Beppo, drive off," Anthony shouted.

"Alms, alms, for the love of Christ, alms . . ."

The berlin dashed out of the beggars circling about the fat father, who held up his hands in terror.

"Would you rob the church, you swine? You black . . ."

They heard no more. Looking back, Vincent saw the old man with a smeared face, with Anthony's cloak flopping behind him, trying to run after the berlin while he waved his tattered hat wildly.

He looked at Anthony who said nothing.

"Did you give him Mr. Bonnyfeather's seals, too?" asked Vincent.

"No, I kept those," replied Anthony, taking them out of his pocket and looking at the old crest on the middle one.

"You weren't as drunk as I thought then," grumbled Vincent. "But that is the last time, my boy, that I buy you any new wine, anywhere."

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

OVER THE CREST

In the marble porch of the Via Emilia Professor Monofuelli was droning away in Latin to about a dozen sleepy students upon the inexhaustible subject of the Civil Law.

During the recent French and Austrian struggles over Italy the University of Pisa had almost closed its doors. The restless times had drawn away many of its students, contracted its revenues, and even scattered the faculty. Professor Monofuelli had come over from Padua to lend a helping hand.

He felt, however, that he was not being fully appreciated. Five students had slept through his entire--and celebrated--lecture on the Pandects only the afternoon before. And it was not much better this morning.

To be sure it was both sultry and shady under the old, marble porch, open on one side to the empty and grass-grown street. The benches in the hall near by had gone to make Austrian soldiers warm only the winter before. But certainly it was hot enough now. The professor wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and brushed the snuff that fell out of it off his faded peach-coloured, velvet coat.

Perhaps he was just the least bit sleepy himself. He had given only an hour to the distinction between fas and jus, but without his usual enthusiasm. And three students had been late. They had missed fas entirely. Well, it was a distinction that those who merely expected to practise law could ignore. But historically--historically fas was important. It was all very well for Dentelli at Bologna to ignore fas, but there could be no doubt about it that fus had developed out of fas. He would give it to his students. He would repeat it for that fellow Aristide Pujol, one of the late ones. He had come in late with two others, at a quarter after nine at least. They had been drinking somewhere (he knew)--new wine! That was all very well, but then--then there was fas. He rapped on the desk and reversed the hour glass. The red sand in it began to run the other way.

"Signore Pujol--signore!"

That young gentleman sat up.

"Aha! signore, attention! I am about to repeat something for you. It is not my custom to repeat myself."

"Only your lectures," thought Pujol.

"You are from beyond the Alps, my young friend, aren't you?"

"A Frenchman, Excellence," grumbled Pujol proudly.

"Ahem, all the more reason then that you should not waste your time in Italy in sleep. How many times does the distinction of fas appear on the twelve tables, my friend from Gaul?"

"Once, I think," grumbled Pujol.

"You think? Well, you are correct. Repeat the passage--the law itself."

The young fellow did so.

"Not so bad for a barbarian, I must admit, Pujol. But the accent, your Latin accent is terrific. It is worse than that of the barbarians from the schools in Britain. Now listen, that denunciation goes like this." The professor filled his lungs.

"Patronus, si dienti fraudent faysit, sacer esto."

But the professor was startled by the flat effect of his own voice. He was used to lecturing in a room with a dome in it at Padua. There he could tell the difference between the Latin of Ulpian and the Latin of Gaius by the sound in the dome. His own genuine accent came back to him. But here--here there was nothing; no return; no sonorous, encouraging effect. Only sleepy students gaping up at him. And that young Frenchman laughing at him, laughing! In his indignant disappointment he absent-mindedly reversed the hour glass again. In a few seconds the sands ran out. A gust of applause swept the porch, the first he had received since arriving at Pisa. He cleared his throat for a philippic contra Aristide. It should be remembered and remembered, but--

At that moment the sound of rapidly approaching wheels turned every head away from him.

A smart, an extraordinarily handsome, little carriage was coming down the street. Just then the back hood was let down by an arm reaching around out of the window. It revealed two quite young but evidently very prosperous gentlemen sitting side by side on the rear seat. One was tall and spare with a peculiarly ardent expression, golden-brown hair, and a pair of eyes that looked searchingly out of a sun-browned face. It was a face so regular and yet so alive and mobile that you remembered it. The other young man was astonishingly blond, white and pink. And you felt that some day he would be fat and contented. Just now he was laughing, with his arm thrown back over the open hood, displaying inadvertently a handsome ring and a positively gorgeous expanse of waistcoat. Both young men were wearing high, English hats of remarkable mould under the wide brims of which their hair curled and flopped. The bronze, and blue leather upholstery of the carriage glittered; the horses approached at a spanking trot; the driver flourished his whip in a decidedly intoxicated manner.

There was something so gay about the whole equipage, such a debonair assurance seemed to accompany it, that Professor Monofuelli instinctively consigned it to hell in one erudite malediction while he rapped for order and a return to fas.

The sound of his well-worn gavel was the signal for the Frenchman Aristide Pujol to rise, throw his books down the steps, and rush out of the porch just as the little berlin was passing.

He ran along beside it for a few yards--"just like a beggar," exclaimed the professor later on in disgust--and then leaping on the step began to talk to Anthony, who leaned forward to catch what he was saying.

"You are going to Paris, aren't you, signore? I heard you say so this morning." His eyes shone with excitement.

"Yes, can we take a letter for you?"

"No, signore, but--"

"But what?"

"Will you take me?"

"Why!--well, there is hardly room."

"I could go on the box, sir. I can drive. I will do anything you ask on the way. Serve you and the signore. Take me. I am rotting here at Pisa. I must go--go!"

"Go?" said Anthony.

The young fellow nodded, tears in his eyes.

"We can't delay for you, you know."

"No, no, just as I am, now."

"Well, Vincent?"

"Why not?" said Vincent.

"Climb up," said Anthony. "Stop a moment, Beppo."

By this time all the students in the porch had rushed out onto the steps and were craning their necks after the carriage. They broke out into a clamorous shout when Aristide climbed onto the box. But he did not look back. He went on. His former classmates returned to the lecture and threw themselves down on the hard stone benches rather desperately.

"Great things are doing in France, Excellence," said one of them as the little man began to rearrange his much-fluttered notes.

"So I have heard," said the professor opening his book again. He sighed audibly. "But, that our conversation may return to the point from which our Gaulish friend has just digressed--let us ourselves return to the law. As Cicero has so aptly said for us: 'Though all the world exclaim against me, I will say what I think: that simple little book of the Twelve Tables, if anyone look to the fountain and sources of laws, seems to me, assuredly, to surpass the libraries of all the philosophers . . .'"

----------

The berlin trotted out of Pisa into the green, rolling country beyond and took the road for Florence at a more rapid pace. Beppo began to sing as the hills about his native place began to become familiar.

At Florence they stayed only long enough to rest the horses, to arrange for some travelling papers for Aristide, and get him a few clothes. He had left in his vest and shirt-sleeves.

Both Anthony and Vincent were glad they had given way to impulse and taken Aristide along. A merrier, a keener, and more willing helper they could scarcely have found. And he was painfully grateful. His constant, half-impudent but always good-natured comments from the box amused and sometimes convulsed them. He had also, Anthony soon discovered, the faculty of causing things to get done. "My mother was from Gascony," he said, "and my father from Auvergne. I therefore understand how gullible, how selfish, and how kindly in little things most men and women are. You make them laugh, and then--omelette." He could drive well, and he understood not only the civil law but horseflesh. "At Milan, signore, if possible, we should get other and more horses. These were not good-enough even for Austrians to retreat on."

Soon they were heading north again and leaving Tuscany behind. The first certain notice of it was the change in the type of roadside shrines and the shorter horns of the cattle.

That Tuscan type of shrine, where every article used at the Crucifixion from hammer and nails to spear and sponge is displayed with terrible, literal exactitude, while the figure of Christ himself is omitted or made conventional as a mosaic in St. Sophia, began to give way to more naturalistic representations of the Passion. At these, no matter what their mode, Anthony tried not to look. For his own reasons the sight of any cross was a peculiarly painful reminder. Indeed, it is doubtful if any traveller for centuries had passed casual, wayside crosses with such a living knowledge of the reality of the scene they attempted to represent. Yet he could not ignore them. And they constantly gave rise to certain trains of thought which for his own mental health he desired for a while to let lie dormant.

He had come to the conclusion that he must for a year or two at least try to obscure in normal human companionship, at not too highly emotional a level, the incandescent light of the visions of his African experience, which still dazzled him, especially at night.

He had not opened the bundle from Gallegos with the madonna in it. That was to wait for a while, although it was along with him even now, travelling in the dark boot of the berlin, just as the knowledge and the harvest of all the memories in the bundle travelled in the closed box of his mind, waiting. When he looked at that little figure again he must be able to do so with a whole and healed soul; with tender but level eyes.

Yet reminders of Brother François were constantly leaping out upon him in Italy. They staggered him at times; almost forced him into hysterical, dramatic--and hence he was sure--eventually foolish action. He had kissed the genteel old thief at Pisa and given him his cloak in return for stealing his watch. And Vincent had said he was drunk on new wine. Well, he had been drunk, but not on new wine. "Wine of the vintage of a. d. thirty-three," he thought as he looked up to catch the shadow of a cross arm falling across the carriage. Yes, that was the trouble. He must not be "drunk," not even upon old wine. Wine should be sustaining: "Give us this day our daily bread."

He was glad that Vincent understood. How much he needed a practical, happy, able friend like Vincent, who loved him and yet loved the world, too.

He had told him all. Vincent had wept, and yet he could laugh at you when you were "drunk"--and get you along over the particular roads of the world which you had to travel, towards Paris--or London, or whatever was the immediate rational goal. Yes, thank God for Vincent!--and let the horses trot now,--where was it they were going?--oh, yes, towards Milan, with that good-natured, keen, human, young Pujol on the box next to the ridiculous Beppo.

He gave himself up to being a traveller and nothing else.

He enjoyed the halts; the women about the town fountains; the inns, half stables, half human dwellings with something of the antique world left over that he had glimpsed and shared once with Angela. Certainly in the inns of Italy the fragments of it were scattered over her hills and along her still half-Roman by-ways. Antiquia--that was a good world, refreshing, real, and primitive. He enjoyed waking up mornings to its sounds; the loud peasant dialects, children playing, and the comfortable noises of cattle, lambs, doves, and chickens. In Africa he had missed the sparrows, he found.

But he was not to see much of Lombardy. As they emerged onto the level and often swampy plains a cool wind had come down from the snowy mountains to contend with the summer heat. The whole country was veiled in mist. Long rows of poplars loomed through it. It lifted only occasionally for bright, plangent gleams of level, green meadows and white towns. They heard the muffled bells of unseen chapels ringing through it. Or carts loomed up suddenly and were swallowed like wraiths, as they trotted on into denser fog and cooler weather.

And it was now that they first began to hear the voice of bugles and to meet frequently with French troops. An occasional column of them forced them to draw up and pull aside. Their trumpets shouted afar off, echoing.

"It is the voice of France," cried Pujol. "Soon, soon I shall be chez moi." He began to shout and sing.

They could see nothing of Milan as they approached it. It was late one evening and the moon over the city was only a bright, fleecy blur in a world of silver fog that veiled the houses and the cathedral spires from sight. Milan was nothing but glimpses of the legs of passers-by from the knees down in the light of blurred lanterns; moonlight along the bases of walls, and link boys making a red smudge drifting through the mist. But the inn near the Scala was a good one. No fog could veil that. They stayed for several days.

They sold the old team and bought four new horses. None too many to pull even the light berlin over the Simplon, which pass they had decided to take instead of the Great St. Bernard, followed by Napoleon only the year before, but since then cut to pieces by supply trains and artillery.

From being little better than a dangerous wagon track only sometimes passable, the Simplon, over which Bonaparte had chosen to maintain his communications with Italy in the future, had already been made practicable for troops and carriages in all but the worst winter weather. The French idea was to make the Simplon available for artillery and wagon trains at all times, and to that end they had already pierced tunnels and galleries on the Lombard side and were at work in great force on the Swiss slope grading and constructing avalanche shelters.

"If you can get the permission of the French commandant here to take the route, signore, I would do so," said the innkeeper. "By far the better you will find." Vincent had little difficulty in having their papers stamped "par la nouvelle route militaire."

Aristide had also proved himself such an able diplomat in negotiating the deal in horses that Vincent told him he had already earned his way to Paris and supplied him with suitable clothes. In fact, the whole party was now provided with rugs, gloves, and heavy coats that seemed incredible to Anthony after years in the tropics and in the present Turkish bath atmosphere of August in Milan.

It finally cleared up a little on the last day of their stay and they drove out on the Corso to try out the new horses with Aristide handling the reins. Beppo, with his troubles doubled, was now only too willing to ride behind, his new, braided coat-tails flapping in the wind quite à la mode.

On the Corso, despite a decided wispiness that still draped itself along that magnificent drive, the Milanese fashionables and nobility were already out, driving in the handsome turnouts for which the city had been famous for two centuries at least. The berlin was accompanied through the gate by a tumult of other carriages.

Indeed, driving on the Corso, rain or shine, peace or war, was the chief test of social position in Milan. One either drove and lived or did not drive and vaguely existed. Noble families impoverished by the troubled times, often reduced to an abject poverty indoors, nevertheless frequently managed to maintain, at the expense of appetite and clothes, a vehicle of some kind with two beasts to draw it. One would not do. One old marchesa who was known to be nearly starved, anaemic from nothing but cabbage soup and crusts, was much admired and pointed out when she drove daily in the still tolerable family coach with crest and running footmen. When one of her horses died the local assembly of nobles had provided her another by subscription. All this was current gossip even at the inn.

There was certainly something very Spanish about the Milanese, Anthony thought as they drove along the Corso with the sun glittering on the spokes of varnished wheels and the jewels of heavily veiled women. Spain was to be seen not only in this inevitable custom of the evening drive after the siesta but in Milanese manners and talk. The stately salutations, the simultaneous removal of hats by gentlemen, and the fluttering of black lace and painted ivory fans as the carriages passed and repassed reminded him of the Alameda de Paula at Havana. And the town was full of Spanish architecture.

He long remembered this drive with peculiar pleasure; the sun falling in trembling pencils and half-mystical gleams through the melting mist about the ghostly scarved poplars, with the dark prickly mass of the great cathedral dominating the town behind; the river of carriages streaming along to the sound of subdued feminine laughter and the sharp snap of fans; to the gleam of jewels in the sunset. What a splendid river it was, the most civilized he had ever seen.

And not a little of the pleasure came from being an acceptable, even a notable part of it. For the little berlin with its blue leather traced with bronze leaves, its four fine horses now in spick and span military harness with scarlet blinkers, caused many a head to crane on its neck.

Whether the young men who sat looking out over the lowered hood, smoking black Cuban cheroots,--which they had accidentally discovered, created almost a furor wherever they went,--were found as acceptable as the berlin, they had not time enough in Milan to discover. But a number of eyes that examined them over the tops of fans seemed more friendly than critical. And the fans reminded Anthony of Dolores. In fact, for some reason or other, Milan, as he explained it to Vincent, made him homesick for Dolores.

"There is no use going through the world thinking of cities in the terms of women one has loved and lost," said Vincent, a little jealous as he was forced to listen for the second time to a tale of Dolores and dolour. "If you do, when you once get to Paris, you will never be able to admire another town."

"How do you know, Vincent?" said Anthony, who really had some doubts of Vincent as a cavalier.

"My boy," said Vincent, "when we do get to Paris I am going to take you around to a little house on the Rue de Vielle du Temple. It was formerly the hôtel of an ancient and respectable, a noble family. But it now belongs to a certain young banker from Livorno. I want you to look it over and consider its--well, modern advantages. In fact, I have hopes you will like the place so much that you might decide to acquire another near by. Several kinds of business, mundane and even semi-domestic, can be transacted most satisfactorily in one of these refurnished, family hôtels. Since the Terror they are all the rage. You might send for Neleta--or Dolores--or--"

"Dolores is not the kind one sends for," interrupted Anthony considerably irritated, "and as for Neleta, I am done with all that kind of thing I told you."

"Tut, tut, mon vieux, you speak as if you were feeble and travelling from one source of hot restorative waters to another, and in vain. You will presently recollect yourself. Why, if you don't look out, you will be talking of marriage like an impotent young man or a debauched ancient. Remember you are not a poor bachelor."

"I have been thinking of marriage."

"But not of getting married, I hope," groaned Vincent. "That is quite another thing."

The argument, for it developed rapidly into that, continued until they had made the turn on the Corso several times and were returning for supper.

It was now late twilight, and the mist was beginning to settle again. Aristide lit the lamps. A number of belated carriages, as though seen through a curtain of thin, silver gauze behind which a procession of lights was taking place, likewise hurried rapidly home toward the city gates. The effect of a carnival in Brociliande was soon heightened by multitudes of fireflies and the rising of a harvest moon.

Aristide drove rapidly. They began to overtake one carriage after another and to pass them swiftly. Vincent and Anthony both leaned over the sides of the open hood, letting the cool evening rush into their faces while feasting their eyes on what was a truly marvellous scene. A glow of torches moved on the distant battlements where the night guard was being posted, and wisps of mist caressed their cheeks from time to time with smooth, cool fingers. As they drove into and out of these fog pockets, suddenly the whole scene as if by art-magic would be cut off and then renewed before their eyes. They exclaimed to each other with astonishment and delight. It was like watching a feast of lights in elfland through a magician's milky crystal where the vision was now clear and now clouded by less tangible dreams.

Then, suddenly, as they flashed out of a streak of fog, a familiar shape loomed up before them. To Anthony it seemed in a curious way to be the centre of all those other dreams driving through the mist. And although he had come across it suddenly and recognized it instantly, he felt that he had been looking at it for a long time before; that it had been waiting for him behind the curtain of mist; that it was inevitable that on this particular drive he should overtake the coach of Don Luis.

This time he would pass him or know the reason why. He touched Vincent on the arm and felt immediately that he had electrified him with his own unreasonable excitement.

"Get on, Pujol, get on, pass that coach, and don't let it overtake you. Hold tight, Beppo," he cried.

The whip cracked. The startled horses leaped ahead, going at headlong speed while Aristide stood up.

Don Luis, also going at a fast clip, heard a carriage coming up behind him at such a pace that he turned to look back. He was in no mood to race on the Corso, but he hated to be passed. Like that! For just as he leaned out the berlin flashed by. The coach lamp glared into the berlin; the lights of the berlin shone for a moment into the faintly rosy interior of the coach. Sitting upon the faded upholstery in the moonlight with her arm in Don Luis', Anthony saw Faith Paleologus dressed in the extremity of fashion with a necklace of emeralds smouldering about her neck. She gave a faint scream as she looked into the berlin and Don Luis burst out with an oath. Both of them were as startled as Anthony. Then the berlin passed the coach.

They heard the coach picking up speed behind them, the whip snapping, and the lumbering of wheels. The two vehicles streamed down the Corso with the fireflies swirling behind them, regardless of protesting cries from other drivers.

But this time it was the berlin that flashed through the city gate and left Don Luis to the indignant welcome of the guard.

To have a lot of smoky lanterns poked into the coach and flashed over himself and his mistress until the whole carriage stank of tallow, of garlic and sour wine from the candid mouths of French conscripts caused him positively to flow with profanity. He considered the incident to be a deadly insult. He began to recollect who he was and "what" had caused it. He sent Sancho out to find where Anthony and Vincent were staying. From midnight on, a smug little man with grey whiskers watched the inn.

----------

The berlin set out for the mountains about daybreak. It was followed a few hours later by the coach with four horses and two lead mules that ate out of the Kitten's hand like tame rabbits. As usual Don Luis had a plan, and, as usual, the plan was not entirely impractical.

Don Luis leaned back well pleased with it. Before they were over the mountains he hoped in several directions to have solved for all time his long standing and harassing domestic problems. It was still foggy and he occasionally poked his head from the window to make Sancho stop and listen for a carriage ahead. Behind him the wheel tracks of the coach and berlin stretched out in lengthening parallel lines.

Meanwhile the berlin, about ten miles ahead, had ascended out of the fog and was rocking along at a steady trot with the jagged, snow-glittering pinnacles of the confused, cloud-haunted Alps ahead and the golden statue on the tip of the cathedral spire behind losing itself rapidly in the blue sky with an occasional parting flash. The plains of Lombardy far below were nothing but a smooth lake of mist, with poplars on hilltops sticking up as if fishermen had staked out their nets here and there in the placid sea. Just before nightfall the hearts of all the travellers in the berlin were at once rested and uplifted by the fantastically beautiful islands of Lake Maggiore springing from water turquoise in the sunset and in the midst of archangelic scenery.

"Nothing in the world is so unbelievable as Isola Bella by moonlight," said Vincent as they left it behind after supper to push on to Duomo d'Ossola at the foot of the pass. They arrived there with tired horses towards midnight. Aristide insisted that there must be ample rest for the animals before they began the ascent. "They will be able to start tomorrow evening," he said. "That will give us full daylight towards the summit. And the ascent par la clair de lune, messieurs," he said--for he had soon discovered with joy that he might just as well speak French as Italian to his friends and employers--"c'est merveilleux. I have seen it that way before, superbe, ravissant, incomparable, virginal." Having paid the Alps the greatest compliment possible in French, he went off to examine the shoes of his horses, whistling in the half-frosty air.

Already the breath of the mountains had brought back to Anthony a feeling of light, boyish vigour that he had forgotten since some cold winters in Livorno years before. He began to enter fully now into Vincent's high spirits and Pujol's gayety, even to surpass them. He was in fact entering upon the long, sustaining vigour of ripened manhood verging toward its crest.

He stood out in the roadway that night at Duomo d'Ossola under the stars and the now preternaturally clear moon just beginning to wane but with its black markings clear as an etched plate, and listened to the rush and whisper of the snow-fed Ticino that filled the air with a continuous, low melody that came from no direction at all. The others had already gone indoors to find what cheer they might at that late hour. And as he stood there listening to the lonely voice of the mountains implicit in the snow water that forever fled away somewhere into the night, the mood of a great and yet a calm and serene exaltation fell upon him, lifting him out of himself and comforting him.

And it too had its own music that also came from nowhere.

Without effort, as if he were only a listener, began a magnificent concord of the abstractions of innumerable sounds. The voices of the great heights and ramping crevasses, of the snowy pinnacles glittering in moonlight uttered themselves through him, plucking from his heart-strings an inconceivably majestic and complicated harmony addressed to the stars and the black mountain sky beyond. The hymn died away at last with a soft, satisfactory, almost human melancholy, somehow exquisitely pleasurable as if the heights murmured regretfully now of their memories of past ages to the plains below.

It was a purely personal, an automatic, an incommunicable experience. It did not occur to him that some men attempted to set such things down. He knew nothing of staff and clef. "Music," he said, "go on." But the thing was not to be summoned. It occurred. All that he knew was that in that moment the meaning of the night enriched with all his past experiences of solitude, passion, grief, love, and joy had suddenly been transmuted for him and made understandable in the terms of sound.

There was no motif or prelude in this experience as there had been in that concord of wood sounds that he had heard as he looked at Anna that night, now ages past in Livorno, it seemed. His music tonight had been full, complete; devoid of weak longings and little regrets. It was the cry of his being at the full.

"Well, so let it be then for a while." He turned and followed the others into the inn.

"Tomorrow," he thought, just as he swung the door open, "we shall be going over the crest and on, down into France."

The osteria, or "hôtel" as it was now called, at Duomo d'Ossola was immemorial. Apparently the only change that had afflicted it since the elder Pliny had come that way gathering magical, Alpine plants was in the numbers and generations of its fleas. The hams and flitches of bacon hanging amid its rafters were contemporaneous with its ancient oaken beams, and as tough. But there was no doubt about their being well smoked. For the fireplace consisted of a great pile of stones large enough to roast a whole ox, over which a cave-like cupola of baked, red clay led upwards, presumably in the direction of several flues.

It was true that some smoke, on the principle that accidents will occasionally happen, escaped by this Gargantuan yet ridiculous chimney. But for the most part it lingered infernally and habitually about the shoulders and knuckles of hams, the leeks, the garlic, and the sooty bottles and crocks in basketry containers that perpetually threatened the guests who moved beneath them with a fatal rain of preserved-plenty should the roof ever collapse--a contingency not so remote as the landlady was disposed to think.

At night the sole light in this hell's-kitchen was from a small flame lost in the huge fireplace. About this, as Anthony entered, Vincent, Pujol, and Beppo were seated on three-legged stools. They were impatiently waiting while several sleepy and well-smoked girls and an old woman with complexions like the hams were attempting, with all of the usual clamour, lament, and confusion of primitive females trying to perform a simple domestic action--to scramble some eggs. All that was lacking was the eggs. Beppo had kindled the fire.

A long consultation in mountain dialect, an argument, an outburst of fury on the part of the oldest woman, a loud slap in the face for the youngest granddaughter--finally began to produce results. The older women climbed into a loft leaving the girl who had been slapped to do the honours. A hen under, or rather over, the delusion of raising a family was loudly disturbed in one corner by the slapped maiden and relieved of six of her prospective cares. These mixed with some herbs in a pan were put over the fire. But the hen proved to have been right after all.

It was Aristide who confirmed her. He had volunteered to take what he called les haruspices. He sputtered, holding his nose, and dumped the sacrifice out into the fire.

Frau Frank's hamper was now drawn upon and still proved itself triumphantly adequate. The girl, who had attempted the omelette, and who still sat wretchedly upon her stool, was invited to share in the cold sausage, bread and wine. She was soon not only comforted but by far the most amiable of the party. Rugs were spread upon some benches, Beppo flung himself upon the floor, and the party entered upon a gallant attempt to rest.

From his bench in a far corner Anthony watched the grotesque shadows leaping amid the rafters. The place was like a witches' brothel. In the centre on the stone "altar" by which the girl still sat with her unbraided elf-locks snaking about her face, the fire leaped fitfully, now flickering out into the darkness of the room with a smoky-yellow tongue and now licking the inflamed, sooty sides of its terra-cotta cavern when the draught veered up the chimney. From the benches where Vincent and Pujol were stretched out, and from the lean curs on the floor, arose occasional lightning movements denoting fleas stabbing home. Presently the daughter of the house got up and looked about her.

After considering the several benches deliberately, she walked quietly over to that upon which young Pujol was resting and began to climb in under his blankets.

A foot placed firmly on her stomach, and propelled forward by a vigorous straightening of the young man's knee, hurled her back toward the hearth, where she gracefully collapsed upon a stool and passed a few interesting moments trying to inhale. She then resumed her expression of rapt contemplation, finally arriving at the conclusion that apparently she had been repulsed.

Everyone in the room except the snoring Beppo was now watching her, secretly convulsed. After a while she got up again, rubbed her stomach, and obviously began to consider once more the now rather nice question of--"with what man shall this young woman sleep?"

"Love is a wonderful thing, Toni," whispered Vincent. "Did you keep your boots on? You may need them."

"Monsieur is jealous," hissed Pujol.

"You interfered with nature, Aristide," muttered Anthony.

These mutterings and groans not sounding inviting, the girl decided that the united opinion of the bench was against her. She made no appeal. She walked over and quietly inserted herself under the horse-blanket on the floor with Beppo. A few sleepy grunts of surprise, ending in a dying fall, and sighs of settling satisfaction showed that a delicate situation had been gratefully accepted by Beppo.

Nevertheless, the benches proved to be by no means lonely couches. Each traveller soon shared them with cohorts of fleas. In a short while a spirit seemed to move all three at the same time toward the inn yard. Here they met amid oaths and laughter to engage in a mutual hunt by lantern light. Beppo was either immune or was solaced beyond mere flea bites.

The berlin they found soaked with dew. They dragged some straw from the stables and spreading their rugs upon it again attempted to rest. Looking up at the familiar northern stars, fresher and clearer against the black mountain sky than he had ever seen them before, in spite of the moon, Anthony finally counted himself to sleep by trying to number the infinite.

Perhaps it was unfortunate that he did so, for some time between midnight and morning Don Luis quietly passed through the village in the coach.

----------

A few hours' rest farther down at Arona had apparently sufficed for Don Luis' horses. He had guessed that the berlin would stop over at Duomo d'Ossola, most travellers did so, and he made sure of it by sending Sancho to have a quiet look at the inn yard. There Sancho had not only seen the berlin empty, but its crew all laid out on straw in the moonlight like so many corpses. He reported as much to his master, who nodded contentedly and drove on. By daybreak the coach was miles ahead and making good time up the Val di Ticino toward the pass.

As he looked down onto the plains a little later, Don Luis was delighted to see a violent thunder-shower moving down the valley far below him and sweeping out toward Ossola with blowing arcs of rain. He could have asked nothing more than that the tracks of the coach should be erased. It had not occurred to him that they might be. He had had to chance that, and now-- This time, at least, the gods seemed to be with him.

He remarked to the Paleologus, who was sitting beside him, that it was raining in the valley. It was the only general remark he had made to her since leaving Milan. She acquiesced to the weather--and his opinions about it. Otherwise their conversation was nil. Faith understood her position exactly. Her rôle was not that of a talkative companion.

At Milan, in a renaissance of almost youthful bravado during this unexpected Indian-summer honeymoon it had been the noble marquis' whim to flaunt Faith before the world on the Corso as his mistress. For that he had bought her some astonishing costumes and jewels. She had carried them well. She had carried it off with just the requisite amount of subdued impudence toward respectability and enough triumphant vulgarity to proclaim that she was his mistress and not a female relative.

In short, she had allowed herself with a cunning blatancy to be seen for exactly what she was, a handsome middle-aged harpy with something genuinely mysterious about her inherent in a look of suffering about her deep eyes and wide brows as if her daemon had led her through fiery landscapes looking for a rare incandescent blossom that she had never found.

Such was the mistress with whom, at the age of sixty-eight, Don Luis found solace, comfort, and an unexpected release for fires that still smouldered warmly under the hard, cool lava of his own exterior; fires that were still capable of darting forth in a subterranean pit flashes of yellow flame as if a deposit of sulphur had suddenly sublimed after having nearly boiled away.

Over the meeting of two such volcanic natures there was bound to be a certain amount of stench released which might possibly arouse the hostility of nose-holding neighbours ploughing in greener and more domestically-fertile, in less scoriac fields. Perhaps, that is one reason why such women as Faith invariably reek of perfume. She had chosen for hers a combination of musk and sweet-poppy that was slowly but surely overcoming the odour of stale Malacca snuff with which the coach had long stunk.

For stenches, moral or otherwise, Don Luis now cared very little, however. Indeed, he rather enjoyed their piquancy. He had found what he wanted, and, without any undue commotion, he intended to enjoy it before he died. An event, by the way, which still seemed remote to him.

In Italy, where he was now known in a few official quarters only, it had pleased him to be perfectly open about his affair after leaving Livorno. Going through France, and upon his return to Spain, he intended to be a little more circumspect; to let his new star dawn slowly upon his more intimate friends and relatives rather than to have it burst suddenly out of a cloud which might throw some of its shadow on him.

Sancho's suggestion had therefore been followed out and Faith was now dressed with a taste and restraint that might indicate a duenna being brought from Italy for the instruction of certain young grand-nieces in Madrid. She had accepted this temporarily less glamorous rôle with alacrity and understanding.

It still permitted her to make Don Luis thoroughly comfortable wherever they went in a hundred small ways that he had never known or had long forgotten. He realized, now, that with great means he had long been living a kind of Spartan camp-life under the rather stern care of Sancho. In short, he had much needed a woman to look after him. Now he had found one who, without disturbing his thoughts or threatening any legal or social complications whatsoever, comforted the man. In personal service Faith was solicitous by day and ingenious at night. And it so happened that she was the only person in the world who could sympathize over Don Luis' past without at the same time wounding the proud marquis' honour.

The Paleologus on her part knew all this. She wanted security. In finding it in Don Luis she felt her cup ran over and she did not intend to drop it or spill it lightly. This was her last chance, and she played for it consummately. As they drove over the Simplon they were supremely well-pleased with each other.

Don Luis did not intend to have his plans interfered with a second time, particularly by the son of the man who had wrecked them before. He intended to put a final stop to trouble from that quarter. The trivial incident of the race on the Corso at Milan had outraged him beyond all ordinary imagining. He planned to act this time so that, whether he succeeded or not, no blame could attach to him. But he was now a little superstitious about Maria's son. He might fail. Experience had taught him that. If so, he determined to be still in a position to bide his time.

It was with these thoughts in his mind that he continued to ascend the pass as rapidly as his four horses and two mules could be persuaded to drag the coach toward the clouds.

----------

The violent thunder-storm accompanied by pelting globes of hail had struck Duomo d'Ossola shortly after dawn and driven in the tired sleepers in the courtyard. They found an even more elemental disturbance going on inside. The old grandmother had descended early to get breakfast for the party and had stumbled over Beppo and her granddaughter as one object. When Anthony and the others rushed in shaking the hailstones and rain off their hats and clothes, she was beating her granddaughter with a convenient piece of firewood till the girl's ribs resounded. She had also just finished-off Beppo who was dazedly looking on from a far corner by the single light of his one, as yet, unclosed eye. The girl was now screaming more with terror than with pain, for it looked as if her grandmother meant to kill her. The dogs barked and howled, and the imprecations of the old woman rushed out of her mouth like the sound of the hail against the tiles.

Seeing that the gentlemen were not for murder before breakfast, she finally left-off to sink down exhausted, weeping by the ashes of her hearth fire. The girl, feeling her bruises and sobbing, attempted to rearrange the tattered remnants of her bodice which had been nearly clawed off. In this she was gallantly assisted by Pujol, who felt a genuine remorse for having brought this trouble upon her by his repulse of the night before.

"I should have sacrificed myself. As a Frenchman I should have managed it sans scandale," he assured Anthony. "Now look!" He pointed to the girl, the old woman, and Beppo all in misery.

Beppo it was plain would be of little use going over the pass. Both his eyes were now closed. For him the old woman had nothing but curses. She spat at him like a lynx when he blundered near.

"Now it is the fourth generation. His brat! I shall soon be having travellers driven away from the roof by its squalls. May the evil-eye wither your womb like a dried tripe, harlot, little bitch," she screamed, seizing her club again. The girl shivered. "Pig, stunted boar," she screeched at Beppo, waving her stick.

"Why don't you keep him on here, mother?" suggested Vincent.

"I have kept too many men in my time," said the woman. "What they want is a fire, a bed, and something to eat. The less they have to move on their feet after a while, the better they like it. Soon they are flabby and nothing but a mouth. The breasts of my mercy for them are dry."

"But this fellow is a vetturino and you need one about an inn like this. We already owe him a hundred soldi and we will leave him as much more for the girl's dot. That is something, isn't it?"

The old woman still muttered but sat considering.

Beppo groaned.

"Make it two hundred, Vincent," added Anthony. "I will go half."

"Two hundred soldi," said Vincent reluctantly.

"That is something," admitted the old woman. "I need a horse,
too . . ."

"Otherwise we shall just take him and drive on," said Vincent.

"Three hundred soldi, altogether?" asked the crone looking up.

"Si," murmured Beppo, "my wages, too."

The old woman clucked with her gums. "Come here, girl," she said at last. "Get down the dog-grease and set your betrothed to work on your back. He might as well learn now how to salve a morning's beating so you can get breakfast."

The swollen-eyed Beppo without further comment began to rub the dog-grease into his future wife's back. Secretly he was well satisfied, but he did not intend to admit it. His had been, he thought, an excellent night's work. The woman in Florence could shift for herself now. Well, he wasn't married to her. What did she expect?

Pujol was delighted. There would be one less man to haul over the mountains. Vincent had been quick at getting off for less than it would have cost to keep the useless Beppo in France. Anthony felt he had assisted at making peace. Breakfast such as it was passed off well enough.

Pujol was ready to start earlier with a lightened load. As soon as the roads ceased to be torrents he gave notice of harnessing up. The storm rumbled on into the plains behind. The old woman sat counting over her three hundred soldi by the rekindled fire.

No one would have recognized her as Lucia, the kindly, pleasant maid of Maria Bonnyfeather less than thirty years before. In that time she had had three husbands and thirteen children. The inn at Ossola she had bought with the last of Don Luis' gold pieces after much wandering about amid Swiss villages in the Italian cantons. She had no more idea who Anthony was than why the French had eaten her out of house and home the year before and given her only paper money. As she attempted to bite some of the more doubtful looking soldi she regretted her teeth. She put aside one soldo. It was to send to her first husband's cousin to put edelweiss on Maria's sunken grave. No soldo, no edelweiss; she knew the Swiss. Now that her little slut of a granddaughter had a man she would take these soldi and go back to Tuscany. She would like to be buried where the sun was warm. Holy mother, the snow in these mountains! It gave her bones the shivers. And that little fool would have given herself away just for the fun of it. But what was to be expected, with soldiers about the place the whole year before? She would leave the happy couple--her blessing. She wrapped a few yellow-grey locks about a peg of a comb that seemed to be fixed in her skull, scoured her sooty face off with the under-side of her second petticoat and went to the door to watch the berlin start.

----------

"How do you suppose people ever come to be as horrible as these?" asked Anthony, looking about for the last time at Duomo d'Ossola and its inn.

"It's their own fault," grumbled Vincent comfortably. "They don't have to be here. Just bad human nature, I suppose."

"Perhaps," replied Anthony, unaware that the reason he was sitting in the luxurious little berlin was because Don Luis had decided not to let him stay on the knees of the filthy old woman peering out of the door and trying to curtsy to him as well as her lumbago would permit. "But I suppose fate does have something to do with it."

"Not much, Toni. It's what a man does for himself that makes him what he is. What can you expect of these people though? Look at those two brats there, for instance."

Two half-naked boys were peering at the varnished doors of the berlin which reflected their delighted grimaces.

The view which included a number of lean, rooting sows was certainly not encouraging. From every crazy balcony with a tottering stairway rotting up to it, from every eccentric hovel along the street,--terrific scarecrows male and female, gaunt and starved faces, rheumy-eyed and goitred carlines and fearfully-peaked children could be glimpsed gathered to see the rich travellers leave. The bolder or more desperate beggars were also gathering.

"I am starving, signore. The soldiers have left nothing." . . . "Signore, I want something to eat. I tell you I am hungry, my belly grinds." . . . "I fought for the Austrians--and now look," said an old soldier revealing a seethed stump. "Dear and very charitable milords of England, I have a dislocated hip," drooled an old woman. And she had. "Dear and very charitable milords, rich and gracious signori, my hip has kept me in hell for twenty years. My hip, sweet and kindly signori, for the love of God and his saints, signori, my poor old hip. I can neither lie, stand, nor sit, signori. I am hungry and in great pain. It is true." Her palsied hand slid into the window, shaking, and gnarled as a griffin's paw--"My hip, milords of England, rich and high-born gentlemen of God, my poor old hip, my hip . . ."

"Get on, Pujol, you rascal," roared Vincent. "Never mind that little buckle."

The babble for alms grew threatening and clamorous. They were forced to throw out some small coins to get the horses through the mewing mob.

"God bless you," screamed old Lucia, secure in her soldi. The beggars scrambled and cursed. The berlin strained forward through the mud. Children ran up the street after it holding out their hands and screaming. One persistent little urchin who raced with them half a mile finally got a coin the size of his little toe nail.

"Farewell!" he shouted with his last breath, and collapsed by the roadside clutching the picaillon.

"That is the last of Italy," said Vincent. "Why, Toni, what's the matter? You look pale."

"It's the high air I guess," replied Anthony, and looked out of the window at the incredible mountains just ahead.

The last of the Italian hamlets was left behind as they started upward more noticeably. Soon they could look back at miles of little villages apparently asleep in the warm sunlight below. The sound of cow bells ceased. The roar of the snow rivers became louder. They climbed up a slanting plateau through an inferno of wind-tortured trees which were already shedding their leaves. Already it was noticeably colder. Remnants of the morning hail-storm glittered along the roads and in tree boles like fresh-broken glass. The wink from these beds of scattered diamonds answered the blink from the snow-fields above. The breath of the horses became faintly visible.

Now the way pitched upward violently. All roads travelled before seemed to have been level. They were dragged through a region of bare rocks, pebbles, and boulder-débris where the horses panted and struggled. The angry tumult of a river suddenly leapt myriad-voiced out of the earth. The road became a skidding track along the edge of a gorge filled with mad, rushing froth and uptossed arms of spray hundreds of feet below. They crossed the torrent on a new bridge over its raving water and struck into the living stone of the mountain between two walls of rock.

It was a mere cleft with the daylight leaking down greyly as if through a crack in a vault overhead. Even the gloom failed them as they headed for a cavern where their voices and the sound of the struggling hoofs were lost completely in the subterranean thunder of a cataract that hurled itself close by into an invisible cleft. Only the weight of the water could be felt making the earth shudder. The mist rose before the mouth of this newly-pierced tunnel in spectral veils. It coated the leather of the cushions and their clothes with pearls of moisture as they entered its darkness lit only by the foggy rays of the lanterns. Here the road took its upward way along a cliff with the river bellowing a sheer quarter of a mile below.

They spun out of this cave into full day to cross over another dizzy bridge. The road contorted up and up through the fierce barbaric gorge of Gondo overshadowed by black-fronted terraces and the smooth lowering foreheads of precipices that put their heads close together a thousand feet above as if plotting some overwhelming mischief while throwing cyclopean gloom and staggering shadows along perpendicular miles.

"You should have seen this by moonlight," shouted Aristide, while he breathed the horses. "That is a real test of driving. The pass is not what it used to be. The work of the French engineers has already made a great difference."

But Anthony was glad they had come by day after all. There was still plenty of opportunity for Aristide to prove his skill in tooling along the horses. And the grandeur of full light on the infinite view was beyond all expression and experience.

They were ascending the last rugged ravines of the pass, now overlooking planetary wastes of black rock; peering down valleys floored with clouds that opened suddenly to reveal further eagle-haunted wells of space full of clear, slippery air with toy villages in a lake of sunlight at the bottom. Yet they were still looking up at Gargantuan heights over smooth, rosy snow-fields lying in the wrinkled patterns of hollows and crevasses. And from these half-frozen beds of moisture torrents slipped away to foam down the faces of cliffs. They leaped sheerly into nothing, hanging in tremendous sliding beards of water that smoked into pointed, swaying clouds of vapour still unsupported a mile below.

Here and there the arcs of more distant waterfalls glittered like the bow of promise, and directly above and beyond them, filling the whole moon-like landscape with a reduplicated bellowing roar, the main stream of the Gondo took at one leap the abyss out of which for many hours they had now been climbing.

It was frequently necessary to breathe the horses now. It was piercingly cold. They walked often beside the berlin both to ease the beasts and to keep warm. Their red mufflers floated out behind them in a keen, icy blast that howled and shuddered. The bronze vine against the blue leather of the carriage was now etched in white frost. Despite the great altitude and the difficulty of breathing which they stopped often to overcome, they were exhilarated, intoxicated by infinity below and around them and by the crisp, clean lightness of the frosty air. They shouted with pigmy voices and sang. The impalpable glaze of some infinitely thin but slightly opaque substance seemed to have been lifted from their eyes and brains, permitting sight and feeling to become utterly clear. A hitherto unnoticed weight was gone from their shoulders.

Towards the middle of the afternoon they emerged upon the smooth snow-field at the summit of the pass, scurrying with wreaths and wraiths of snow. Here the wheels sank into the drifts and the horses floundered.

The French were building a hospice a short distance beyond. Black figures gathered like numbed bees in the snow about the already frozen foundations.

"Winter has set in a month early up here," said a young corporal who approached them and examined their papers before one of several timbered huts whose chimneys smoked invitingly. "We will give you a lift over the crest. The first shelter for the night is about five miles below. The engineers for the new road are staying there. You will find good company and wine. The first consul is impatient--'le canon quand passera-t-il le Simplon?' he keeps asking, they say. Now there is a man who makes things go. All marches when he but speaks."

They went into one of the shelters for some brandy and warmth while a team of oxen with old army blankets on them was being driven up and hooked to the pole of the berlin. Then they set out for the last haul through the drifts up to the crest marked by a rude, wooden cross.

Neither Vincent nor Anthony spoke as they trudged up the final slope in the track broken by the carriage. Already the western lights were beginning to redden. Over the plains of Lombardy the thunderstorm of the morning had grown into a vast, rolling cloud-pall washing against the domed fronts of the Apennines. It was a sea of ink clouded with silver. From it, at a seemingly infinite distance, the rays of the sun were dashed back onto the snows of the summits with infernal tinges of red that turned them violet. Here and there long pencils of light searched down into red, lighted patches of the valley floor streaked with silver rivers, infinitely, unutterably far, and sheerly below.

Towards the arc of the crest the titanic skyline of the Alpine ranges with snowy domes, with the sheer, wind-fretted needles of superior peaks, began to dawn upon them as they raised the view into Switzerland beyond.

They stood for some time on the ridge of one of the world's high gables, just where the track passed the rude cross of the ridge itself, and looked about them.

"That," said Vincent, "is France down there." He pointed westward as though towards the plains of another planet that appeared in a dim golden haze beyond a riot of peaks where the earth dipped away into nothing.

Anthony looked eagerly. He was seeing the world at last. This was the top of the tree of life again. Below in the golden haze was the great courtyard.

It was their whim to ride over the crest. They went back a little and climbed into the berlin from which the oxen were now unyoked and standing with their breath blowing out beyond them like patient, fiery monsters stalled in the snow. The nostrils of the horses smoked too while their coats steamed faintly.

"You will find it not such bad going from here down," said the sous-officier. "The snow is less on the other side just now, and then--it is going down. Merci, merci bien, messieurs." He threw up his hand in farewell.

"Allons," shouted Pujol.

The horses plunged forward through the snow, seeming to know that relief was just ahead. The berlin came to the crest, slanted, and began to slide downward on the other side of the pass.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

THE FORCE OF GRAVITY

Travellers who have been ascending a mountain in a carriage and have long felt the force of gravity pulling against them are invariably surprised and relieved when they finally top the crest and begin to roll down the other slope, aided instead of hindered. They now have the impression of being personally favoured by a new and friendly power after having overcome the unreasonable opposition of the old. That this impression is unconsciously taken for granted by them is only to say that it is the more profound. Then, to this fundamental feeling of release and relief is immediately added speed; speed, which confers an added illusion of freedom and power.

It was certainly so with the passengers of the berlin. Their sudden access of good spirits upon topping the pass lasted them half-way down the first descent. The night spent in the company of the French engineers near the crest did nothing to take the edge off their exhilaration; quite the contrary. But they were no longer so impressed by the tremendous height. It had become external. Their passage next morning through the new, arched ways under the glaciers, where icicles hung like dripping stalactites, became merely a novelty, an adventure in the realm of ice. The galleries of shelter for voiding avalanches were only a clever convenience whose pillars threw amusing effects of swiftly alternating light and shade into the berlin. The brakes seemed to be answering the nasal twang of the detachments of General Turreau's sapeurs doing their best to make the way smooth for cannon before winter came. With these ragged soldiers lately detached from the Army of the Rhine Pujol exchanged a hundred carnal remarks about their scarecrow appearance. Remarks which, as it proved later, were to be remembered against him. But nothing could now dampen the high spirits of the young Aristide, a Frenchman returning to France.

Below the regions of snow the road had been temporarily completed, and they no longer met any troops. They met with no one at all. Perhaps it was for that reason that they gradually became more silent as the day wore on and they began to realize the berlin as nothing but a small fly-like object crawling over precarious bridges, down the sheer faces of granite cliffs, and through the twilight of horrible ravines toward the gorge of the Saltine, which roared louder and ever more ominously below.

They could only hear the river. The gorge was covered by a stagnant, grey cloud that seemed to have taken refuge there from the wind which continually ravelled away one end of it, where it extended out into the clear area of the lower valley. As they descended into the cloud's upper mists the day gradually became darker, and in the gorge itself the white river whirled and swayed downward over its riven blocks and boulders to disappear in the twilight beyond as if it would lure those who followed the road along its banks to inevitable destruction.

The cloud, which had been a grey floor from above, was, seen from below, a dark, glimmering ceiling leaking and dripping a kind of pearly rain into the canyon. And this misty-drift was also flowing downward toward the mouth of the gorge, draping the bold escarpments and Gothic rock pinnacles with funereal scarves of strangely glowing mist. A more gloomy and purgatorial vista could scarcely be imagined. And it was all the more impressive and depressing to those in the berlin, who were suddenly plunged into it as though they had been flung into a limbo where darkness was hiding, because they knew that above and below them the snowy mountains and the green valleys were still bathed in cheerful light.

The adventure which overtook the berlin in the gloomy gorge of the Saltine always seemed to Anthony to have happened in a dream. That it came suddenly, was fatal, and occurred apparently for no reason at all, only enhanced its nightmare quality. There were even certain grotesqueries about it.

Anthony left the berlin to answer a call of nature. It was just where the new road made a sharp turn around a shoulder with another sheer face of rock some little distance ahead. He was forced to climb a small hillock for the sake of privacy, and as he sat in that semi-contemplative frame of mind peculiar to certain occasions he happened to notice that the old road had formerly swung inward behind the hillock just ahead of where the berlin was waiting. Presently he started to return to the carriage that way.

The short stretch of abandoned road had only one set of wheel ruts on it. They were made by broad, firm tires like those of an artillery caisson. A number of horses, at least four, he casually noted, perhaps more . . .

He happened to glance away from the river and up the old road. He saw the wheel tracks led straight into the face of a small rise in that direction. His curiosity was aroused. Since Africa a trail meant something to him--and here was a manifest impossibility.

Sheerly on the impulse of the moment he followed the old road for a few yards and came to a face of shaly rubble where, whatever-it-was, and six horses, had driven into the hill.

There could be no doubt about it. There was no room here to turn and the thing had not backed out. The hoof marks all led one way. They, and the broad, heavy wheel lines went directly up to a twenty-foot embankment--and continued into it. It looked as if something infernal had concluded just at this point to go home. In the Plutonian scenery of the dark gorge that conclusion did not seem so unreasonable. For a minute he stood nonplussed. He kicked some of the shale aside and saw that the wheel tracks did continue into it. A small slide followed the motion of his foot. It grew. A miniature avalanche of stone and earth followed. He leaped aside to avoid it.

Doubtless that was why the engineers had driven the new road into the solid cliff face around the turn just ahead of where the berlin was waiting. The old route was a short-cut, but through precarious ground.

He wondered if "whatever-it-was" had pulled through that slide of shale . . . if Faith and Don Luis were sitting inside the hill there, covered up, coach and all, with tons of rock. He had not thought of the coach since leaving Milan but he now knew that he was looking at its trail, a trail that led fearsomely into the heart of a hill.

Lord, how unreasonable his imagination was! It gave him the creeps to think of those two sitting in there in the darkness, forever--and yet he hoped they were. He hoped they were, with everything that was in him; walled-in; thoroughly checked for good and all. No more driving about. That coach, he knew it now, had been bound upon some vast mischief. "Let loose," was the phrase, "let loose." And now it was walled-in. Hurrah!

But was it?

Instantly he was made cautious by that thought. "It might have gone through." He laughed at himself. The problem became a practical one. "Got through," he meant. "Let's see--"

With considerable caution in order to avoid starting any more slides, he climbed from rock to rock over the mass of débris across the old road. The wheel marks continued on the other side of it. "Too bad!"--but they did go on--

For about a hundred yards along a kind of deep rut that went down just ahead through a "V"-shaped opening between rocks. That slide must have just missed them as they passed. He felt sure of it--had just missed them. Why had they turned in this way? Why?

He ran along the sunken road, crouching, and suddenly found himself looking out into an empty, misty space just ahead.

The old road now dipped down violently. The wheel marks here were deep, fresh! He climbed up behind a big boulder and looked down.

The coach-and-six--so he was right about that--the coach-and-six was standing on a good-sized mound about a hundred feet below him and only a giant's stone-throw away. All the horses and mules were harnessed. Someone wrapped in a cloak was dozing on the box. The horses' heads were hanging, but all pointing down toward the new road along the edge of the gorge. The thing was waiting there in the twilight, every line of it--waiting.

Anthony looked about him carefully. Someone must be on watch, he thought. He had no doubt now that little Beppo was right. Don Luis had dashed out on the berlin purposely at Livorno. They must have been waiting there in that alley. It was to have been an "accident." And now they were waiting here in a titanic alley, nature's own; and they had the berlin in a magnificent trap. He could see it all at a glance. The whole scheme lay below him laid out on a chessboard. "Coach to move and check berlin"--for good and all. He wiped his forehead. For the first time he understood fully what the hatred of Don Luis meant. That man and Faith were sitting down there in the infernal, cloudy twilight of the gorge, waiting.

A skein of mist detached itself from a sharp rock-needle and lengthened out, slowly stretching downward. It drifted quietly through the dark, open windows of the coach. While it did so he stood spell-bound.

The mound on which the coach stood was the height of ground in a boulder-strewn amphitheatre several acres in area indenting one side of the gorge. The new road swung into it suddenly, coming downstream around a bald shoulder of granite. It then continued directly along the edge of the gorge. There was no wall along the edge yet. Not even a rail. It went off sheer. From the depth below small clouds and mist were rising. The river, by its distant roar, must be a quarter of a mile away--down.

Anthony smiled grimly. All that the coach had to do was to dash down from the mound onto the berlin when it came around the bend. The "angle of incidence," he told himself, had been nicely calculated. The vehicle on the inner track was bound to win. The berlin would certainly be forced into the gorge.

Just then he heard Vincent and Pujol calling him. A whistle immediately came from the granite shoulder just above the road. "So that was where they were watching!" The man on the box of the coach came-to with a start and gathered up the reins. Even the horses were listening.

Anthony turned and dodged back along the old road, keeping low. He had been gone about ten minutes. He slithered down over the débris and came out upon the berlin. Pujol and Vincent were now bawling for him lustily. His expression was enough to silence them instantly.

"Have you seen a wolf?" began Vincent.

"Worse," said Anthony, and rapidly outlined the trap ahead. He drew the scheme of it in the road for Pujol, who looked at it calmly. Anthony hoped for a suggestion from Vincent. But the practical man of affairs had now nothing to say.

"You have pistols, monsieur?" asked Pujol.

Anthony nodded.

"We might go up and get that fellow on watch. M. Vincent can guard the carriage here." Pujol smiled at Anthony.

"I am ready to go, too," said Vincent, getting out firmly but very pale.

"It won't do, Pujol. That fellow up there on the rock will see us coming and bring the others down on us. I had thought of that," replied Anthony.

Vincent got in the berlin again--rather hastily.

"I know!" said Pujol. His face beamed. "Look here!"

He dragged Anthony over and showed him a cotter-pin through the end of the shaft-pole. It had a ring in it. "There is a little catch underneath," said Pujol, "that holds it in. We can remove that and tie a spare rein through the ring. Pull it, and the horses go forward harness and all leaving the carriage behind. You pull the pin and put on the brakes. I will ride the lead horse. Do you see? It is the coach that will go over--in between. Right through us." Pujol waved his hands.

"Good for you, Aristide," said Anthony.

They set to work frantically. The little catch was pulled out; the rein fastened through the ring.

"What are you doing?" said Vincent. They paid no attention to him. Anthony was talking swiftly to Pujol.

"They only heard you calling," he said, climbing onto the box while Pujol prepared to mount the left lead horse. "They can't see us for about fifty yards yet; not till we get clear of this hill. Then it is about two hundred more around the turn, a very sharp one, mind. I suppose the signal for bringing the coach down on us will be a shot--to make us look the wrong way. Don't look back. I'll shout when I pull out the pin. Gallop on. Don't let the horses stumble when they jerk loose, mind that. Ready?"

"If you fellows . . . " said Vincent sticking his head out.

"Go," shouted Anthony.

Vincent was thrown against the back seat violently. The berlin tore down the road. "I might have left Vincent out of this," thought Anthony, "but--" He heard a pistol shot overhead. They began to take the curve.

"Much, much too fast, Pujol," muttered Anthony. He was pale enough himself now. The berlin began to slide toward the edge. The horses ahead swung around the curve. He checked the little carriage with the brakes. It swung; it almost pivoted. The right rear wheel glittered in space. For a fractional instant it spun free. There was a bump, and the berlin hurtled on.

Inside, Vincent swallowed his lights. A pistol which he had taken out dropped from his hand. The berlin was tearing along the edge of the gorge out of which the mist rose. Into this home of clouds Vincent vomited.

With one hand on the brakes and the other on the rein to the cotter-pin, Anthony looked back and saw the coach coming down from the mound. The Kitten was driving standing up. He had not expected the berlin to come around the curve at a mad gallop, and he was lashing his horses. He expected to strike the berlin a glancing blow while moving on an inner circle, and then to sheer off and in. It looked easy--and it would have been. But now in order to catch the berlin at just the right point the coach must itself come headlong down the little hill. Much faster than Don Luis had intended.

It was doing that. The Kitten seemed to have gone mad.

The clatter of twenty-four hoofs, and the heavy wheels rushing over the stony ground to his left burst upon Anthony's ears above the roar of the cataract below on the right. He looked--shouted--and pulled the pin. He clamped down the brakes. He was nearly thrown off.

A space had instantly appeared between the berlin and its four horses that were now galloping frantically down the road ahead, dragging the thrashing pole and tangled traces after them.

Through the clear interval just ahead of where the berlin had come to a violent stop the huge, black coach and its six beasts rocketed off into the cloudy gorge.

It made an almost complete circle in empty air.

The Kitten had tried to swerve. He had pulled the lead mules around violently. But the coach had gone on; swung its three teams like a whip lash, and snapped them off the road.

Those brief instants had seemed long. The Kitten was still standing up when he went down. The last thing Anthony saw was the two mules trying to gallop in. They fell scrambling. Their faces, their long, writhing lips, white teeth and eyes went over the brink. The worst thing was the faces of the two mules. They had understood. . . .

From the gorge not a sound came back. It was some seconds before Anthony realized that he was sitting listening intently, waiting for a crash that would never be heard.

At last he stood up on the top of the berlin and looked about him. It was only now that he fully realized what the stratagem had implied--death. He took it for granted that Don Luis and Faith were both down there in the gorge of the Saltine. He was not glad of it now, and yet he could not be sorry. It did not seem to him that he had done wrong.

Down the road Pujol put in an appearance coming back with the horses, which had galloped far before he could check them. He knew what Pujol would say, "Voilà, monsieur; allons nous en."--And they would go on. He started to climb down.

"Vincent . . ."

Just then he heard someone laughing.

It was Faith Paleologus.

She and Don Luis were standing up there on the mound looking down at the berlin. They were only a short distance away. Sancho was sitting at Don Luis' feet and rocking himself to and fro. His master had put his hand on his head. Echoed from the rock faces of the cloudy amphitheatre, the cool feminine laughter was reduplicated unbearably as if the gloomy, sardonic spirit of the gorge were holding its sides over this chef-d'œuvre of a jest.

And to Faith, there was something enormously humorous about the disappearance of the coach. Don Luis' plans had been so well laid. The Kitten was so sure of himself--and suddenly gravity had taken charge, flicked the coach off the earth and left them all standing there with Pujol racing on down the road like a madman. The horseless berlin with Anthony standing up on it looked exquisitely helpless and silly. How surprised the Kitten must have been--that sure little fool-of-a-man. Flick--and he was gone, mules and all. She had had to lean up against a rock to contain herself. She was sorry Don Luis had lost; and she was glad Anthony had won. So contradictory a rush of emotion demanded laughter or tears even from her. It was overwhelming. She must make a noise. She began to choke--

"My morocco notebook is gone," said Don Luis childishly, in a tone of voice that might have announced the fall of Rome.

Faith had instantly become a machine for laughter.

"Taissez vous," growled Don Luis after a while. Her curious half-hysteria was a little catching even to him. "Sancho here has lost his son. They are a family which has served mine for generations."

"The last, señor," whispered Sancho. "Gone?"--he waved toward the river as though he could not believe it.

"I'll take the whip to you, madame," said Don Luis fiercely.

"Gone!" said Faith, and went off again.

It was true. There was no whip. The coach which carried it had gone--the coach had gone! He realized it now, fully.

"Fetch me a club, Sancho," roared Don Luis.

"There are nothing but rocks here. Little ones," whined Sancho. The tears that streamed down his face were for his son. He sobbed and picked up a handful of pebbles.

"Hell's-devils!" rapped out Don Luis--and burst out laughing, too. The coach had gone; he and Faith remained. In that laughter they were married.

"You didn't think I would be such a fool as to sit in it, too?" he asked, taking her by the hand almost sympathetically.

"No, no," she replied. "I never thought that! I wasn't laughing at you."

"No, at the other thing," he said satisfied. "Well, it does interfere sometimes."

She nodded.

They watched Pujol fastening the pole onto the berlin again.

"Not so bad," admitted Don Luis grudgingly.

"Very good," said Faith.

He nodded.

Anthony picked his hat off the ground. He hesitated a moment before clapping it on again. Then he made a flourish toward the mound, and pointed toward the berlin with it.

"Do you want to go down in that?" said Don Luis, turning to Faith. "We might, you know."

"No," she said. Don Luis took off his hat and bowed his refusal.

The young man below replied. He put on his hat and climbed into the berlin.

"That particular incident is closed," said Don Luis. "Now how the devil are we going to get down the mountain?"

In the distance the berlin trotted around the next rock shoulder, going down.

----------

Vincent was really in a bad way, Anthony discovered as soon as he climbed into the carriage. He simply could not forgive himself for having shown the white-feather. He insisted that he had. It was painful. Besides that he was really physically ill. They stopped frequently while he got out.

He felt better when they emerged into the sunlight of the valley below but Anthony could see that the shadow of the gorge still lay between them.

"I want to talk to you, tonight, Vincent," he said.

"Oh, do you still want to?" asked Vincent.

"Why, of course. Do you suppose I have no sympathy for any other way of feeling but my own? Now it won't do to have you suspecting me of despising you. Don't be ridiculous. Buck up."

It was better after that. They hurried on through several villages in the upper reaches of the valley. Anthony was determined to outdistance Don Luis completely now. Doubtless one of the army wagons would pick them up. A work detachment came down every evening. It would never do to find himself in the same inn with him. But, my word, it would be cold up there this evening. He wondered what they would do.

They came to the last part of the descent, a series of zigzag roads down a succession of terraces that towered above and slipped away into nothing below. And beyond that--soft, warm weather; a valley glittering gold and green with pastures and wheat-fields; the bronze, yellow, and copper-covered domes and spires of a Swiss town.

Here they put the tired, strained horses in a comfortable post stable, Pujol, tired as he was, saw them all rubbed down before he came in to join Anthony in the hospitality of a genuinely civilized little resort.

There was a party of Protestant merchants from Geneva who had driven over to spend the last of the summer. Anthony thought he had never seen such extremely decent people. They were more impeccable than the most respectable English and seemed to belong to no class. "Freemen," he thought. The place was spotless, supper delicious, everybody spoke French and there were no beggars. For the first time in his life he ate fresh, unsalted butter and saw thick cream. Vincent, poor devil, had gone to bed. "My, what he is missing!" he thought. There were some pretty good things in Europe after all--de la crême, par exemple,--and--

He went out whistling, and looked up at the Gargantuan barrier over which by some miracle he had come to this clean, fresh, civilized, warmly-human little hotel. His whistle died away. The contrast seemed a little ridiculous--but good. Perhaps he was revelling a little too much in it. Faith and Don Luis up there nearer the glaciers might be spared this sense of ant-like smallness tonight. They might be finding themselves in a place more fitting to their souls than their bodies. There was something tremendous about them, he felt. "Equals of mine, of a different kind. My opposites, but equals. We have met, and passed. What next? No, I am not flattering myself. There is no one to hear. And I know myself now. I too might have gone down standing up. I am grateful. Do You hear? I am grateful."

And he ran his eye up the vaulting terraces only a few miles away. He threw back his head to look up the smooth, snowy slopes. He bent his neck back to see the huge, glittering peaks and pinnacles up there glistening amid the glittering stars. Such things as these also were in Europe.

Somewhere along a mountain road half-way up the barrier, like a spark crawling imperceptibly down a wall of sheer darkness, descended a tiny, winking light.

He watched it for some moments, thinking. Then he turned out of the chill, clear night to go in. A light was also shining in Vincent's window. He was waiting for him then.

Anthony meant to have a good talk with his friend tonight. To unburden his heart. He meant to tell him how he had set out over the mountains with a certain ideal in his heart, an ideal that had been reinforced by that experience at Pisa. How he meant to try to grow in the grace that had been Brother François's until he could return good for evil--and how he had carried out that resolution by causing the death of a man and six helpless beasts. And his friend had thought that he would despise him because he, Vincent, was not capable of great physical courage. Why was it that Vincent had always looked up to him; had in most things been Anthony's follower even when they were boys? It was true. Now, if their friendship was to endure, Vincent must know how and where Anthony had failed--and failed time after time. He would tell him that. He would tell him how he had failed in Africa. Vincent was not the only one who faltered and grew ill on high and dizzy roads--not by a long shot!

He opened the door of the room and saw that his friend had been waiting for him anxiously. The room was bright with candles. Vincent looked up from the bed, where he lay still rather pale, to give him a delighted and relieved smile.

"I heard you whistling in the garden and I thought you might have forgotten," he said.

"No, no!" He felt a little awkward and was at a loss how to begin.

An old charwoman in a spotless, frilled cap and glistening wooden shoes came in and made the fire. She gave them both a cheery good night. It was easier now. They seemed at home when she had gone.

And so they talked well into the night. They talked about everything with all the windows and doors of their spirits open. They passed in and out and saw each other's dwelling houses with no locked rooms.

"--And I think," said Vincent, "that under certain kinds of trials I too could be courageous. In fact, I know I could. And I am sorry that I was annoyed over the berlin, because you were smarter than I was about it and made a lovely, swift thing when I could see nothing but old bones. Do you know that I have been taking it out on you all the way from Livorno in a hundred little ways? I felt it necessary to be superior--Mein Gott! I was--jealous!"

"Why, do you know I must have been insufferable about the berlin myself, Vincent. And the funny part about it is I meant all the time to give it to you. I was going to wait till Paris. You remember I laughed when you said, 'There is something in the latest mode,' that day at Livorno when Terrini brought it around. Well, I thought then of your calling on M. Ouvrard in it; how surprised you would be when you knew it was yours. Then I began to like it so well. Oh, well, you see how it was. But there--the berlin belongs now to Herr Vincent Nolte."

"Ach, mein lieber freund," said Vincent, his eyes shining. "Es ist für ewigkeit."

"Ja wohl," said Anthony and laughed happily as he went out.

"Toni," Vincent called after him in a stage-whisper as he went down the hall to his own room, "I did forget to tell you something." The plump German face of Herr Nolte peering through the half-opened door looked very red under the flannel night-cap. But it was very serious.

"What?"

"I was thinking of getting married myself." The door closed almost violently.

And so the Alps were crossed.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

THE PLAINS OF FRANCE

Out of Switzerland, through a canton where all the women wore round fur caps even in September, as if the country were garrisoned by shakoed regiments of females, they trotted down to Vevey along the metallically smooth reaches of Lake Leman. Then, leaving the miniature villages of chalets clustered behind them at the feet of mountains, they pushed on to Fribourg.

St. Peter, standing there in the public square with a key so large--"that the lock which it fits has to be opened by gunpowder," said Vincent, did not detain them long.

The disconcertingly rickety bridges over mountain torrents, the steep downward slope of the snow-thatched roof of the world were now left behind.

Toward Bâle the road meandered playfully and without much reason from one village to another. The women here, even the little girls, wore broad white stomachers with small aprons, fan-shaped hats prinked out of white gauze. The old men stood smoking large white pipes before very small inns. Every house had its thatch descending in low overhanging eaves over pointed windows set with round panes like bottle-ends, and each seemed to be the cottage in the wood to which the ogre lured children with candy. Only the ogres were gone while the fair-haired children remained. "Plainly, this is the toyland of my German nursery books," mused Vincent. "The forest has been cut away and left the villages exposed. Any person can see that." And he was much pleased by the fancy.

Everything pleased them mightily now. They moved in an amber haze of enjoyment somewhat heightened by a conscientious sampling of the various brews and vintages of the several neighbourhoods through which they successively passed.

"I think the horses are thirsty again, Aristide," Anthony would say.

"Oui, monsieur, ils souffrent. Ils s'en mordront les pouces."

So they would all get out, to let the horses drink, until the surfeited beasts dipping their soft noses in sparkling pails would only wrinkle their lips a little in the water and stamp with surprise at so much damp solicitude.

As they went down the valley both the brews and vintages grew better. "Wine rises to its peak in Burgundy and beer foams to its crest in Bavaria," quoted Vincent. "The spirits of the right and left bank thus rival each other in a balance of excellence. Along this route one can enjoy both sides at the same time." But for all that Anthony noticed that Vincent stuck to beer rather closely and he to wine. And this was now the most serious difference between them.

"Toyland" seemed by a natural transition to extend itself into an elfin country that they passed through by night going on into the early morning hours. It was the tumbled landscape of the Jura Mountains, or rather hills, for they seemed nothing more than that after what lay behind. But they were musical with waterfalls under the late remnant of the moon, pines and crags faëry with September mists. And so on to the famous hostelry of the "Three Kings" at Bâle, where the Rhine ran green and clear under its windows; as yet unmuddied by the long expected autumn rains.

At Mulhouse they were both moved to get on faster. Leaving their own horses behind them to be brought up by easy stages, they hired post and galloped down through Colmar to Strasbourg with fresh relays every few miles. Aristide sat in the berlin now enjoying himself beyond measure.

If he was not the soul he was at least the wit of the party, and he knew how to argue them past the columns of French troops along the Rhine roads till even the wagoners let them go by with a grin. Here began a second foretaste of that song of bugles that grew into a swelling chorus as they continued down into France until the very spirit of the land seemed to be giving tongue and to be loosing its silver élan, and bright, brazen "Ça ira" into the golden atmosphere. If the church bells had been the subdued hymn of Italy, the bugle, when the church bells were now silenced as often as not, was the voice of sovereign France. Only in the walled cities the old iron clangour from the steeples still went on. But it was answered now by the trumpets of recruits drilling for the armies of the first consul that shouted back from the fields and from the walls and citadels over the roll of revolutionary drums.

Strasbourg, however, seemed quiet enough. There was something undisturbable about it, Anthony thought, with its towering cathedral spire and the crooked streets full of peak-roofed houses.

Before one of these the berlin stopped.

It was the house of one of Vincent's new relatives by the marriage of Anna, a relation for which there was no word in any European language to express at once the remoteness of its degree and the heartiness of its recognition. Just as the cross on the Simplon had marked the height-of-land of their journey, the hospitable house of the glover Herr Johann Bucer at Strasbourg marked the summit of wassail, good-humour, and gusto of the trip.

Life in Livorno had not altered the fundamental Teutonic tastes of Vincent. Amid a host of new, blue-eyed, burgher "cousins" and straw-haired river-maidens from the Ill and Breusch, he advanced to the complacent sound of city rebecs in the chambers of the Aubette where, despite the Revolution, the gavotte and minuet still survived. He drove to the Temple Neuf on Sunday with the berlin packed full as a case of sausages with juvenile Lutheran relations. He went to sleep with the rest of the Bucers, Von Stürmecks, Brants, and Toulers while the pastor passed the sand twice through his hour-glass in Alsatian Deutsch. He sat at the place of honour, at a succession of boards too firm to groan under the hams, würste, fat geese, pâtés de foie gras, and Hochheimer which they had been built to bear up under, while he and Anthony ate, danced, dozed, smoked, and talked themselves into the heart of the family to the vast delight and relief of Anna at Düsseldorf, who received in due course of post an account of these rejoicings in the refined hand of a female cousin.

. . . And there has been a good deal of talk, too, my dear Anna, for no one could have been more gallant than our cousin and his friend, and some modest hopes and speculations on the part of certain prospective hausfrauen whose cheeks are too firm to tremble but not too red to blush in spite of all the cooking. I hope you will be coming here next spring for your first lying-in which I hear is . . .

Anna's eyes overflowed with mixed feelings as she put on the pearls which Anthony had given her, for dinner that night. Ach, if he would only marry into the Von Stürmecks it would be schön, sehr schön. Everything with Anna was schön.

But Anthony had no intention of doing that. It was evident that Vincent had, however. And it became necessary for his friend to remind him that the berlin was at least expected to carry them to Paris and was not meant solely for the delectations of Fräulein Katharina Geiler, charming and incapable of walking as she might be.

"For my part I have now seen the collection of watches made by Uncle André, the collection of ritters' swords assembled by Uncle Franz, and tomorrow I am to hear the collection of musical spheres and scaled glasses in the camera of der alte Uncle Fritz. Vincent, I just can't listen to it. Not to another glass, or sigh over the sorrows of Werther while the taps drip in the cellar. My capacity has been reached. And you know I have stood by you loyally, too."

Vincent admitted it with gratitude; admitted even his now somewhat vague engagements with M. Ouvrard and other bankers--in Paris. After a formal call upon the fräulein and her mother and a supper at Herr Bucer's that promised to ruin their digestions permanently, they found Aristide with some difficulty in a house on the Bröglieplatz and prevailed upon him to harness up their own horses which had also been eating their heads off. And so westward now till the peaked roofs, the star-like citadel of Vauban, and the high spire of Strasbourg vanished from view as they left the valley of the Rhine behind and headed across the pleasant land of France.

----------

If he had been alone Anthony would have continued on down the Rhine and crossed the channel from Holland, but he wanted to complete the trip with Vincent and to meet some of the bankers in Paris, particularly Ouvrard, which Vincent was so anxious to have him do.

Vincent had by no means permitted the subject of the Spanish-Mexican silver he had discussed with him at Leghorn to drop out of sight; in fact, they had discussed it frequently as they drove along. It now began to appeal to Anthony as "something to do" for reasons of which Vincent had no idea.

It was doubtful, Anthony felt, if he could bring himself to settle down in Europe anywhere. He would not feel any violent national enthusiasms. If anything, by sympathy he was inclined to feel himself English, but the sojourn at Gibraltar had done something to jar that. The idea of going to America where he might put his roots down in new soil appealed to him. If he remained in Europe he would have to give allegiance to some sovereign or society for which in reality he would probably never feel more than an assumed loyalty. That this was in many ways unfortunate, he acknowledged. But that due to his upbringing and later experiences in Cuba and Africa it was also true, there was no use denying. How become a Spaniard, a Frenchman, or an Englishman overnight? No, it would be like his oath to the King of Spain in Havana, taken but not registered. But once in America he might become part of a growing community, not the master of it as at Gallegos, which was a personally cultivated mushroom, but part of a living, growing organization in which he might find a wide scope for his ideals, his abilities, and his natural desires. Then too, the adventure of the thing appealed to him. "New Orleans," "Louisiana,"--the names called. He would still see the world and he was already aware of something that most Europeans, even intelligent and travelled ones that he had met, did not seem to have an inkling of--that Europe was not the world, Europe was only a small, at present he could see, a very disturbed and disturbing part of it. "Yes," he thought--

"The subjects which men think about and to which they attach the significant verbs of action should always maintain some connection with objects--out of which after all the subjects develop. The trouble with the verb to be is that it is intransitive. And there has been a lot of intransitive thinking done in Europe in the past. I suppose devoting your life just to being yourself, and you nearly always follow someone else's pattern, is rather selfish. If a great many people should all start out just 'to be themselves,' following no set pattern, things would get pretty rotten and static. The French seem to have gotten tired of that plan and broken it up. They are probably trying to find a new one. That may be what all the excitement is about. A little hysterical to judge by the bugles and drums. I wonder what that man Bonaparte thinks? What are his subject and his object? Evidently he is a kind of human verb between them. I tried being just that at Gallegos--to do, to do, to do--it is not enough. Besides my object was wrong there. It nearly ruined the subject," he chuckled. "What else was there I learned?

"When I was a child Father Xavier said in effect, 'Be (a certain kind of man) in order to please God--the church will tell you what pleases God. You can become in that pattern by doing what you are told to do. Take the wafer and seal the bargain.'

"John Bonnyfeather said, 'Be honourable (my code) and devote your life to transferring goods from one place to another. You can live on the tolls like a gentleman.'

"Cibo said, 'You can't become anything but a healthy, pleasure-loving human animal--act in such a way as to be wise within those limits. Happiness will follow.'

"I said to myself, 'Do in order to keep on doing. Life is action--' and in four years I nearly went mad. I can see now I much mistook Cibo.

"Brother François said, 'Lose all sense of your own being in doing good to others--in that way you will be reborn in God. In Christ is the pattern which the church preserves. Imitate Him.'

"And now where am I? Physically, somewhere between Strasbourg and Nancy going west. Politically, nowhere. Financially, lucky. Spiritually, waiting in a limbo to make contact again with the world. For that is the first step in carrying out my own vision of the plan. I must in some way put down roots in a place, associate myself in primary human ways, somewhere, somehow, and soon. And the first step is to know and to find people. And why not men of great affairs as well as little ones? My wealth and my training make it possible. I have cemented my boyhood friendship on this trip with Vincent, who loves me. Why not let that be the entering point and this Spanish-Mexican business the wedge to follow after? It will provide a thousand vital associations. I might drive it in deep--to a wife. I might drive it home. And besides what else--I can't become a mere spending dilettante. Well, I shall talk with these bankers at Paris, and with Sir Francis Baring in London, and Mr. Labouchère at Amsterdam on the way back from England--if I come back. I might live there, of course. Poor Florence!--Yes, I shall at least find out, and then--"

"We ought to get to Metz sometime tomorrow," said Vincent sleepily. "Make up your mind, my boy, I'm going to sleep for the first stages of this journey to Paris. I can't help it. Strasbourg has worn me out. And I really must, I really must you know, be able to think when I come to talk to Ouvrard--and Talleyrand!" Vincent whistled and sat up uneasily. "Yes, you were right, we delayed too long. You should have made me leave before. For that Katharina now I really do not give a damn. What did you think of her?"

"Sehr schön," replied Anthony noncommittally.

Vincent nodded after a while and sank back to sleep as well as the road would permit. At least the cushions were soft and the springs strong. A smile gradually gained over his anxious expression. "You are right, Toni, sehr schön. It was worth it. We shall see these fellows in Paris just the same. I wonder if, after what has happened, I should still deliver Don Luis' message to Ouvrard--those blank permits for Spanish produce from the colonies, you remember."

"Yes, I don't think the marquis is one to let his hates interfere with his income," replied Anthony. "Besides his little plan was directed against me."

"I was in the carriage, too, don't forget," muttered Vincent.

"That was merely accidental from Don Luis' standpoint, I suppose."

"I think you are right--again," said Vincent after a while, and dozed off along a good stretch of road.

"Why was it so many people took his advice or depended upon him when it came to acting?" Anthony wondered. Here was Vincent. Their association had been and continued to be almost boyish. Yet Vincent, he knew, was an astute and able man. Important men had entrusted him with important affairs; believed in and counted upon him. Yet he was turning to Anthony for advice and the signal to act just as he had always done. Of course, Vincent's professional manner was different. The natural and domestic lining of his professional front was exposed to Anthony--and yet? And there was Pujol out on the box, ambitious and keen. He had left Pisa to get into the main current. Young Aristide was no fool. He said he did not intend to forget what he knew about the law--and he knew a great deal. He couldn't stand hearing it talked about any more. He wanted to practice it in Paris. And somehow, somehow, Anthony knew it, Aristide had picked him as the means to put himself upon his way. He would expect Anthony to help him--and he would. Perhaps that was it, he not only would--he did. The quality of one's personality was a curious thing. It reached out and drew others along with it. It had drawn an ex-slaver, a German-Italian banker, and a law student all into the little berlin and the horses were drawing all of them together to Paris.

The swift drumming of hoofs fell like music on his ears. "Go"--the command still seemed authentic. Its fulfilment contented him. He looked out with satisfaction upon the shifting landscape; lost himself in it.

They rolled into Nancy about midnight, after considerable trouble at the gate, and slept like logs. Pujol had made a fast trip.

----------

From now on they settled down to travelling in earnest. The autumn of the year 1801 was dry and crisp. The rains delayed interminably. The roads smoked with dust under the horses' feet while they overtook the lumbering diligences that looked like travelling houses; while the important military posts rushed by them. An occasional detachment of Moreau's ragged cavalry ambled along with a disgruntled air, recalled from the Rhine. They were discontented. Their victories had not been won under the eye of the first consul. Their battles did not count. It was whispered their general was in disgrace. To Aristide's quips they replied with curses.

At Varennes an old sergeant descended from his horse and kicked Aristide all around the stable yard. The sport was like to become popular. Other troopers prepared to join in. Anthony and Vincent were forced to interfere and provide enough pourboire to last the troopers to the Marne in order to get Pujol off. From an upper window a hard-bitten major looked on approvingly in a uniform which still affected a Jacobin slovenliness. Vincent thought of protesting to him.

"I would not do so, monsieur," whispered a neat-looking young corporal. "They say the major was with Carrier at Nantes, one of the old terrorist enthusiasts. Ma foi!" The young fellow started violently and froze to attention. The major was roaring at him.

"Sartain, cochon, what are you saying to those aristocrats, you rascal?"

"Rien, mon major!"

"Throw them out," roared the officer, evidently full of wine.

"We will go," shouted Vincent. "I shall complain of this at the Tuileries, monsieur le major."

The major's face clouded. "Les Tuileries!" and then, "This is Varennes, citizens. You remember--Varennes?"

"We are going," Vincent assured him.

"Oui? A l'enfer," muttered the major and went back to his bottle. The older soldiers looked at them sullenly and jibed at the berlin.

Pujol said nothing now. His bottom throbbed as they drove hastily out of Varennes, and there were indignant tears in his eyes. "I will get that major some time," he said. "Wait!"

"Nice customer, that," said Anthony.

Vincent was purple with rage. "Wait!" he also said. He looked out over the wide waste of the Argonne where the clouds were drifting serenely along the wooded ranges. He was thinking how times were changed since the Prussians had been driven back here--and bankers were not without their influence again. "We and the serene, indifferent landscape remain," he thought. "The farms and trees push over the graves while interest goes on. Idealism is very expensive and the voice of the people dies away into the chest of the first consul--which is now empty and needs Mexican dollars, I understand."

"What are you grinning at, you old miser?" asked Anthony.

"Did it ever strike you what a wonderful thing geometrical progression is in peace times?" replied Vincent. "I mean applied to government consols, you know."

Anthony shook his head. Vincent had his moods too, sometimes. They galloped through Les Islettes and slept at Sainte-Menehould.

----------

The vineyards and small hill farms began to change into the wide wheat-fields and the towered granges of level farms as they pushed on towards Paris. Here and there a gaunt fire-scarred skeleton of a château rose amid fire-blasted park trees.

"Not many aristocrats have seen fit to return yet," muttered Pujol. "I hope my father will be able to keep his new lands in Auvergne. We don't want the émigrés back. What an ass that major was. Vive Bonaparte! He knows the solid people who are behind him. No mobs and no seigneurs. Just let us keep the land."

They stopped at Mourmelon to let the horses rest, and looked out over the broad plateau on the other side of the river.

They crossed the rolling Champagne slowly. The beasts were tired now and they could get no relays. All the horses had been taken for the artillery or were being kept for the military couriers. It was lucky they had their own. At Rheims they had to fight to keep both teams. Vincent had to produce all his credentials. As it was they were regretfully allowed to proceed.

"A great requisition and impressement is under way," explained an old officer in what had once been a royal regiment of the line, one of the maison du roi. "Times have changed I can tell you. Now everybody must serve under the Revolutionary law. The newest arrangements for enforcing it have just been perfected at Paris and they are trying them out first in the valley of the Marne under the eye of the first consul. He is driving about from one arrondissement to another, I hear. Watch you don't meet him--with four horses. War with England, they say."

"I thought it was to be peace," said Anthony. "The negotiations are under way I was told."

The captain leaned into the window of the berlin confidentially, where it stood before the prefecture on the square at Rheims. He shrugged his shoulders till his epaulettes flapped. "Peace? Yes, or a little perhaps. But what is it, la paix? Only a little time to let the old world wheeze and breathe easy after a good blood-letting. In a few years its veins are swelled out dangerously again. In the forehead they begin to throb. And then--it has another stroke. It calls loudly for the basin and knife to save it. Le roi, le peuple, le consul premier, what is the difference who the surgeon is it calls upon? The operation is the same. I have in my time seen them all operating. The people are the worst. They like guts all over the place covered with symbolic olive branches and doves. Beautiful!--les fêtes de la paix, little white doves with red feet and those cheesecloth arches, quelle magnificence! I have trained my horse to rumble behind when he passes under them. He is an old war horse and understands. And what after all are all those young men doing in this classe which Bonaparte is calling to the colours--to preserve peace, of course--ah--one must hasten to add that. Why, I will tell you, trying to keep the girls quiet and placid and endeavouring to drink up each harvest as it occurs.

"Venus, le vin, it is not sufficient. Men must live even if only for a few weeks. War is vivid, a thing of flame and thunder. It takes one out of the house under the stars. It exchanges the bubbling of babies for the mewing of eagles and the cough of cannon. What is the difference if one dies? One dies anyhow. I am sorry, of course, for those who lose their superior colons for Schömberg-Lippe--quelle dommage! But for France--what are a few bones, a leg? if France asks it? Is it not then a leg of honour, a limb beyond compliment, a foot shrivelled in the divine fire? Voilà!" He roared suddenly caught in the flames himself.

A tremendous fanfare of trumpets came beating back from the façade of the cathedral at Rheims. The square vibrated with it. A squadron of glittering, spick-and-span cuirassiers trotted across the place, its musicians ahead on grey horses. People drinking under the little awnings about the place rose, and turning white in the face, screamed. The scarfed staff at the prefecture ran to the doors and windows and shouted. The regiment had come to aid in numbering the people. The patient Jewish-looking saints and the long angels carved on the front of the church, where Jeanne d'Arc had crowned her rascal sovereign, looked out as they had for eleven centuries, and trembled. The bells above burst out, the gargoyles grinned. "Vive Bonaparte, vive Napoleon," roared the streets of Rheims, "vive la France."

Pujol sat and gaped. Something had happened to France while he had been toying with fas and jus at Pisa. The old captain rushed away.

"Get on," cried Anthony. The berlin started. "That captain was drunk," he said.

"They are all drunk here," replied Vincent. "Don't let it catch you."

"It's got Aristide, listen to him shouting up there. Vive everything." They were galloping recklessly through the main street.

"Don't kill the horses, Pujol,"--Anthony looked out of the window grinning. Pujol suddenly looked ashamed. "Vive la loi," he muttered--"I live by that." They went more slowly and carefully now. Rheims with its roaring steeple was left behind.

They descended upon the Marne at Dormans just above Château-Thierry. They asked the way of the curé, "Tout droit." The first consul was just across the river at Crezansay yesterday, mustering. "Look out," he said, eyeing the horses. They laughed and went bowling along, the river on their left.

"We are lucky to see the Marne valley so beautiful and sunny this time of year," said Vincent. "Did you ever see anything so golden and peaceful? The spirit of the harvest seems to be resting here just now. Usually by October it is soggy and full of driving rain. One might imagine that little valley of the Verdon across there to be undisturbable with its overhanging forest-clad heights looking down on the spires of old villages. Look how the meadows and the stubble of the wheat-fields reflect the light. It is as clear and white as the wine they grow hereabouts. That deserves a better reputation than it has, by the way. It's a little like the Rhine along here, but chalky soil, you know." He leaned out, gazing across the river with a genuine enthusiasm for the landscape rare for him.

"Would you like to live in France, Vincent?"

"It depends upon how rich I get, and how safe property is going to be here. Yes, sometimes I have thought of it--Paris? I have been living there for about half my time the last two years, you know. But I was thinking of the country rather; a place to settle down in. And right along here is one of my favourite spots. It reminds me of Germany, a miniature Rhine. I would like to be able to take that old castle of Martel there on the hill and rebuild it."

"And bring Katharina from Strasbourg for its princess," hinted Anthony.

"Ja," said Vincent.

"Living in France because it reminds you of Germany is a very curious German reason to live in France, isn't it?" teased Anthony. "And of course it must be a castle on a river."

"Ach," replied Vincent a little irritated. "You mistake me. It is because it is so beautiful just here. Everyone has favourite spots. Call it my castle in Spain then. A castle in Spain might suit you better, nicht wahr?"

"It might," admitted Anthony, "provided--"

"Dolores," grunted Vincent. "But do look at my view now. Around the curve here we begin to see Château-Thierry. Am I not right?"

And Anthony had to admit he was. There was an unexpected, delicate charm about Château-Thierry dreaming in the sunlight, set in the midst of flat, emerald meadows along a steel-blue river with enormous, bold, green hills behind it. They came upon it around the curve suddenly and there it was lightly poised by the river-bank like a white bird about to take flight; the arches of its white bridge leaping easily; its inexpressibly graceful belfry soaring against a background of verdure; the flying buttresses of St. Crépin's church rising in splendid uplifting curves; the golden clock tower and copper spires glittering above ivory houses,--lacelike, wonderful, a village that had become a little city and kept the charm of both.

"La Fontaine had his house somewhere hereabouts," mused Anthony. "I remember Toussaint talking about it. He came here once to see the poet's library. Great rows of books all bound in sumptuous leather by the Sun King, he said. Poor Toussaint! I wish he were here now. This place reminds me of some of his dreams."

"I can't imagine shooting myself. Can you, Toni?"

"No--not exactly. Not now anyhow."

They turned into the main street and found themselves unexpectedly in the midst of old acquaintances. It was the troop of cavalry that had treated them so roughly at Varennes. As they drove past the prefecture someone gave a shout. A couple of troopers ran out and seized the heads of the horses. Their old friend the major was standing on the steps smiling significantly.

"Bonjour, messieurs les aristocrates," said he. "So you haven't got to the Tuileries yet--not even with four horses?"

They were forced to alight.

Major Luçay--for they were soon only too familiar with his name--was, they also discovered, in charge of the requisitions and enrolment of recruits in the arrondissement. The local civil officers were evidently afraid of him. He and his sullen veterans of Hohenlinden had been temporarily detached on their way home to perform what they considered to be local police duty and were cursing their mal chance in meeting the general who had given them orders. The induction of recruits and the requisitions had been merciless. It was noticed that Luçay was especially severe on young men from the better class families. He would listen to no pleas for exemption however reasonable. The atmosphere at headquarters was turgid.

Without even waiting to inquire who the travellers in the berlin were, the two best horses were led off. "We take them in any event," coolly remarked the major, and then proceeded to examine their papers and passports with an eye microscopically critical.

He was evidently disappointed to find Vincent and Anthony were foreigners, and their papers in order. With Pujol it did not go so well. His certification by the French commandant at Florence as a French student permitted to return home caused Luçay to smile under his dirty, red moustache.

"He is simply a vagrant of military age," he said. "Enrol him, sergeant." And Pujol was enrolled. "Since he knows horses, put him down for a cavalry dépôt." That was all the reply made to their continued protests.

Poor Aristide was in tears. "I am ruined, M. Toni, I shall lose precious years. I am a student of law. I go to practice in Paris, monsieur le majeur," he shouted at Luçay desperately.

"The law is that you be enrolled," said the major. "It is finished. Take him away."

"M. Toni," cried Aristide aghast as he was led out, "M. Toni!"

"I shall see you through, Aristide," said Anthony.

"Wait!" said Vincent.

"No doubt, Herr Nolte," said the major leaning forward and looking Vincent in the eye, "no doubt you will have me cashiered for this."

"Well, since you suggest it, major," replied Vincent, "I shall."

Luçay digested this with difficulty, and it was made no easier for him by the scarcely repressed cheers of the civil staff. The mayor, a scared, thin little man, wrapped almost to extinction in the folds of a tricolour sash, followed the two foreigners through the door. He would have liked to kiss Vincent on both cheeks for his temerity.

"I am helpless, monsieur, I want you to know that," he cried, standing on the steps. "I apologize that this outrage has overtaken you in my arrondissement. This major is a Jacobin--one out of the Terror who still persists."

"We know about him," said Vincent. "I shall go to my friends in the right places at Paris."

"Bon! But I wished to tell you that the first consul is even now at Nogent, only an hour's drive down the river. If monsieur has influence?"

"Come on," said Anthony. "Let's see him. I'll drive. Merci, monsieur le maire."

They climbed up on Aristide's box together and started. "That way, that way," cried the mayor, pointing. Just then the major came to the door. Vincent looked back at him and took off his hat. The man looked uncomfortable.

"I'm proud of you, Vincent," said Anthony.

----------

The two gentlemen on the box of their own berlin drove leisurely out of the town of Château-Thierry. The least appearance of nervousness or flight would, they felt, bring the redoubtable Major Luçay after them. As it was from the steps of the prefecture he watched them go, regretfully they thought.

Once across the bridge over the Marne and around the first short curve in the valley, Anthony touched-up the horses to a good fast pace. The remaining team missed its leaders and was inclined to shy at every opportunity.

"We shall certainly have to pick up another driver between here and Meaux," said Vincent nervously. "Anyway it would never do to drive into Paris on the box ourselves."

"We won't have to do that," replied Anthony firmly. "Who that you know is likely to be with Bonaparte at headquarters?"

"Are you really going there now, Toni? It might be better to go on to Paris. I know Fouché there. He and Ouvrard understand one another. I thought . . ."

"Now look here, Vincent, let's see this thing through now. You want your horses and driver back. Are you really going to let that rat of a cavalryman make you forget who you are? Of course not. We are going to the first consul himself if necessary. And we are going to get Aristide released, too. Make no doubt of it. He is going to drive us to Paris, and once there I want him started on the way to be an avocat, and by your influence."

"If you really believe I can do it, I will," said Vincent. "Coming to think of it, I do know de Bourrienne."

"Who's he?"

"Bonaparte's secretary. And he goes with him everywhere."

"There you are," said Anthony. "And here we are, too. That must be Nogent ahead there down the valley."

He began to fan along the horses and Vincent's indignation at the same time.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

THE LITTLE MAN AT GREAT HEADQUARTERS

For some hours on the afternoon of October the fourth, 1801, the hamlet of Nogent l'Artaud on the left bank of the Marne a few miles above Paris had temporarily become the nervous-centre of Europe and the focus of its most intense energy.

Napoleon had been moving about through the villages of the lower Marne valley watching certain provisions of his new law for the enrolment of recruits being put into operation there. He was carefully taking note of the temper of the population under the workings of an altered system of conscription, and watching its faults and merits before applying it universally. He had driven down from Epernay that morning, intending to return to Paris by way of Meaux next day. He had settled suddenly and unexpectedly upon Nogent as temporary headquarters, as it was his custom to do, by stopping his carriage in full career, getting out, taking over the principal house for himself and quartering his staff on the village. It seemed unlikely that he would choose such a place as Nogent, and that was precisely why he had done so. For it was in small places where no one expected him that he could best see for himself what was really going on.

France had been at peace with the rest of Europe for almost a year. On the very day that Napoleon stopped at Nogent he was expecting to hear at any moment that the preliminaries of a peace had also been signed with England. The news would be semaphored down from the Channel to Paris in a few minutes and a courier would soon find him on the Marne. At last reports the parleys at London had reached their final and critical stage.

These negotiations, and a thousand other things, were in his mind while he talked to the thunder-stricken officials of the little town, looked at the military rolls for the arrondissement, complimented the lieutenant in charge of the muster for his zeal, entered ten houses in fifteen minutes to see that entries on the rolls were men and not mere names, asked for the tax returns and remarked some lax, local favouritism in regard to personal property returns, noted that a bridge at Nogent would relieve congestion at Château-Thierry in case of military operations in the Marne valley, that the heights just above provided excellent artillery emplacements to command that town,--and then walked back to headquarters with his tired young adjutant, wondering meanwhile whether Cambacérès or brother Joseph Bonaparte would be the first to bring him the final details of the English news.

"Probably Joseph. He will rush to point out how valuable his advice has been, while the amiable Second Consul Cambacérès will certainly get lost on the way and stop somewhere to dine. Still his dinners do have more influence than speeches. I wish my family would drop the democratic rôle now. Joseph and Lucien--how tiresome they are with their everlasting talk about 'public opinion, public opinion.' I am public opinion now. People believe what they are told to believe, and I intend to tell them. Only one's family, of course, will never believe that.

"'It is not going to last,' mother says. Pauline tells me mother keeps putting louis d'or into that coffer-clock with the sphinx on it that Kléber sent her from Cairo. Kléber, he hated me. Now he is gone. Well, one should not have empty cisterns in a garden in Egypt where Arabs with knives can hide. Mother will soon be hiding gold napoleons with my head on them. She might believe it then. Perhaps? But what does last? Institutions--a dynasty? Mon Dieu, if Josephine would only conceive! 'Climb into the bed of your royal master, little Creole.' Is it not soft enough? I will embroider it with imperial bees. Be the queen of the hive. Princes--I must have princes for the house of Bonaparte! Give me two years' peace with England--and then." He looked grimly at the eagles on the stands of colours before the door of the humble house he had chosen to honour with his presence. As long as it should be a house no one who ever passed its threshold could be able to forget that his shadow had once brushed it in passing. Already that shadow lay across the world.

Within, his secretary had cleared out the front room and set up the bronze-clamped camp furniture that now accompanied him everywhere he went. In the room down the hall his narrow, military bed with a soft mattress and a hard pillow was laid out. His valet had drawn the blinds.

"In half an hour, Bourrienne," said he. "There are today's letters to dispatch and last morning's post; the sack from Italy first. Sort it! No more widows' petitions! I want the Piedmont reports, too." De Bourrienne replied patiently and sighed as his master and former schoolmate went down the hall. He missed his comfortable rooms and the smooth routine at the Tuileries. These country inspections were the devil. Napoleon lay down and composed himself for sleep.

Outside the guard was posted. A sergeant went through the house. He found a boy hiding in a cupboard. "I wanted to see General Bonaparte, only to see him," he kept bawling.

The man shook him. "Taissez vous. The general sleeps. Little swine! Well, look then, idiot." He kept a firm grip on the boy's collar.

Looking into what was ordinarily his father's bedroom, young Pierre Mortier saw a man in a green uniform with white facings lying stretched out on a cot. He was lying on his back with his hands folded on his breast. The eyes were closed. The pale olive face was like a wax death-mask; like the profile on a coin. The slightly damp locks clustered about his brows and over one ivory ear. The nostrils were faintly transparent. The only sign of life about him was a faint wrinkling of his thin lips when he breathed, and the crease in one boot which also occasionally wrinkled uneasily as if the left foot twitched. Young Pierre did not know that England had hold of that leg. But he never forgot the room.

Usually it was as confused as his bibulous father who slept there. Now it was another room, preternaturally neat. It had been swept clean and everything familiar in it removed. Only the sunlight kept coming through the same crack in the blind just over the figure of the sleeper. On the peg where his father's dusty hat usually hung was a small-sword with its hilt wrought in gold eagles set with diamond eyes. On this the sunlight lit and spattered.

It played in little metallic shivers over the walls. It lighted the face of the sleeping general on the bronze-knotted cot; gilded the uniform of young Beauharnais, the adjutant, who sat on watch with folded arms over against the wall. Suddenly the beam brightened, the hilt gleamed, intense the glory streamed. It lay silent across the faded carpet of the room of the father of Pierre Mortier, aged ten.

"The lightning--it sleeps," said the child breathlessly. "Dans la chambre de mon père!"

Bonaparte opened his eyes and looked at the boy out of his sleep.

Pierre saw the brown pupils widen, light like amber and darken again. The waxy lids closed.

"Voilà, Josephine, c'est lui," muttered the sleeper inaudibly. On his brain the sunlit image of a boy's face transfigured with wonder and pride burned out slowly into nothing. He breathed once heavily and slept on.

The adjutant and the sergeant smiled at each other. Young Eugène de Beauharnais put his finger on his lips and motioned for them to go. He stuffed his handkerchief in the broken shutter. The grip on Pierre's collar tightened and he was marched off down the hall to the back door, but not in an unkindly way.

"Here," said the sergeant gruffly. "Here is a sou for some little cakes. Remember you saw General Bonaparte. Thou, thou little cabbage. Think of it! Now be off and keep quiet, or--" The sentry who passed just then with walrus mustachios and a gold tassel on his busby touched his musket fiercely and grinned. The boy dashed off happily. They were not so terrible after all. He had a sou and had seen the general.

"Il est colossal, colossal," he boasted as he shared the cakes with some other urchins up the street. But he said nothing about the sunlight. He was going to go back to his father's room to examine that later on. Something wonderful had come into that room, something that had certainly never been there before. Just then he and the other boys started to shout and run after a berlin, with two gentlemen on the box, that drove rapidly into Nogent with the autumn dust rolling up behind it in golden clouds.

It drew up before the house of Pierre's father where the new silk flags with the eagles stood by the door. The sergeant ran out. The boys stopped to watch curiously. One of the gentlemen was evidently very angry about something.

"General Bonaparte is sleeping and cannot be disturbed," said the sergeant firmly, twirling his moustache and looking the angry German gentleman up and down. One of the horses gave a loud whinny. "Hein!" said the sergeant.

"It would seem that he may be disturbed unless you detail one of your men to take the berlin to the stables over there," said Anthony. "We have lost our driver. Here is something for the fellow who will look after the horses." He gave the sergeant a heavy coin and climbed down. The man's expression changed.

"If you have a real reason, messieurs . . ."

"We are not merely selling eggs, I assure you," said Vincent nodding towards several peasant women with baskets lined up across the street, waiting for the headquarters commissary to appear. "It is a matter of genuine importance. Is M. de Bourrienne here or in Paris?"

"Ici, monsieur. You know him? Here, Frampton, take care of these gentlemen. They have business with the general." The sergeant pocketed the coin. "For God's sake get that mare's nose in a bag before she whinnies again," he said to the orderly. "If the general has been wakened--" he pulled his beard anxiously. "What name shall I give to the adjutant?"

"Tell M. de Bourrienne that M. Nolte, the banker, and a friend wish to see him immediately. Important!" The sergeant went.

In a minute or so de Bourrienne himself came to the door. He looked none too pleased.

"Ah, good day to you, Herr Nolte." He bowed in a perfunctory way at his introduction to Anthony.

"General Bonaparte is asleep now," he said. "And if you have come up from Paris to worry him about the rate on the funding of that next advance on rentes I advise you to return to Paris before he wakes. He gave Ouvrard himself a bad half hour over that only Monday last. Surely you must know it. He will certainly recollect you, and--"

Vincent interrupted him.

"It is something entirely personal, a military matter, not financial at all. And I have no doubt, monsieur, you can yourself aid us, if you only will, without annoying General Bonaparte. In short, we have been outraged and I come to you for redress."

"Tiens," said the secretary looking much relieved. "That is different. Come in. Orderly, chairs. Will you excuse me for a while, messieurs? You see I am vitally engaged for the moment. The first consul wakes"--he drew out his watch--"in fifteen minutes." He sighed a little and wiped his brow. Vincent and Anthony sat watching the scene before them with great interest.

In an adjoining room some staff orderlies were rapidly setting up field-desks and chairs and arranging pens and stationery. They were so precise about it that it was evidently a matter of long-standing and perfected routine. An adjutant looked in and checked every pen, inkpot, sand-box and quire of paper. He rearranged the large chair in a better light. Two civilian clerks entered and sat down on camp stools. They sat waiting, alert, uneasy. On a large table in the main room, where Anthony and Vincent were sitting, three assistants were sorting dispatches under the watchful eye of de Bourrienne. Orderlies brought in large leather bags. The secretary broke the seals. The contents were dumped out and rapidly sorted.

"Milan and Piedmont," said de Bourrienne. "Let the others alone." His eyes and his hands flew over the contents of the spilled bags. A small pile of documents rapidly accumulated in a little green basket. The rest were seized upon by the clerks who began to endorse upon them and throw them into other leather bags hung before them.

On the small pile in the basket before him de Bourrienne began to operate. He put the letters from the Bonaparte family into a small box marked with a "B." There were several of them. Those from Lucien Bonaparte, then at Madrid, he put with the Spanish dispatches. He looked through the rest of the documents with marvellous rapidity and wrote out a description upon each. He arranged them in a certain order and put them back in the green basket.

Two couriers, who had just found the whereabouts of the first consul's headquarters, dashed up. Their dispatches were also brought in. De Bourrienne put his hand to his head and smiled at Vincent. Just then Beauharnais came down the hall and looked in. "All ready?" he asked, and returned.

A minute later they heard the sound of a crisp, rapid step and the sharp click of a scabbard against a boot. Everyone in the room rose and felt as if they were runners in a race waiting for the word "go."

A short man with a head a little too large for his body entered the room. He stopped, looked. Energy radiated from him like heat from the sun. Everybody present was positively electrified by it; swept out of their own orbit into his. The force came from the head, from the eyes, and under the brows. To be suddenly faced with it in the ordinary course of life was equivalent to opening a cupboard to take down your hat and finding a cobra looking at you with its hood spread. The next move would be with the terrible head. And you knew, you felt eternally certain, that the head knew what that move would be. All action except that which it initiated was paralysed; what it once began must be followed out.

"At ease," said a high, clear voice. Someone else seemed to have spoken. The work went on; seemed only to have begun. The dispatches seemed to be sorting themselves. Bonaparte held out his hand blindly. De Bourrienne put the green basket into it. "Et, monsieur le banquier là?" he said, looking keenly at Vincent. He did not appear to see Anthony. Nevertheless, both of them rose again and bowed. De Bourrienne murmured something they could not hear.

"Eh bien!" replied Bonaparte, and slipped into the room where the two civil clerks sat waiting. They dipped their pens. He began instantly to dictate letters.

From where he sat against the wall Anthony could see diagonally into the room opposite where Napoleon was working. He could even hear part of what he was saying and catch glimpses of him as he passed walking up and down. An intense quiet and absorption had gripped the house. All noises now came from outside except the scratching of pens, the flop of papers into bags, an occasional low-spoken direction from de Bourrienne.

Outside the sentries paced alertly, very erect, conscious that the general was awake again. Horses stamped at pickets between the trees down the village street. Orderlies came and departed. Now and then a dusty courier dashed up with a clatter. Others left and the sound of their hoofs died away in the distance toward Paris. The long afternoon sunlight began to verge toward the close of day. The high, clear voice in the other room went on. Bonaparte also paced back and forth there like a sentry. He was dictating to the two clerks alternately.

They sat at opposite ends of the room. He passed between them, leaving a terse paragraph with each as he turned. He was dictating a letter to the newly appointed superintendent at the Ecole Militaire, prescribing certain changes in the courses of mathematics for artillery officers: ". . . those who show themselves incapable of feeling and tracing the abstractions of geometry from the models of cones and cylinders in cages which have just been supplied should be slated for the infantry. It is essential that every artillery officer in the French armies should from now on be capable of seeing the parabolas in various trajectories as physical facts. His mathematics and physics must coalesce . . ." and then his sword would gleam as he passed the door again, and Anthony heard him say to the other clerk: ". . . it is too early yet to assume openly that the newly acquired districts in Piedmont are French soil. They should still be treated merely as garrisoned districts and the local laws respected in so far as it may be convenient. In a year or so from now these districts may be incorporated in a department. In that event this matter should then be referred to . . ." and so it went on.

His head sank a little forward on his chest. His arms went behind him as he walked. Presently he went over to the green basket and began to read its contents letter by letter, but at the same time from some other portion of his mind he kept both the clerks busy. He threw the letters on the floor as he read them. He read, talked and walked on; ordering, reorganizing, building bridges, establishing schools, directing the kind of cloth to be used in women's dresses, urging on the codification of the law, repairing prisons, and confirming court-martials, arranging for the exchange of the officers captured by the British in Egypt, altering the procedure of the new tribunals to try brigands and the form of the oath to be taken by returning émigrés, refusing Mme. de Staël permission to return to Paris, dictating the movements of the returning columns of troops from the Rhine. New clerks stepped in and took the places of those worn out. The voice continued rapidly, smoothly, tersely, inevitably, bringing order out of chaos, hope and energy out of despair, changing the history of the world.

Trying in vain to keep up with him, the indefatigable de Bourrienne and the secretariat about the table toiled on and said nothing. They were engulfed. Napoleon had slept for half an hour previously. He went to sleep instantly and he woke as if he had just been re-immersed in the source of energy. He awoke with a mind as clear as spring water but as incisive as acid. But it was deep and wide as well as limpid. In it an entire epoch as it was on any particular day was poised just upon the verge of becoming something else; was held in suspension; every part of it generally and particularly from armies to individual corporals, from cities to houses and roads seen clearly, understood and in process of being manipulated by a will that had not yet become merely the habit of ego, by a body not yet the host for cancer. For the next four years the first consul and emperor continued to wear out relays of ministers and staffs of generals without a sign of fatigue. He first charged France with his energy and then exhausted it. Nothing on earth had been seen like it since the days of Julius Caesar.

The scene before them was so charged with the vital atmosphere of time in the making that Anthony and Vincent felt themselves to be participating in it directly and waited for de Bourrienne without remarking that he was keeping them doing so. In Anthony's mind the constant appearance and reappearance of Napoleon pacing across the space of the half-open door of the opposite room became synchronized until Bonaparte appeared to be nothing but the pendulum and governing instrument of the machine in motion all about him. Although the impression was only a half-conscious one at the time, it was nevertheless the deepest and the most lasting that Anthony carried away with him. It was with a start of surprise that they saw de Bourrienne break off and begin to cross the room toward them with the evident intention of hearing Vincent's complaint. The secretary drew up a chair and sat on the arm of it swinging one leg over the other.

"Believe me, messieurs, I am delighted to have the excuse for an interruption. For five days and two nights now in half a dozen villages"--he wiped his face with his handkerchief--"this has gone on. But I hope you have not had a serious misfortune." He looked at Vincent, who rapidly related his troubles with considerable eloquence and heat.

"Most exasperating and a piece of unwarranted, petty spite," said de Bourrienne. "But it will be somewhat difficult for me to do anything about it directly. I can issue no military orders, you know. I am only the general's secretary. But I tell you what I will do. I can send in a memorandum about this occurrence among the papers that go in to be signed in a few minutes. In that case he may ask to see you personally, Herr Nolte, and he is not very fond of you bankers as you know. Do you care to risk it?"

Vincent nodded. "Decidedly," he said.

"Very well then." Taking a pad on his knee, de Bourrienne wrote rapidly. "Will that cover the facts?" He read the note.

"Quite. Only the major's name is Luçay, not Lacey," said Vincent.

"Thanks for that correction. Names that go in there must be right. Luçay? Luçay?--where have I heard that name before?"

"With Carrier at Nantes, they say."

"That may help you." He scribbled something more on the memorandum. "Confidentially, we are weeding out the 'friends of the people,' you know. Well, wait. It will not be long. I wish you luck."

He went back to his work but then looked up suddenly and said, "Do me the honour of remaining for dinner this evening, messieurs. Pardon my preoccupation. I should have asked you before. It will not be much to boast of, a military mess. But there may be amusing talk."

They accepted with delight.

"Your papers go in shortly now," said de Bourrienne, and went on again.

"Will Bonaparte be at our table, do you suppose, Vincent?" asked Anthony.

"Hardly, de Bourrienne and his civil assistants probably mess alone on these inspection tours. He is much liked, you know. Very friendly. You may be surprised to hear that he has dined with me at my hôtel twice. Ah, wait till you see that place, Toni! But there go our papers."

The voice in the room had ceased. De Bourrienne had immediately sent in the bundle of papers to be signed. He knew better than to lose an instant. Napoleon sat at his desk now. His pen flew in that indecipherable scrawl which was already his signature. He stopped. He was reading a brief memorandum in the clear hand of his secretary.

"General: The notorious Jacobin Luçay is at Château-Thierry. 'Major.' Army of the Rhine . . . fomenting discontent . . . merciless requisitions . . . M. Nolte and friend robbed of horses and driver . . . requests immediate return. Proceeding to Paris on business of rentes with Ouvrard and M. Talleyrand."

"Luçay? Luçay? Ah--that red-moustached scoundrel of the Noyades, who tried to interfere with my emplacements at Toulon. What is he doing at Château-Thierry? That is curious. He used to be in the artillery."

He scrawled an order and gave it to an orderly. He gathered up the signed papers and came out. He stopped to say something to de Bourrienne when his eyes fell again on Vincent and Anthony. He came over to them and they both rose. He was looking at Vincent.

"Well, monsieur le banquier, I have sent for your man and beasts. Also for the person who detained them. When he arrives we shall see. You are M. Nolte, aren't you?"

Vincent bowed.

"Ah, yes, I thought I remembered you and M. Ouvrard together one day about the Mexican bullion and treasury drafts. So! You see I seldom forget. That was a year ago, wasn't it?" He seemed to take great satisfaction in this.

"Your remarkable memory for names and faces is famous, mon general," said Vincent. Napoleon looked pleased.

"It is inconvenient to some people. Well, have you succeeded in getting any more Mexican dollars? No? About to--bien! I must talk to you after dinner about it. Bourrienne--" He looked at his secretary. "Good, you have already been asked. My Bourrienne often anticipates me. A rare quality. He does not abuse it." He glared at them suddenly. "I have found, M. Nolte, that you bankers frequently do. You are a sad lot, you buzzards that follow my eagles. Do you suppose I do not know what a fine thing your friend Ouvrard has made out of his army contracts? And now it is supplies for the Spanish fleet. Mon Dieu! I am going to dust some of the crumbs off him. Tell him so." Bonaparte folded his hands behind his back and looked up at Vincent and Anthony who towered above him like a couple of ostriches over a bantam eagle. He suddenly became aware that the room must be secretly amused by this, and hopped up on the table where he sat cross-legged with his sword over his knees. He felt his short stature keenly at times. It was one of the things that forever drove him to lengthen his shadow.

"I should regret being made the messenger of ill-will between two of the ablest spirits of the age," replied Vincent.

"I am not sure I can accept your compliment on the basis of that comparison, M. Nolte," said Bonaparte, taking up an ivory ruler and beginning to tap one boot sharply. "It implies at once too much and too little. What do you think?"

"Both General Bonaparte and M. Ouvrard are masters in their own fields. That your own genius embraces and includes that of M. Ouvrard he would be the first to admit. It is for that reason I feel your message might carry a too devastating criticism. M. Ouvrard, as well as M. Bourrienne here, has faithfully anticipated your desires upon occasions. I am sure he looks forward to being able to continue doing so." Vincent smiled engagingly.

Napoleon was not displeased. He distinguished instantly between respect and servility. "Well, we meet upon common ground at least, M. Nolte," he said. "No, you do not give way. It would seem that your interest in your friends is not entirely expressed by percentage. That does you credit. Let us admit then, I do not know M. Ouvrard in the same way that you do. Quelle dommage! Like my good Bourrienne, you say, M. Ouvrard anticipates my desires. I reply--not without his own 'anticipations,' and I understand they are always negotiable. Come, you must admit there is a difference in their motives."

By now the entire room was listening with ill-concealed curiosity. Napoleon's love of baiting bankers was notorious and well appreciated. He was now merely relaxing himself after a strenuous day's work, and it was all the more amusing to him that with a certain mischievous maliciousness he had been able to entangle in an invidious and damaging comparison the names of the greatest financier in France and that of his sensitive secretary who was present. Hearing his own name mentioned several times, de Bourrienne could not help but follow the argument, and he was now only pretending to write with his face burning. Napoleon looked at him and chuckled inwardly.

The little man seated on the table bending the ivory ruler across his knee was intensely pleased in his own curious way. He never laughed heartily. He seldom smiled. His sense of wit and humour was caustic and brazen. Even his lighter moments such as the present one resembled a rapidly spreading patch of verdigris on polished bronze. He had now succeeded in making everyone in the room thoroughly uncomfortable. He had placed one Herr Nolte, banquier, in the uncomfortable dilemma of denying an influential friend or of traducing M. de Bourrienne in his own presence. Meanwhile, he, Napoleon Bonaparte, remained the centre of all this uncomfortable attention and was perfectly at ease. He now smiled and bent the ruler on his knee till it appeared ready to snap.

"Come, M. Nolte, what have you got to reply to that?"

"The motives of both gentlemen in serving, Your Excellency, must be correct," replied Vincent, who was tired of being sport at another's game and wished to have done with it.

"Oh, you merely evade me? I shall ask your very tall friend here, then? Or is he too a banquier? Do not be embarrassed, my Bourrienne," he cried, turning half-way about. "What is there to blush about? Je suis sur que ce large monsieur la vous fera la grande justice!"--he let one end of his ruler flip pointing straight at Anthony and looked at him. "Well, monsieur?"

"M. de Bourrienne, I am sure, mon général, does not feel any embarrassment at having his motives for serving you discussed openly. It is only your great confidence in him which so affects him."

"Present this gentleman to me, Bourrienne. Upon my word he deserves it of you," said Napoleon.

There was a general relief at this end to so uncomfortable a verbal skirmish. De Bourrienne and Vincent now withdrew a little and talked in low tones. The clerks, at a nod from the secretary, departed, leaving only the orderlies on a bench in the corner. It was only a short time till the mess would be served and work was suspended.

"This is the only hour when the general permits himself a little leisure," whispered de Bourrienne to Vincent. "I can tell you it is a boon to his staff. But I am afraid your friend is in for a good quizzing, by the signs. The general's method is to squeeze the last drop of information out of anyone who looks interesting and then leave him like a dry sponge. But you have doubtless experienced being cross-questioned by him yourself. Let's go over and sit down a while. I am still waiting for a courier. I hope your horses do come tonight. With the staff quartered in the village, there will not be even a garret room." They sat down, Vincent congratulating himself that he was not in Anthony's shoes.

For Bonaparte was now standing immediately opposite Anthony looking up at him quizzically, his legs apart and clasping the ruler behind his back. It was so much like a big boy being called up by a little schoolmaster that de Bourrienne and Vincent were both forced to stifle a smile that neither wished the other to see.

"Disembarrass me of your height, monsieur," said Bonaparte pointing to a chair. He sat down himself with his boots stretched out before him, looking at the toes. "I have seen you before, I think," he continued without lifting his eyes. "You are very tall. Are you an Englishman?" He looked up now.

"From Livorno," replied Anthony.

"Yes! You were standing there once in a window looking down at me. Beside you was a man with the face of a fanatic."

"That is so, mon général," said Anthony, obviously amazed.

"Fanatical faces in upper windows within easy pistol shot of my carriage are always impressive to me, monsieur. Like M. Fouché, I have the habit of spotting and remembering them."

"I am not a fanatic, mon général. And neither Your Excellency nor your minister of police has any cause to remember me," said Anthony, making no effort to cover his anger.

"You mistake me, M. Adverse. I did not say you had the face of a fanatic. What has become of the man who did?"

"He shot himself--recently."

"Bien, such fellows are bound to shoot somebody. In this case both wisdom and determination seem to have pulled the trigger together. So you are from Livorno?"

"Si."

"Did the clothes you are wearing now originate there, too?" asked the little soldier quietly and in Italian. He continued to study the toes of his boot.

"No."

"Where?"

"In Gibraltar. Nevertheless, General Bonaparte, I am not an Englishman," insisted Anthony in undoubted "Livornese."

They continued for some time in Italian. Bonaparte was soon satisfied on that point. It was not a conversation but a series of interminable questions from the little general in whom Anthony now recognized the typical insatiable curiosity of an Italian islander displayed on a cosmic scale. Certainly the grilling was as severe a one as he ever underwent. Now that Napoleon's Anglophobia was laid aside, there was no longer apparent any point or direction in his curiosity. It simply spread out over the map. It demanded to know what was going on everywhere Anthony had been--and how. There was obviously no malice in it, Anthony recognized. He soon saw that Bonaparte felt he was conferring an honour in using him as a human textbook, manifestly to be thrown aside when the information should be exhausted or prove dull. Indeed, he now found some amusement himself in what took on the form of a game of knowledge, and on that basis, a ghost of a smile passed between them. Nor could he help but appreciate the keenness of the questions as he felt the quality of his personality as well as endless facts being brought out by his replies. Perhaps that was what Bonaparte was after. He was always interested in and looking for men. Or perhaps he was only curious as usual, or amused. Anthony could never be sure. All that he knew was that the quiet, incisive questioning went on till he felt wrung dry.

Napoleon was insatiable about conditions at Gibraltar, but not more so than about Havana. The predicament of the Spanish governors-general of Cuba amused him. "Go on," he said, "tell me--" and he propounded a string of questions. "I thought so," he replied. "And so you found yourself in Africa. On the Rio Pongo? Where is that?" "For ten minutes one would have thought he intended establishing his capital there," said Anthony to Vincent afterward. "I found that I knew more about Africa than I thought. It is a curious thing, Vincent, to have another man's will reach out and force you to remember things you did not know you knew."

"Eh bien," said the insatiable little man finally, after at last permitting Anthony to talk himself for some time about trade in Africa. "Good--I see you are a man of affairs and business. Neither of us is entirely the fool of circumstance then. That is much. Yes, it is something to achieve anything; to make a thought become tangible. With most men it dies in 'I think' or 'I say.' How difficult to combine I think and I do. Thought in action--that is to be like God." He tapped his boot with the ruler, seeming rather to have spoken to himself. Then he leaned forward almost violently.

"That is why I do not like bankers," he exploded in Anthony's face. "And in another hundred years if I do not stop them they will own Europe--the world. Financiers cannot act. They never do anything. They are passive, they spin webs and every wind, blow peace blow war, brings them flies. They are not the fit repositories for power. What is the use of a power that forever keeps still? A powerful oyster, hard outside and jelly within. An oyster cannot act, move--GO!"

He leapt to his feet and swung about with the same motion. He stood listening with his back turned, while the last word he had uttered still rang in Anthony's ears with the force of gunpowder.

Anthony sat looking up at him. He felt as if he had been given a ride on the outer ring of Saturn and flung off into space.

Napoleon was listening to the sound of a horse at full gallop coming down the Paris road.

"From London, Bourrienne," he said. "Yes, I am sure." He folded his arms and waited.

And it was thus that Anthony always remembered him, standing there, alive, the bronze forehead touched by a pencil of sunlight. The motes in it seemed to be streaming out of him into the room.

----------

"You will excuse me, I am sure," said de Bourrienne, glancing at them significantly. "Here, Jancey," he called down the corridor. "Look after the general's friends." A grey-haired clerk in staid, black clothes led them through the house and out onto the lawn behind it. The Paris road ran along one side of the space and on the other the turf slipped down easily to the river. Under a number of horse-chestnut trees, towers of molten gold in the late October afternoon, the orderlies and mess attendants were laying several long tables with white cloths.

A fat young officer hurried over to meet them.

"Your names and ranks, messieurs, if you please," said he. "I am the adjutant of the mess and must seat you. Have you servants? I could use them."

"Unfortunately, no," laughed Anthony.

"Detained for the cavalry by a major at Château-Thierry," grumbled Vincent.

"Oui? That is too bad." He reeled a little. "But it is gay here, isn't it?" he cried. "I have had them set the tables under the trees. A remarkable autumn to be able to do that. Warm and dry. But--nom d'un chien!--what should we care about the weather? One of the carriages of M. Cambacérès has just arrived here, a little too far ahead of him. It was loaded with good burgundy. What could a good mess officer do?" He steadied himself. "Come, confirm me in my opinion--about the weather." He led them to a small rear room of the house piled with baskets of wine.

"You see I am a mess officer. I like it. I would rather be that than a general of division." With his tongue in his cheek, he poured out of one of the second consul's cherished bottles a dark purple wine that filled the little room with an inspiring bouquet. "Um-m-m, yes, it is gay here," he insisted, looking out the window at the scene beyond. "An incomparable lawn, little birds singing their hearts out in the sunlight"--he gulped the glass--"oh, how ravishing the country is; nom du petit Jésus! for nearly a week now I have not seen a woman without sabots, but courage, tomorrow we shall be in Paris. I contain myself therefore, and--I contain a good deal. Just now I contain four bottles of the excellent wine provided by M. Cambacérès, the second consul of the Republic.

"Encore? Oui! I insist. I am, I tell you, the mess officer. The wine of the second consul. Le gros, le beau, the innocent and sensible M. Cambacérès who understands what government is about. To the second consul--and your good health. The first consul, he drives about inspecting, winning battles. Making people do things. All are uncomfortable wherever he passes--everywhere. Suddenly this afternoon at the third bottle I see it. I, the mess officer, have my vision enlarged to proportions co-co-colossal. I see,--what do I see? In the front of this house the first consul of the Republic conducting what he thinks is the government. Is it? What is behind it? Why, this!" he cried, running up and down now keeping his hands on the table. "This!" he kicked, and one of his boots came off. "This!" and this time he finally kicked open the door which he had been aiming at. "Voilà," he shouted. "Voilà la vrai France que persiste toujours." Caldrons of soup, long loaves, piles of roasted fowls, and salads, greeted their eyes and a general reek of savoury steam and odours drifted out to them from the little kitchen where all was a scene of confusion, the several headquarters chefs stumbling over each other in their haste in a kitchen meant for a small civil family. The little officer leaned in and laughed.

"Is it that progress advances itself in here, mes enfants?" said he to the cooks.

He stood for a while in the entrance with one boot in his hand, hopping about like a fat duck. The cooks roared at him and shut the door. He had been drunk ever since M. Cambacérès' carriage of wine had arrived.

"Come, messieurs, come. I still want to show you my view of things. My view of politics. Messieurs, I insist upon it. No, it will not be necessary for you to take one boot off. Not at all. One merely returns to the lawn. One throws one's boot and follows it." It went smashing through the window. "Voilà! Maintenant!" He led them outdoors, and placing his feet wide apart, suddenly ducked his head down and looked through his legs at the men setting the mess tables under the trees.

"That is what the government is really about. All governments." He was holding onto his own fat legs now patting them with satisfaction while he continued to gaze upside down and purple in the face at the scene behind him.

"Take my view of it, but for an instant. It is revealing. I insist. From here the yellow leaves on the ground under the white tables . . . beautiful . . . someone has been tossing gold about there. I will roar if you do not look--my way."

There was no getting out of it. Either they had to take the mess officer's view of things or he would undoubtedly "roar." And then--they would be found there. It would be ridiculous--and they would be able to explain it only by laughing; by laughing as they were now.

So they bent down and looked. Three of them in a line. Their hats dropped to the grass and their hair hung into them. The mess officer made appreciative noises.

And it was in that position that Aristide found them, coming suddenly around the corner with the chief clerk of M. de Bourrienne in his sober black suit.

"Voilà!" said the old man. "But what is it that it is?"

They rose scarlet-faced. "Here is your servant, messieurs," said the grey-haired clerk sadly, backing off a little with his eyes large and round.

Aristide sat down on the step and began to hold his ribs while they shook him. The old clerk looked on scandalized.

"I shall report this. I shall report you, M. Latour, you the adjutant of the general's mess, to M. de Bourrienne. You have seduced the guests of the first consul."

"Pas de tout, pas de tout," insisted Latour. "Come, Jancey, you sad old Huguenot. Take my view of things." He started for the old man, who fled.

Latour, Vincent, Anthony, and Aristide remained beating one another on the back.

"Encore une autre," cried Latour, staggering a little. He led the way back to the little room beside the kitchen.

----------

In another room at the front of the house Napoleon and de Bourrienne were reading the London dispatches which the courier had just brought. The news was incredibly good. The preliminaries of peace had been signed, and the British ministry had agreed to concessions which had been advanced only as diplomatic demands. France was to regain her lost colonies.

"This is the greatest victory of all, mon Bourrienne," said Napoleon. "The empire which the Bourbons lost I shall regain--these colonies from England, and Louisiana from Spain--all in a year. It is incredible. Dealing with this ministry is not like dealing with Pitt. Let them keep Malta. I will quarrel with them over that later. Give me a five years' peace to raise armies--and then--" He began to stride up and down the room his feet winged with triumph. Nothing could stand before him now. He felt exalted above all that had gone before. The lowly steps that descended into the past--incredible that he should have ever had to traverse them. A vast imperial staircase led into the future. At the top, still distant, exalted, stood a figure of himself crowned with laurel. Up and down the stairs crawled a host of ants that had once been men. He wiped his feet on the carpet and laughed.

"The major Luçay reports himself," announced an orderly.

Bonaparte looked at the man but did not see him. He was planning the next step on the staircase. "These fools on the Tribunate shall be silenced. One law--and one will to enforce that law. A broom for the ants in opposition. Cambacérès must force on the code. La code Napoléon." A fat, lazy fellow the second consul. Pliable--but slow. They were all so slow. Some would not move at all. For the immovables--a hypodermic injection of lead. He smiled, more arrogantly than a few hours before. . . . This peace with England--who would have thought it possible on such terms? They must be in a bad way across the Channel. The continental system was ruining them. No more imports from England. People would have to do without tea--and sugar. Surely patriotism should be able to do without tea. Besides, those who had their feet on imperial stairways were not likely to trip over teapots. No, no, Austria was the next hazardous step. Next time he would crush her. . . . He clenched his fist and looked out the window.

Brother Joseph, a little fatter than he used to be, had just driven up and was climbing out of his chaise. A bourgeois Italian. It reminded Napoleon of Ajaccio. The biggest merchant in the town--eating an orange under an awning--or the most prosperous country gentleman near by. My God--he wanted to put a crown on that head. If he could only get the family to live up to him. Joseph couldn't even be taught to look stiff-necked under a fashionable hat. He looked a little uncomfortable now--from the neck up. An umbrella, eh! And it was the driest autumn in years. He wasn't going to give it to young Beauharnais--was he? La parapluie du frère de l'empereur se présente à l'adjutant du staff. He could see it in the Moniteur for a few years ahead. That kind of thing could undo the crossing of the Alps. Bon Dieu! He was giving it to Beauharnais! Josephine was right. This kind of thing must be stopped. He rushed out.

"Joseph!"

"Napoleon, mon frère, congratulations. Didn't I tell you if you would write to M. Fox it would turn the trick? And now he is coming to see you, you the friend of liberty. Now we can all settle down in France safely." He kissed Napoleon on both cheeks. Beauharnais stood by at attention holding the umbrella over his arm.

The greatest man since Julius Caesar stood at the door of the little house in Nogent perspiring. He had just been defeated. In the presence of his invincible elder brother a curious lethargy came over him--always. Joseph had only to appear and Napoleon was little brother again.

"Come in," he said. "I am glad to see you. Give your hat to Beauharnais, too." There was some comfort in making Josephine's relatives realize who the Bonapartes were anyway.

"Damn them," said Beauharnais as he hung Joseph's dusty hat and umbrella on a peg in the little hall. He shoved the hat sidewise and went out to drink with Latour. He found the party in the little room was very merry.

Napoleon, Joseph, and Bourrienne did not even notice Luçay although he had stood up as they passed through.

He sat down again fuming as the door closed behind them. The aristocrats were coming back. But who was this little Corsican general to keep a patriot waiting? "Luçay, friend of the people of France," Marat had called him that once. He remembered it. He sat cursing the work of time.

The mess bugles shattered his bloody reverie. Bonaparte came through the door.

"Oui, il faut manger," Joseph was saying with an air of great wisdom.

"Good evening, citizen-general," said Luçay rising in his disheveled uniform and scraggly moustache like an apparition of the past before Napoleon. The old official title, now tacitly disregarded by all who were wise enough to do so, grated dreadfully on Napoleon's ears. "Citizen-general--" and he had probably just signed a peace with England. Who was this fool? His eyes took in the sans-culotte major hastily.

"Luçay--M. Nolte's horses," whispered Bourrienne.

"What are you doing at Château-Thierry, Luçay?"

"I and my veterans were ordered there to round up recruits by one of the aristocrats on your staff, citizen-general. Otherwise we should now be being paid off in Paris, I suppose. That is if the citizen-general is really going to pay the Army of the Rhine." He smiled slowly.

"And so you enforce the law by taking a pair of good horses from a fat German banker, citizen-major."

"Yes, for the Republic, citizen-general."

"No, for the republican Luçay. For his farm to which he returns like Cincinnatus to plough after the wars--on land also furnished by the aristocrats. Is it not so, citizen-major?" They stood looking at each other. Luçay's eyes were glaring.

"Well," said Napoleon at last, "you may keep the land. I have guaranteed that."

"Tyrant, to think I have lived to serve you!"

"Do not let that trouble you, citizen," said Napoleon. "Give me your sword. Take it, Joseph."

On the way through the hall Joseph Bonaparte hung the sword of the friend of the people on the same peg with his own hat and umbrella. Napoleon smiled. He felt a sudden appetite for supper as a burst of talk floated in from the lawn. The staff, both military and civil, were already waiting for him about the tables. They all stood silent as he took his place.

"Begin," said he, and sat down abruptly.

----------

Anthony and Vincent were sitting at de Bourrienne's table. The meal began dully enough. After the time they had spent drinking with Latour and Beauharnais in the little room, sitting out in the twilight with the rather silent company assembled under the trees seemed flat by contrast. Napoleon and Joseph Bonaparte were some little distance away at another table and confined their remarks to each other. De Bourrienne was tired and said little. Most of the others at the table were under-secretaries and clerks. The sound of faint conversation, an occasional laugh, the sunset jargon of birds and the voice of the evening wind through the branches above gave a certain low-toned solemnity to the occasion. A row of heads along the street wall, where the population of Nogent had gathered to watch the first consul eat, began to drift away.

All this was changed, however, before the second course was laid.

A great coach accompanied by a small escort of cavalry came rumbling up the Paris road. A trumpet burst out. Everyone started laughing. A cheer went up from the street.

"Voilà," said Latour, stooping down as he hurried past toward the gate. "The real government has arrived. Now you will see."

The coach came in and drove ruthlessly across the lawn. It stopped not far from where they were sitting. In it sat a man of great amplitude in all his proportions. A wide, cocked hat nodding with red, white, and blue plumes perched a little awry on his forehead. The plumes nodded and curved over his large, beaming face like flames. The coach shook and leaned as he got down out of the door with some difficulty, disclosing as he did so lacquered half-boots with gold tassels, a wide expanse of white breeches, smooth and tight as a sail in a gale. Then his tremendous tricolour sash appeared and above it a blue coat embroidered with golden laurel leaves that climbed up into the points of a monstrous high collar--as he finally disentangled his broad shoulders from the coach and stood upright. He was not fat. He was well proportioned. He was simply vast. And he stood there in the sunset with his plumes waving above him like a Gargantuan specimen of the Gallic cock about to crow. The crowd along the wall cheered. Some of them thought that Bonaparte had just arrived.

"Cambacérès, the second consul--" said one of the clerks in reply to Anthony's glance of inquiry.

"It may be an amusing evening after all," de Bourrienne confided to Vincent.

Everybody, even Napoleon, was already looking pleased. Cambacérès hurried across the lawn to Bonaparte's table where room was hastily made for him and a young man who accompanied him. Two chairs were brought. But only one of them, that for Cambacérès himself, was set at the first consul's table. They saw Cambacérès presenting his young friend to Napoleon, who was apparently none too pleased to see him, for he called out to Latour and coolly directed him to seat the newcomer at another table.

The rejected guest was brought across to de Bourrienne who received him with some embarrassment but kindly enough. A place was found for him next to Vincent and directly across from Anthony.

"Permit me to introduce myself, monsieur," said he, his voice trembling slightly. "I am M. de Staël. I trust none of your clerks, M. de Bourrienne, will be troubled by my presence." He added this bitterly. The colour raged into his cheeks again. Napoleon's affront had evidently been a bitter one. De Bourrienne hastened to introduce Vincent and Anthony and to engage young de Staël in conversation. He responded gratefully and with evident relief, but a cloud passed over his face from time to time as he glanced at the consular table.

Anthony thought he had never seen so completely civilized-looking a person as the youth who now sat opposite him. Young de Staël's easy gestures, and the gentle tones of his voice, his exquisite costume, and his animated but powerful expression all conveyed a peculiarly memorable effect. His features were not regular or handsome according to any usual standard. He was simply and quietly distinguished, charming and satisfactory without exerting himself. Of all those at the headquarters mess that evening, not excluding Bonaparte himself, de Staël was the only person whom Anthony truly envied. Indeed, he already felt indignant with Napoleon for having rebuffed him; in sympathy with his cause--whatever it might be.

Vincent, de Bourrienne, and de Staël were soon engaged in talk. Jancey, the grey-haired clerk, next to whom Anthony was seated, had little to say. He still looked upon Anthony with disgust and made no bones about it. His expression resembled that of Mrs. Jorham when she was looking at the cathedral in Havana, Anthony thought; sour and not a little suspicious. Nevertheless, although he was forced to sit silent, he was soon aware of a subtle change in the whole atmosphere of the occasion.

It emanated from Cambacérès. At the first consul's table a great deal of laughter and loud talk was now going on. Cambacérès had come to congratulate Napoleon on the peace and to bring him the details of the negotiations. The news of the occasion spread from table to table and magnified by rumour was soon all over the place, among the guards, and out in the village.

Napoleon sat in the centre of all this flattered into good humour by the incense offered him by his good-humoured colleague; content to sit, as he liked best to do, the apparently indifferent cause that radiated success. Even in the garden of the simple house of the horse-leech at Nogent, where he had chosen to quarter himself, he was the centre of glory. And it was the second consul's intention to heighten that effect. It was not mere flattery that led Cambacérès to do this. True, it might pay. But the future arch-chancellor of the empire took a peculiar pleasure in being a sort of horn of plenty for the government; in extolling the first consul by distributing good cheer in the form of diplomatic dinners, official feasts to functionaries, and popular carousals. It was all there was left under the Constitution for the second consul to do. It suited his nature, and he did it well. There was an unexpressed understanding between himself and the first consul about it. Tonight if the first consul of the Republic was bestowing peace, Cambacérès as his colleague had come up from Paris to see that plenty should accompany it.

Four apparently empty post-chaises that had followed him now began to be unloaded. They contained innumerable packages prepared by Beauvilliers, the Parisian restaurateur. Cambacérès sent for Latour and amid much raillery forced him to discover the whereabouts of the wine which had arrived "dangerously early." Bottles of the excellent vintage which Vincent and Anthony had already sampled were now distributed to all. The simple fare already prepared by Latour's cooks for the headquarters was sent to the guards, who at some little distance away gathered about the camp fires along the river and began to sing and cheer. Cressets were lit. The scene became brilliant.

The scarlet-and-blue uniforms of the mess attendants moved about in the red glare of torches. They were bringing dishes from the deceptively empty-looking post-chaises to the long staff tables under the horse-chestnut trees. The yellow leaves drifted down and lay upon the white cloths about which the gilded and booted staff of the first consul of the French Republic jangled spurs, flashed epaulettes, and held up glasses of the excellent burgundy of the popular M. Cambacérès like so many rows of rubies in the torchlight.

"To the health of the first consul." Napoleon had replied with "Glory and prosperity to France." It was his only active part in the proceedings of the evening which was now obviously handed over to Cambacérès. Napoleon even sat a little apart under the largest tree with his chin on his hand, looking on. In his simple uniform and plain sword over his knees he stood out with startling contrast to the all but weird variety of the brilliant uniforms of his staff. The expression on his face did not change at all. Only his eyes moved.

He did not laugh over the English Goose, "cooked for the occasion," which was produced as the grand finale from the now genuinely empty chaises, nor applaud a really apt reply to Cambacérès made by brother Joseph. He merely sent for his cloak as it grew cool.

Anthony sat watching him from the "civil table" of M. de Bourrienne, where the secretaries sat, which was somewhat withdrawn from the others amid the shadows. All there felt themselves to be spectators and had now for some time said nothing to one another. De Bourrienne had accepted a cigar that glowed in the gathering darkness. Along the wall most of the town was gathered to watch the first consul eating, as only a generation before it had once gathered in the same place to see the king of France and Navarre dine hastily under the same trees on his way to Rheims. Hearing the news of the peace, the little mayor of Nogent came to offer his congratulations. He was received by Bonaparte and sent to one of the tables, where he and his sashed assistant fared well. Undoubtedly peace was a good thing and the first consul the saviour of France, if one took a mess officer's view of the situation.

"Didn't I tell you?" whispered Latour as he passed Anthony once. "M. Cambacérès knows what it is all about." He tripped happily on. This was the only "after dinner conversation" that came Anthony's way that evening. Vincent, de Staël, and de Bourrienne were now silent. Jancey had turned his glass down and gone in to write. The whole affair was suddenly terminated unexpectedly. Cambacérès held a surprise, however, to the last. He had brought some fireworks from Paris.

A burst of rockets soared over the river to the delight of all those watching along the wall, and as a finale a large "N" framed in burning laurel contrived to float for some time in the air and reflect itself in the water. This brought an acclamation from the soldiers encamped along the Marne and from everybody else--except young de Staël--and the ex-major Luçay, who with the citizens of Nogent had been watching the rejoicings from the street. He now turned away, his heart full of dark imaginings, to ride off with a burning "N" in his brain.

Napoleon had been visibly pleased by the "N." He now left his chair to go in, and the groups around the tables scattered.

"Come in," said de Bourrienne. "There will probably be a brief conversation this evening in the house. And the first consul, M. Adverse, wants you to talk with M. Cambacérès about Africa. Please recollect to do so. Cambacérès, you see, is responsible for the African Company which has just been renewed."

"I shall consider myself included as the second consul's guest," said young de Staël.

"As you will, monsieur," replied de Bourrienne, and they went in.

Anthony found himself left alone with de Staël as they crossed the lawn towards the door of the now brilliantly lighted, little house.

"You and Herr Nolte have had a rather strenuous crossing of the Alps, I hear," he said. "He has been telling me about it. Would you recommend the Simplon route?"

The others had hastened to separate themselves from de Staël in so marked a way that he could not but notice it.

"In another year the new road will be . . ." began Anthony.

"Do not let me embarrass you, M. Adverse," said the young man suddenly. "It will perhaps be better if you do not permit Bonaparte to see us together." He stopped by the threshold looking proudly miserable. The others had already entered.

"I do not know what differences you and General Bonaparte may have, monsieur," said Anthony, "but I shall be glad of your company now or upon any other occasion."

De Staël looked at him gratefully.

"I have come to request General Bonaparte to grant my mother permission to return to Paris. I am afraid it is useless. She is a woman whom he hates. But I shall persist," he said simply.

Anthony had never heard of Mme. de Staël, but he wished her son's mission might be successful and said so. They walked down the little hall and entered together the front room of the house from which a hum of voices proceeded.

The dispatch tables had been pushed back against the wall. Napoleon sat in a chair by the fireplace with his boots resting on the empty grate and his cloak still wrapped about him. He looked sallow and cold beside the ruddy Cambacérès standing with his plumes almost brushing the ceiling.

Bourrienne, Vincent, Beauharnais, and a number of staff officers were seated about talking in low tones. The gathering had about it the feeling of being only temporary; about to break up and go to bed. Everyone except Cambacérès looked tired. From the look of headquarters that evening anyone might have supposed a dull, minor campaign to have been finished and the staff to be returning home. A lackey in plain livery who passed about some coffee and rum was the only mark of state.

"These inspection tours are not without their compensation," Anthony heard de Bourrienne remarking to Vincent as he came in. "It is a relief from the formalities of the Tuileries"--but his attention was instantly transferred to the two consuls.

"But," Cambacérès was protesting to Bonaparte, "if you expect me to give state dinners and to entertain for the government, you must permit me to import civilized delicacies. One must have sugar, and it does not grow in France. Where do you suppose the nougat came from tonight? It's no scandal. Smuggling is now universal. I must have those fellows released. The prefect at Boulogne must be instructed. Every ambassador has this privilege . . ."

"Manage it then," said Napoleon. "In your case I acquiesce, but reluctantly. British trade must be struck down. I am afraid you as my colleague set a sorry example. But there is a gentleman I want you to talk to." He motioned toward Anthony. "He can really tell you something about the African project. I have questioned him myself. Does the company advance?" Cambacérès shook his head. "Like the codification of the law, I suppose. You must get on, mon Cambacérès, get on," he cried impatiently. "Monsieur, you--" he said pointing to Anthony. "Present him, Bourrienne, present him. Come here, M. de Staël, I wish to speak with you now."

The weary de Bourrienne presented Anthony to Cambacérès. But it was impossible for them to start a conversation just then. The room had suddenly grown quiet. Everybody was listening to the high, clear tones of the first consul. He had now turned about in his chair and was leaning back addressing young de Staël, who stood before him with a natural ease and quiet carriage that seemed in some sort to have recommended him. For Napoleon's voice was less harsh than at first.

"--far from annoying me, monsieur, your frankness has pleased me. I like to see a son plead the cause of his mother. You are young; if you had my experience you would judge of things better. I shall even explain myself. Nevertheless, I do not wish to rouse in you any false hopes. It is impossible that I should permit Mme. de Staël to return to Paris. I do not want women about who make themselves men, any more than I want men who render themselves effeminate. What use is unusual intellectual attainment in women? What has it always been? Vagabondism of the imagination. To what does it lead?--nothing. It is but the metaphysics of sentiment. I do not say your mother is deliberately a mischievous woman; I say she has that effect. She has a mind; she has too much, perhaps. But it is a mind insubordinate and without curb. She was brought up in the chaos of a crumbling order and a revolution. She amalgamates all that disorder and she might become dangerous. If she were repatriated she would make proselytes. I as head of the state must see to that. It would be weak of me to permit it. The greatest curse of nations is the weakness of will in the great-magistrate. The next is for him to be funny. The last and most fatal is for him to be serious and to permit others to make him seem funny. That is governmental suicide, madness. Sarcasm is the seed of anarchy. Hence, I shall not let your good mother return to Paris to become the standard of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. She would make little jokes. She would attach no importance to them, but I do. My government, M. de Staël, is not a joke; I take all matters seriously. I wish this to be known, and you can tell it to the world."

"But my mother wishes to see only a list of acquaintances and old friends which she will submit to the minister of police," interposed de Staël.

"Fouché, bah! He can arrest pickpockets and assassins but not ideas. No, no, my young friend, the trouble with you intellectuals is that you do not yourself understand the importance of ideas. They are like new mechanical inventions. Some are clever; most should be suppressed. Their social implications are dangerous. Their cleverness and convenience are generally seductive and illusory. Your mother lays ideas as a hen-ostrich lays eggs. She has no responsibility. I am to be left to deal with whatever hybrid hatches out--while she makes jokes in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. You underrate me, you even despise me as a man of action. Yet the philosophy of action, I say, is the greatest idea in the world. It is natural that you, the grandson of Necker, should not understand me. I am that idea, action; in me it is personified and exists in the flesh." He leaned forward now much excited and with imperial gestures.

"You have not read the last work of my grandfather," protested the young man, greatly perturbed; "in that he does you full justice. Perhaps it is the reports of his book . . ."

"I have read it from beginning to end--in two hours. Yes, he renders me pretty justice. He calls me 'the necessary man'! And according to him the first thing to do was to cut the throat of this necessary man. Why?--because he interfered with the ideas of M. Necker. Your grandfather was an idealist, a fool, an old nuisance. He was one of those theorists who judged the world by book and chart, who thinks man is an 'economic animal.' Economists are blockheads who make financial plasters to stop the running sores of the body politic. They do not even know that a nation may have a sick soul. Bankruptcy is an effect--a sign of dissolving organs. The money provided by the great M. Necker ran off like pus from the cankerous sores of France. Yes, I was necessary--indispensable, to repair all the fooleries of your grandfather; to efface the injury he has done to France. It was he who caused the Revolution.

"Now I wish you to remember this, M. de Staël. I do not address you alone but all those to whom you will return. You are still young and sensitive enough to feel when a man is sincere--even a great man. I speak for your own good as well. Remember, authority comes from God. Respect it. The reign of terror is at an end. I wish for subordination. The chaos of ideas is over. I am applying to them the solvent of action. It is only when ideas are embodied in force that they attain energy, work. Listen. When I was your age, monsieur, I thought of rivalling the fame of Newton. It was the world of details which then attracted me, the action of force on atoms. Newton has very little to say about that. It is important. I could not follow out my thought. The profession of arms was forced upon me by circumstances, but I made certain analogies from the world of nature, the rôle of chance, of what happens when one thing collides with another. And I did not forget that they were analogies and that there is also the world of men. You have a good head. I suggest that you follow out my train of thought--there is the institute. There is a career for you. But no, you will go on making epigrams in the salons. I foresee it. At the age of sixty--a book of amusing little recollections and bon mots, par M. Auguste de Staël--Bah, monsieur, that is death. That is what your mother, whose cause you plead without understanding her, will do to you. Let her go to Vienna, she will learn German there--encore une autre accomplissement pour la femme. How old are you now, sir?"

"Eighteen," said de Staël, with tears in his eyes.

"And only the son of your mother," Bonaparte smiled quietly at him. "Awake, M. Auguste de Staël, or it will be too late." He rose dramatically.

"Does your mother need funds?" he asked as an afterthought.

"She does not ask for them, mon général."

"Then she shall not receive them," said Bonaparte.

A trumpeter outside began to sound tattoo.

The first consul got up to leave. "Bourrienne, we return to Paris tomorrow. Joseph, I wish to see you. M. Nolte, you and M. Ouvrard I shall expect shortly on the Mexican business . . . I am glad to return your horses. You will not be troubled further. It was an excellent thought of yours tonight, mon Cambacérès. We are all in your debt." He returned the salutations of the company and disappeared with Joseph Bonaparte down the hall. All now looked at Cambacérès.

"Bon soir, mes amis, I know you are tired," he said. "My poor boy, I am sorry to have brought you from Paris for such a wigging," he continued, taking young de Staël by the arm. "I should have known better. Auguste, you have met this gentleman?--M. Adverse?"

"I shall not soon forget his courtesy," replied de Staël and took leave of Anthony with great warmth.

"Bon," exclaimed Cambacérès obviously pleased. "You will come and talk to me in Paris about Africa then."

"I should not presume to advise you, monsieur," replied Anthony.

"Nonsense, of course not." He lowered his voice. "We understand the enthusiasm of Bonaparte. I shall be glad to see you. Doubtless you can tell me much."

Anthony thanked him and joined Vincent who was taking leave of de Bourrienne with many expressions of gratitude. The little secretary saw them to the door and they hurried out to find Aristide.

"I'll bet you he will be with Latour," laughed Vincent--and he was. They insisted that he should come with them. After three "last" glasses with the adjutant of the mess they accomplished their cruel desire.

"How did you manage to get in there, Aristide?" asked Anthony.

"By flattery, monsieur. Must we go now? Burgundy like that is scarce. We have been lucky, I think."

"There is no place to sleep in the village."

"We might stay up all night--in there."

"Get the horses, Pujol," said Anthony. "We must be in Paris tomorrow. You will end in the army yet, you rascal."

"Ah, I am truly grateful for that," he cried. "Wait for me at the gate. In two minutes!"

Their last glimpse of headquarters was a curious one.

As the berlin drove off down the Paris road they saw M. Cambacérès, the second consul of the French Republic, leaning over the wall in conversation with an old peasant woman with a basket. A sentry near by stood at present arms.

"He was pinching the breast of a duck," shouted Aristide from the box as they rattled out of Nogent. "I saw him."

"Your driver is zigzag, Vincent," said Anthony. "A little less noise, Aristide," he called, looking out the window. "You will bring down the patrols."

"But it is true, M. Antoine," said Aristide, bending down very confidentially, and dangerously, "they tell me that the second consul buys all his own poultry."

They both leaned back in the berlin and laughed.. "My God, what a day!" cried Vincent. "Do you know, up until this moment it has all seemed to be perfectly inevitable. But we might not have gone to headquarters at all."

"But we did, and it was worth while, wasn't it?" said Anthony, and smiled to himself in the dark.

"Decidedly," agreed Vincent.

"Get up, all my four horses," cried Aristide triumphantly from the box. They sped on through the night and found beds at a late hour in the little village of Rebais.

----------

But it was not to be their last glimpse on that trip of Bonaparte. On the road between Esbly and Lagny he overtook them, descending upon Paris.

It was a long section of new highway lined with young poplars lately planted. They heard the bugles coming up behind them. An outrider with a trumpet appeared suddenly on the crest of a hill and galloped past at a furious rate with his horse in a lather of foam. He motioned the berlin to one side violently. They drew up. Nor did they have to wait long.

Four splendid Arab horses with grey coats and white feet suddenly flashed into view and came down the hill with their hoofs in perfect time. Their bodies grew out of the perspective inspiringly and leapt past with a tension against the beautiful, light carriage like that of tireless, steel springs unwinding in oil. Napoleon was reading a book. De Bourrienne sat facing him. They came out of the perspective and they dwindled into it. The drumming of hoofs thundered; diminished rapidly. The four horses leaned all together as they took a distant curve. The varnished back of the carriage, with the cocked hat above it, flashed in the sun once--vanished. The trumpet ahead had already died away incredibly into the distance. It floated back now as if echoed from the distant past. The carriage had seemed to be going faster than time.

There was something inexplicably impressive about the vision which had just passed. For to all who sat in the berlin it was not the mere sight itself that lingered in memory. It was the curious, complex feeling of the meaning of it. A meaning for which there was no word, and which seemed to be embodied only in the man with the cocked hat who sat reading in the carriage and yet was going so fast that he was overtaking events.

"It is not the same as when we saw him in Leghorn, is it?" said Vincent.

"No," replied Anthony. "Somehow that was just an amateur, a preliminary affair."

The other carriages and escort were evidently miles behind. They did not wait for them.

They whipped up and followed in the wheel tracks of Bonaparte.

It was late in the afternoon when they finally displayed their papers at the old gate of Picpus and found themselves at last rolling through the narrow and crooked streets of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

It had been necessary to hire a driver at the gate, for even Pujol admitted his inability to cope with the apparently crazy ruthlessness of Parisian traffic.

Anthony was thoroughly confused by his first glimpse of the whirl and maze of a great city. All sense of direction was lost in him. The short streets twisted and turned and ran into one another in a seemingly hopeless maze. Most of the roofs were peaked and the fronts of the houses leaned back, which served to give some light to the narrow streets. There were no overhanging balconies as in southern towns. A wilderness of chimneys and dingy swinging signs, the latter fast falling into decay in favour of the new street numbers painted on every door, was the principal mark of the changing era. Now and again a glimpse could be caught over the roofs of the frowning battlements and turrets of some medieval building.

"The Temple," said Vincent. "They are tearing its tower down. The Bastille has gone, you know. This is the Rue des Francs Bourgeois and we are driving into the Marais. It is still as it always was. Look, that is the Hôtel de Sévigné. I feel at home in this part of Paris. It is not fashionable certainly, but rents are cheap. These cochers always pretend not to understand.

"No, no," he shouted, "not by Saint-Merri, not Rue Saint-Martin. You tell him, Toni. He knows I'm a German." The little cocher in a glazed cocked hat and a coat of many capes grinned at Anthony as he repeated for Vincent, "Au coin des Blancs-Manteaux et des Archives."

He swerved suddenly to the right, drove through a labyrinth of dark alleys where sullen-looking workmen hurrying home shouted after the neat carriage. He managed to splash the horses and the body of the berlin in a vile smelling pool and then drew up suddenly before an old tavern with a soldier standing by a cannon for a sign.

"L'homme Armé," said he contemptuously getting down.

"You pay him, Aristide," said Vincent, "and remember he splashed the horses for you. We shall leave them here. Now then, do you see that little turret on the house at the corner just ahead? Well, that is the Hôtel de Baule. You walk up there and turn to the left on the Rue de Vielle du Temple. I live at number forty-seven. When you have seen to the horses and locked the berlin in the shed, give the key to the innkeeper. He knows me. Come around then. I shall tell the concierge to expect you and the luggage. But mind you, I don't want to find all the bronze stripped off the berlin."

"I have been to Paris before, monsieur," said Pujol, and turned to settle with the cocher.

A crowd of gamins gathered. Aristide turned on the cocher with a torrent of invective.

"You have abandoned me to a Gascoigne," shouted the surprised cocher after Vincent and Anthony. He actually looked shocked. They looked back from the corner of the Rue de Vielle du Temple. The berlin was going into the inn yard.

"Wait a minute, Vincent. There is something I want to bring along myself," said Anthony. He ran back to the little inn.

Aristide and the cocher, who was now laughing, were preparing to sluice down the horses in the stable yard together. They were friends for life, it seemed.

"I forgot something, Aristide," explained Anthony. Out of the boot he extracted the bundle he had not opened since Gallegos and swinging it over his arm went to rejoin Vincent.

"Now, Toni, I am going to show you something," said Vincent again, and led the way down the narrow, old street. He stopped before a seventeenth century house with a wide gate boarded across. Its beautiful spandrils projected above the tops of the planks with dimly gilded spearpoints of wrought iron.

"It is quite safe to take down these boards now," said Vincent while they waited, "but I want the privacy they give. Before you leave for London you will be in love with the old place. A snug retreat for a young banker. We shall call on Ouvrard tomorrow, mon vieux. Toni, I want you to consider that Mexican business!" He rang again impatiently.

"I am going to," said Anthony.

"Splendid," cried Vincent. "But what have you in that bundle wrapped up in a woman's shawl?"

"My luck," said Anthony.

"Paul," shouted Vincent, beginning to hammer on the door. "Are you dead?" A little square in the boards opened and an old man who still wore his hair in a queue looked out.

"Nom d'un nom, c'est vous, M. Nolte! Quelle impossibilité!" He swung the gate back. A small courtyard full of Renaissance carvings disclosed itself. A little stairs led up with a sweep like those of a graceful woman's skirts to a raised green garden with a sundial. On the wall directly before them was a bas-relief of Romulus, Remus and the obliging wolf. Someone was hastily opening shutters upstairs.

A flustered-looking, flaxen-haired little bonne suddenly plumped out of the passageway beside them and began to curtsy with a dust pan in one hand.

"Where is Mlle. Hélène?" demanded Vincent.

"Alas," said the girl in Alsatian patois, "she has gone for a visit with her brother, the hussar."

Vincent coloured to the eyes.

"Never mind," said Anthony.

"But he is her brother, by the cross I swear it. You shall see," insisted the maid.

"Set covers for four then tonight," chuckled Vincent. "Tell them, Paul."

"Yes, yes. He really is her brother, monsieur, and a nice fellow. All has been quite in order since you left. Très comme il faut!"

"Well, well, so he is then. Send for our baggage to L'homme Armé and for the young man there prepare a room. The guest chamber for M. Adverse, here. He remains until he goes to London. And, Paul, the gate is always to be opened for M. Adverse night or day whether I am here or not. My brother! He really is, you know.

"Aren't you, Toni?" said Vincent, taking him by the arm with considerable emotion.

"Oui, oui, monsieur," said everybody all at once and laughed.

The little bonne sped before them up the stairs opening doors. They began to ascend spiral steps in an old tower. They turned down a hall with beautifully carved doors. Just ahead one was half-open that gave a glimpse of a polished floor with white reflections. Somewhere a small clock chimed seven times.

END OF BOOK SEVEN

BOOK EIGHT

In Which Prosperity Enforces Loneliness

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

A METALLIC STANDARD IS RESUMED

Before he left Paris for London Anthony was so thoroughly engaged in the great scheme to pry open the rusty flood gate of the Mexican treasury and turn its stagnant pool of bullion into the thirsty channels of European finance that he had all but forgotten his determination to order life from within rather than to have it overwhelmed from without, a determination which he had brought with him and cherished out of Africa.

It was true that the inanimate form of that ideal still lay vague and dormant in the twilight depths of his being, but it was like the neglected image of his little madonna that he had brought back with him from Gallegos wrapped up in Neleta's shawl along with other memorabilia of the past--and toilet articles. It was seldom remembered, and never brought out for contemplation. It simply reposed, probably safely enough, in a closed cupboard at numéro 47, Rue de Vielle du Temple, where he and Vincent Nolte for several months in the late autumn and early winter of 1801 conducted life in a gilded-bachelor style of existence that made them at once enviable, convenient, and valuable to a widening circle of influential friends.

Through the wrought-iron gates at numéro 47 came and went, not a constant stream, but a lively trickle of numerous petty bankers and a few great financiers. There were also merchants and agents of all kinds; politicians, and certain government officials and personages.

"The House of the Wolf," as numéro 47 had long been called from the Roman plaque on the wall, had in fact entered upon a new era and busy days. Those who now met there acted, talked, and thought in ways that were new and all their own.

To be sure, Vincent Nolte did not gather friends about him to hold them and arrange them like so many iron-filings in the lines of the force he radiated. But he did have a certain influence. He was one of many magnetized, though not highly magnetic personalities, possessed of a certain modicum of attraction and force that kept the various motes in the current of the times in motion. His local segment of influence was Leghorn and Southern Europe. But in Paris he fitted into the general sphere of European finance, and on the whole acceptably and ably. This was recognized by several and sundry, and the post of Paul, his concierge, was by no means a sinecure.

Paul, indeed, was an ideal concierge for the House of the Wolf--or, for that matter, for any other house. He had seen the de Vaudreuils, its original owners, depart as ruined émigrés and he had remained loyally at his post while royalists, republicans, terrorists, directors, and consuls passed. It was he who had boarded up the gates in the secret hope that their beautiful griffins might sometime display themselves again, for he believed in the permanency of fabulous things. Certainly not even the griffins themselves could have been more fabulous than the styles of human character and costume which had passed through his portals during the incredible decade. In the course of ten furious years Paul had been forced to become either an amused observer of mankind or a cynic. He chose the former.

"Eighteen-hundred-one, Year Nine, as the newspapers must still say, encore une autre mode. Hein, let us answer the little bell and see what it is like then," he would mutter, shrugging his shoulders. He had long ago learned not to be surprised by anything, and never under any circumstances to laugh aloud. "That is why," he said to Vincent, when the latter had retained him, "I am an ideal concierge."

On the whole, Paul felt, the world was once more becoming more credible. Those who now rang his bell were suave rather than grotesque and madly enthusiastic.

For in Paris in 1801 one was no longer a cultured-natural longing exquisitely for the refined simplicities of a pastoral Utopia or a carefully-unkempt ruffian provided with convenient anarchical rages and a pike to help usher certain philosophic ideas into the world and those who opposed them out of it. One was no longer even a trousered Grecian devoted to naked simplicities and frantic fornication. Outwardly one was a somewhat puzzled kind of a Roman, hesitating whether to admire more the busts of Brutus and other republican regicides that the first consul had installed as a precautionary measure in the Tuileries along with himself, or, the now carnivorous-looking eagles on flags and standards that were undoubtedly beginning to preen themselves imperially and to look one way only as if prematurely afflicted with a touch of neck-stiffening, heraldic pip.

Inwardly, of course, much of all this was still unreal and confusing. One knew, if one had any flair for permanence, that it would pass; that one would secretly remain what one always had been--a good medieval European with perhaps just a saving-dash of the classic sciences and enough Semitic mystery and habitual morality to make life supportable. If one were none of these things, if one were perchance madly oneself, or merely some hard-working French artisan or peasant; one was not one. One was not even a minus quantity. One did not count.

But the ones who frequently, and in some cases habitually, now passed through the boarded gates of the House of the Wolf were again among those who counted. Counting, indeed, was their all-absorbing interest. Nor did they reckon any longer by ancestors and family. Their houses were counting-houses and their great names illustrious by firms. But none of them intended to count just one. One in their society, which was, if anything, Carthaginian rather than Roman--one was not anyone until one had become at least one-hundred-thousand something else; francs, guilders, pounds, dollars, or whatnot.

Nothing, perhaps, could have made this notable change in the ways of counting more apparent than a comparison of the little door-books kept by Paul, the first literate concierge of the House of the Wolf, and those of Paul the second, his son and proud successor. Under Paul the first the entries had been, even as late as 8th Janvier, 1785,

Ce Soir

La Princesse de la Tour d'Auvergne
M. le Duc d'Ayen, Madame la Duchesse de ditto
Le Curé de Saint-Eustache
Comte de Ségur, Madame la Comtesse de ditto
M. de Miromandre de Saint-Marie, Madame ditto
Docteur Franklin, philosophe, et sa dame (sans titre)

Under Paul the second, the prestige of the House of the Wolf continued to be made manifest, at least to Paul himself, by such entries as these: 3rd Fructidor, An IX,

Ce Soir

Collot, de la mint
Barbé-Marbois, de la fisc
J. G. Ouvrard, banquier
Herr Nootnagel, de Schwartz & Roques, Hambourg
Perregaux, banquier
Fulcheron, ditto
Cinot, de Cinot, Charlemagne & Cie.
deux autres--

and after each one of these entries was a faint estimate in pencil of the number of francs which Paul thought, or had heard, these guests of the house to be worth. The "deux autres" were merely Talma, the actor, and Nicolas Isouard, a young musician, both tolerated because M. Ouvrard patronized them and brought them along. But of course they didn't count. How could they?--they had nothing to drop through their fingers.

There were others that Paul merely jotted in his book; various bank messengers, brokers, and runners for commercial houses who had business with Vincent. These received no names. Only their business was noted. But no matter how the various comers-and-goers at numéro 47 were now entered in Paul's book their interest if not their business was always the same.

Most of them were to be described by the then rather new word "financier"; that is, the handling of the symbols of value, the game of it, and only incidentally the gain of it was their chief interest in life. In their various business schemes all social, political, religious, and racial differences were tacitly disregarded between them in order that commercial and banking operations might prevail and go on.

For the simultaneous disappearance in France of so many of the kind of people who had once lent distinction to the door-books of Paul's father, and the weakening of their hold on society everywhere else, had opened a new era for the kind of gentlemen who counted and figured in ledgers and on door-books in the year 1801.

Quite distinctly the possessors and manipulators of capital were coming into their heyday. The Revolution which had ideally devoted itself to the "rights of man" had in reality cleared the way for the unrestricted power of the capitalist. The feudal aristocracy had vanished, and with it the social stigma upon "usury" and trade. There were now only two ways of really counting: either by bayonets or by money. The ballot box by which the new order had hoped to be able to ascertain the voice of God, also by counting, was already discerned by some astute men to be a human oracle that could be either bought or coerced.

Here and there international plutocrats, who were eventually to absorb the powers of autocrats, aristocrats, and democrats, had begun to appear. There were even a few isolated individuals who had already evolved the machinery by which the state was to be manipulated. But there were only a few of them, for as yet the theory of financial control was scarcely understood.

But it was already a social feeling, an attitude capable of being shared with others, accompanied by a genuine sense of growing importance even among the lesser lights and small-fry engaged in banking and mercantile operations.

They felt themselves able to say to one another with truth, "We are the coming men." Their class feeling was that of sharing an increase of power which was being daily conferred upon them by fate. That is one of the most potent feelings that unites men and forces them to act together. They felt it strongly; they felt a growing air of triumph and mastery when they met together even informally. It shone in their faces and confirmed them in their manners. It overflowed in their correspondence--and in that era commercial correspondence first began to overflow the world.

Merchants and bankers' everywhere in Europe and America, as if by mutual agreement, now abandoned the old separatist formulas by which they had so long operated. The mercantile and colonial era was already over; national restrictions were beginning to waver so far as they were concerned. In an age of constant warfare they began to collaborate, unconsciously for the most part and always "patriotically"--but nevertheless effectively and consistently to overreach, undermine, and checkmate the arbitrary regulations of hostile governments in restraint of trade.

Hitherto money alone had not been thought quite enough to entitle one to great consideration. In the end riches might procure but they did not immediately confer power and prestige. Certain human graces, certain inherited manners that included a not entirely material code of honour, above all, well-understood and definite responsibilities to both church and state had for ages been demanded and expected from those who possessed property. But now all was changed. The financiers in reality had no superiors in power, not even titular ones. They were accountable only to themselves and their peers. In that sense, but in that sense alone, they had become aristocrats.

Bonaparte understood this. He felt some element of aristocracy to be inevitable and even attempted to re-create it. But he desired an aristocracy accountable to the state. "Aristocracy always exists," he insisted. "Destroy it in the nobility, it removes itself immediately to the rich and powerful houses of the middle class. Destroy it in these, it survives and takes refuge with the leaders of the workshops and people." Napoleon's hostility to financiers, his outbursts of rage and his sarcasms directed against such men as Ouvrard, were due to his comprehension of the fact that the financiers were not interested in anything but finance; that the unrestricted power of money in their hands tended to become a kind of ritualistic game, a thing-in-itself without any regard to its function as a political and social fact, just as the monarchy had become a ritual without meaning at Versailles only a generation before. In the European empire Napoleon hoped to create, the financiers were merely to play a necessary part. To the unrestrained power of plutocrats the little man at the Tuileries was consistently hostile.

"What is a merchant?" he once demanded of a crowd of Hamburg bankers and traders. "I will tell you: A merchant is a man who will sell his country for a small-écu." This was hyperbole in miniature. Nevertheless, truth was present. M. Ouvrard, for instance, and the other guests of the House of the Wolf did not intend to sell their country for a small-écu. No, no! The accusation was unjust; they sweated under it. They were men of larger interests. They would not sell their country for anything less than several milliards of grand-écus. But they knew that they could do it. And some of them, those with the greatest financial acumen, had already set out not only to sell their own country but all the others in the world "into the bargain."

The smaller-fry still acted on more traditional principles. The thrill of power also attended them, but it was not their sole motive. Vincent, for instance, loved to be domestically important, to be able to provide the means for and to engage in a kind of medieval merchant-class life such as that still carried on at Strasbourg. That life was gross perhaps, but at least it was ample and generous. It still supposed that the profits of trade were to be spent in a whole-souled way for human relations and family life. It could still value a friend for himself and not solely for his influence. Vincent's struggle was carried on between a desire to retain some of these "Hanseatic values" and the fascination for purely abstract financial power which the period of war-time finance opened up to him. Was he to remain a merchant living in a whole-souled way or to become a manipulator, of government securities and loans devoting himself to the game? He was not generally conscious of the situation. It became visible to him only as the necessity for decisions arose upon various separate occasions.

To Anthony the game of finance was never in itself overpoweringly fascinating. By training and experience he understood its methods of procedure and it was only natural that he should enter into it rather than take up politics, or go into the army, or merely amuse himself going about spending. A man without a country speaking several languages, he found himself peculiarly adapted to take part in international schemes. He could even lose himself in them to a certain "successful" extent as a mere actor in a rôle which fate seemed to have thrust upon him, because there was no other to play. Like a great many other young men, then and since, he felt forced to go on doing something "real" even if his ideals remained locked up. He was not the only one whose madonna was in a bundle in the cupboard.

Yet with Anthony there remained in a peculiarly vivid manner the memory of another rôle, of another way of acting which implied a choice of his own instead of a mere assignment by fate. It would turn the world from a place in which to write letters and speak lines and play financial and other games into a reality, and yet into a mystical city where one could be a whole man and act like one.

Anthony still hoped to work through one rôle into the other. In a curious way, which only his own personality could envisage and contain, he entered upon this attempt by taking part in one of the greatest international financial intrigues of the time. It was a great plot. Through it he hoped to take his place in the world, and then . . .

In the meantime the mode of existence at the House of the Wolf offered every facility for becoming involved in the financial currents of the time.

The two young men felt themselves to be quite in the main stream of events. For a while this was a highly satisfactory sensation. If Anthony had his reservations he was not inclined just then to state them even to himself. He felt drawn by the tide and swam in it, although not so heartily perhaps as Vincent who swam with it and felt glorified. Neither was fully aware where the tide was taking them. They felt themselves to be going--and that was enough for the time being. Certainly it was better than stagnating, which seemed to be the only alternative.

They arranged life accordingly and the House of the Wolf by consequence became entirely masculine. "Love" even in its more ephemeral and lighter manifestations seemed out of place in what had become essentially an abode of finance. Masculine associations were bound to predominate there. The only human affection which could flourish in such an atmosphere was friendship. Perhaps it was even more to their credit than they knew that they were able to cherish so well the bond between them. The strains put upon it served only to bind them tighter. Not until years later did they understand that in this loyal association lay the principal element of their success. It enabled them both to act with a confidence which neither could have experienced without the assurance imparted by a completely trusting partner. In the warmth of this understanding and loyalty the natural petty jealousies upon which young men's partnerships so often founder were transmuted into so many friendly rivalries. They became merely the urging of the spur toward a success to be mutually shared. And because of this friendship between them they seemed for a while to be living in halcyon days.

The final "divorce" of Vincent from la belle Hélène, who had for some time previous to Anthony's arrival shared Vincent's loneliness, was indicative of a new era. The parting of Vincent and Hélène was not painful. It was amusing. It was even characteristic of belles Hélènes everywhere.

She had never returned from her visit with her "brother, the hussar." She had simply continued on in his fraternal care. He, however, had called one afternoon, politely, suggesting that, as he was the best fencer in his regiment, his "sister" was entitled to compensation for having been suddenly surprised out of her boudoir. "Her chagrin, monsieur, was of a terrible completeness at not being asked to return. Her modesty has been shattered by your suspicions. Elle souffres."

"I shall be liberal," said Vincent--and he was, "but there is no reason, monsieur le frère de mademoiselle, why mine should be the only private house in Paris where liberté, égalité, and fraternité are still practised with a complete sans-culotte abandonnement. That legend reads well only on public buildings now. I hope you agree?"

"Are you also a good shot with the pistol?" inquired Anthony apparently from mere curiosity and over his newspaper.

"The profound sentiments of monsieur le banquier are acceptable, I am sure," said the military gentleman, departing hastily with some francs.

"I don't want to interfere with your domestic arrangements, Vincent, even temporary ones," continued Anthony, feeling in honour bound to lay at least one posy on the cenotaph of the vanished mademoiselle. "I can make myself comfortable chez L'homme Armé, you know."

"Ach--that you should think so!" cried Vincent. "What was that little bud-of-love to me? It is a relief that she has departed. It is terrible for two people to try to read the same newspaper from one knee. I know now I was tired of it. Anyway, Paris is a young man's paradise. There are two Eves here under every forbidden tree. Besides, you know, I left my heart with that great rosy-one at Strasbourg. Du lieber, it is for her that I suffer now!" And he looked so comical and so sincerely and sentimentally miserable at the same time that they both enjoyed it immensely.

Anthony was wise enough, nevertheless, to take the hint, if it was one, about the newspaper. He had both Le Moniteur and La Liberté brought up every morning. And this feeling of each to his own newspaper and an open exchange of views afterwards became the spirit of the house and pervaded the entire establishment, affecting to some extent all those who came there.

The shutters on the rez-de-chaussée looking out on the little court and the green garden with the sundial were now thrown open, and they breakfasted in what had once been the drawing-room of the ancient hôtel, eagerly discussing the news, planning a thousand projects and the day's adventure--for all serious business was still that to both of them when they were together--with a flow of understanding and a facility for sound invention and prevision that astonished them both; which, indeed, occurs only when two minds are thoroughly at one and working profoundly at ease together. A shared responsibility made decisions doubly easy. And, as is so often the case when two friends collaborate for the sole purpose of collaborating, the practical results of their work were accompanied by astonishing good luck. For a month or so during the late autumn of 1801 in Paris this was true with Anthony and Vincent to an unusual degree. All that they undertook prospered. The more off-hand they seemed to be about it the better it went.

----------

They began by calling on Ouvrard, a vigorous and florid man who received them, as he did everyone who would engage with him in his schemes, eagerly. No one at that time, not even he himself, knew how rich he was. It was only his schemes that were complex and subtle. He himself was in his address and manner simple, direct, and kindly enough. On that particular day he and Vincent discussed eagerly a speculation in government stocks in which they were both vitally interested. It was only toward the last of the interview that apparently as a side issue the Spanish-Mexican scheme came up.

Ouvrard showed immediate interest, however, when he learned that Anthony was shortly to visit the Barings in London, and why.

"It was my thought," said Vincent, "that here is an opportunity to urge upon that important firm, and possibly to present to Sir Francis Baring himself, the full details of the scheme at the instance of a gentleman of independent fortune who is already favourably known to them as a client; one whom they cannot suspect of any political motive. That, as I understand it, has been what has so far delayed our progress. We advance slowly by correspondence. Letters are cold."

"It is very difficult to be candid and explicit in this matter and entrust it to the posts," said Ouvrard. "I can see your point. Well, would you be willing to convey certain proposals to Sir Francis Baring in person, M. Adverse?"

"Provided I was fully acquainted with the contents, M. Ouvrard. I should at least want to know the nature of the risks I might be taking."

"Practically none, I assure you."

"I think it is also important," added Vincent, "that if M. Adverse is eventually to take over the agency at New Orleans he should be fully acquainted with the whole plan, for it is at New Orleans that the initial supplies of bullion, the whole capital for the enterprise, will first be received into neutral territory. In a sense, if the thing goes over, all operations will begin from there."

"Ah, pardon me," cried Ouvrard. "I had not identified your friend here with the person you had written me about for the post at New Orleans. The name slipped me." He turned to Anthony with much greater interest. "I recollect you now. You have had considerable experience with Spanish colonials, haven't you? I thought the suggestion of your going to New Orleans excellent. But how will the Barings feel about it?"

"I cannot be sure," replied Anthony, "but it has occurred to me that since my entire fortune is now, and I trust will remain long, in their hands, they could not find anyone who would be better bonded from their standpoint for handling the large sums which would have to pass through my hands at New Orleans."

"An excellent point," agreed Ouvrard. "Well thought of. It seems in a way to slate you for the post. For to tell the truth, you touch upon the crux of the matter there. It has been impossible so far to agree about the method of investing the capital in the United States, once it has been released; that is, we disagreed about who was to do the investing there. As there will be in the aggregate millions of dollars released from Mexico by my drafts over a period of time, its deposit and temporary investment in America before its eventual transfer to Europe, whether in the form of merchandise or specie, is a vast problem."

"I should not care to be involved in that," said Anthony. "I should prefer to have my duties at New Orleans, provided I go there, confined solely to the receipt and transfer of the specie. I should then deliver it to whatever agents in the United States may have been designated."

"The profits for the agent will largely be in the 'temporary investments' he may make, I should think," smiled Ouvrard.

"I should prefer merely a reasonable percentage for handling."

A card was brought at which Ouvrard looked. He got up and put his fat hand on Anthony's arm.

"And expenses, M. Adverse, do not forget expenses." He smiled. "But the details must be settled later. You must excuse me now. It is the secretary, de Bourrienne," he whispered to Vincent, "the new advance on the rentes, I suppose. Now when shall I see you next? Supper tomorrow chez vous? Non! I dine with M. Talleyrand. The next day? Bon! Wednesday evening, then."

He followed them to the door. "What a charming equipage you have, Nolte," said he as he glanced out of the window. "Where can I have it copied?"

"A present to me from M. Adverse."

"Ah," sighed Ouvrard his brown eyes watering, "the latest London mode."

"Let me send it around to fetch you Wednesday," said Vincent. Ouvrard looked childishly pleased.

They bowed to de Bourrienne as they passed him going out.

"You have not met any more patriots who like horses, I hope," said he laughing. "Did I tell you that fellow, what's-his-name, was dismissed?"

"No, but we rather suspect M. Ouvrard here," said Anthony. "He has taken a fancy to the berlin, too."

Ouvrard roared and clapped him on the back. The door closed. It opened again. "If I were you I would take up those consols, Nolte. Mais oui!"

"Well, I said I would have that major cashiered," said Vincent with tremendous satisfaction as they drove home after the interview, "and I did." Anthony said nothing.

"Ouvrard is a genius but the most vulgar one in the world. Did you notice how he said 'Talleyrand'? But anyone who has anything to lose can take dinner with Talleyrand. Gott! that old fox, he can smell the cheese in the beak of any corbeau a mile away--and make him drop it. I should tell you, mon vieux, that Ouvrard is said to be partial to young men. I think you can go to New Orleans if you want to."

"Damn," said Anthony. "But why do they always take me for an Englishman--the latest London mode, you know. Pshaw!"

"Because you look and act like one, Toni," said Vincent with a shrug.

"But I don't talk like one."

"When you are not speaking English, no. But what's the difference? Well, I am going to take Ouvrard's tip and invest in this last issue of the government stock. You had better come in with me, too. It will go up, you know. Let's go to the Bourse now."

Anthony was surprised at the amount Vincent put into French consols. So was Vincent when he got home. "But government securities are bound to go up with peace coming on," he insisted. Yet he looked anxious and read his newspapers Tuesday morning avidly.

The consols had gone down a little.

The dinner with Ouvrard Wednesday evening, however, was a cheering affair. After several hours' talk over the wine he finally spread his hands out on the table, leaning down on his fingers as if he had cards under them, and said, "Attention, messieurs," like a little drum-major.

"I am about to make you a proposition.

"You must be aware, M. Adverse, that in talking with you this evening I have, to be frank, been acquainting myself with you along several lines. The business is an important one and I wished to be satisfied first about a number of matters. Suffice it to say I am. Also, Nolte, I am inclined to think that your suggestion of leaving all the details of the handling of the capital in America to the Barings, if they will undertake it, is the only solution. The matter sums up this way then: I supply the drafts on Mexico; the Barings undertake to get the specie or its equivalent in goods to Europe, making as much as they are entitled to in the process. I will see to the disposal here of whatever comes through their agents." He rubbed his hands. "In that way I can at last recoup myself.

"Messieurs, at the present time I have at my case bills on the Mexican treasury for seven millions of dollars. Think of it! They are sight-drafts made over by the Spanish royal treasurer to France as part of Spain's annual subsidy by treaty. The first consul has given them to me to pay me for feeding and clothing his soldiers. He has laughed and thought to ruin me. 'The silver is there, ' he said. 'Go and get it.' Well, now we shall do as he suggests. This is my plan.

"You, M. Adverse, will take with you to London my Mexican drafts to the extent of one million dollars. You will suggest to Sir Francis Baring that this is only a first earnest of my desire to further this enterprise and that the money when realized is to be used as working capital for the firms or agents which he may see fit to set up in America. You will also tell him, that as soon as he has his arrangements perfected in America and in Holland, for I imagine that is where most of the goods will be finally received for European distribution, I shall supply him with further drafts for as large amounts as he can handle at one time, and without question. And I am prepared at this time to guarantee that within the next two years I can furnish him drafts to the extent of thirty-five millions of Mexican dollars if he can arrange his forwarding operations on a large enough scale. Urge him to do so. One affair of three millions has already been pulled off. Why stop? I must realize on this Mexican paper or it will ruin me. And what is it to the Barings if I make my own arrangements with our government officials here to admit goods on the side?"

"There is also the British blockade," said Vincent.

"That is their affair," cried Ouvrard. "This is a matter of international finance; each side will have to fool its own government. All sides will profit. It is a good thing. A tremendous amount of idle capital will be put to work. And peace will shortly be signed anyway. We must catch fish while the tide serves. I am afraid the peace which is still negotiating will not last long. When do you start for London?"

"In a few days."

"Bien, you will want certain credentials to pass you over the Channel. See Talleyrand, also Fouché. I shall, as it were, smooth the path." He stroked the table-cloth gently. "When you are ready call at my case for the drafts. You must not let anyone see them or permit even a rumour that you have them to leak out, for if Bonaparte learns of this he will immediately smell a mouse.

"And now then, good night. It is a great mission you go upon. You will not suffer by it, be sure. Be careful how and what you write above all things. The best letters are those that are never written."

He swung his luxurious cloak, lined with Russian furs, about him, gathered up his purple gloves, his huge beaver hat, and the stick with a carnelian handle and left with a rich suavity of manner that his walk denied. He ground his boots into the floor as if they were sabots.

They went downstairs and saw him into the berlin which he had now offered to buy.

"You still think it advisable to hold onto this last government issue?" asked Vincent, leaning into the carriage. Ouvrard looked at him calmly. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

"Talleyrand has borrowed money to take it up," he said, and raised his eyebrows.

The berlin started down the narrow street, its candles burning dimly. Behind its oval window the large, white face and huge hat of the banker looked out like a florid picture set in too-refined a frame.

"I wonder if he was lying?" muttered Vincent.

The next forty-eight hours were some of the most troubled ones that Anthony had ever spent. For two days he thought Vincent was going mad.

From somewhere came a rumour that the peace negotiations were being broken off. A young German banker who had also bought the last government issue heavily ran in to tell them about it next morning about ten o'clock. He was green and shaking. He consumed half a decanter of brandy. Vincent could take nothing. His pink complexion was now a dull, smooth white. They drove headlong to the Bourse. The square was a pandemonium of coming and departing carriages with the gamins employed as messengers rushing about. The police had already resigned and were standing in the slow drizzle with their long capes wrapped about them, taking what shelter they could and merely looking on.

"That is a bad sign," said Vincent gloomily. "Fouché has been known to act promptly when there is no truth in depressing rumours."

It was impossible to force their way into the old buildings from which a constant yelling, as if a thousand poisoned dogs were all dying there, proceeded.

They finally worked across the square and took shelter from the rain in a small shop, where a number of other investors were sitting around. Chairs were being let-out there for a franc an hour. In them those who were being ruined sat as long as they could keep from rushing out to sell. Others immediately took their places. Quotations were brought in every few minutes by boys, who yelled out what was written on the small wooden blocks they carried showing the stock, the hour, and the price. In the shop these were passed about dismally from hand to hand and then stuck in a wooden frame, each stock on its own line.

As the day wore on it was curious to note that the successive waves of men who came to sit in the chairs were more and more handsomely dressed. All the small speculators had been sold out. Only those who thought they could still afford to hold on, or who held such large blocks, of consols that they could not sell now without being ruined, would still pay a franc for a chair.

Limonades and sour wines were no longer brought in. Nothing was ordered but the best cognac and coffee for the gentlemen in ruffled stocks, deep, brown coats with many-capes, silk waistcoats, and elegant boots, who nervously compared notes in acceptable accents and exchanged snuff as the market continued to fall.

Vincent said nothing and sat perfectly still. A downward swoop of ten points at one fell blow after a brief rally about two o'clock seemed to have left him frozen.

"Is it so bad?" said Anthony. "Hadn't you better get away from it for a while?"

"I must stay," croaked Vincent hoarsely. "It is all. And Anna's, too. I borrowed." He put his hand on his friend's arm and drew him down to whisper, "I know how a man could shoot himself now. I'm not going to." He smiled through clenched teeth.

"Don't think I would let you be washed out, mon vieux," said Anthony.

"I shall see this through myself, Toni. God bless you," said he, and continued to sit.

A young man dressed in silk and broadcloth, with his dapper boots resting on a chair for which he had paid an extra franc, began after a while to talk to Anthony. He had a dark, Jewish cast of features and wore large rings.

"Are you hit very badly?" he said.

"If it stays down, yes," said Anthony, not caring to explain that, his only interest was his friend.

"That is exactly the way I feel," said his new acquaintance. "I don't believe in the rumour of the negotiations with England being off. And I'll tell you what it is, I believe Ouvrard and old Reynard Talleyrand between them are responsible for starting war rumours. When things go to where they want them, then they will buy in. I tell you I have been expecting it. Yesterday this issue started to go up, and I learned then that it was Talleyrand's agent who was buying in large quantities. He stopped at eighty-seven. Then Ouvrard went to see Talleyrand. I'll bet what happened was this: Said the old fox to the fat pig, 'Why not put it down, buy it in cheap, and then put it back again?' Joseph Gallatin, the Swiss banker, was at Talleyrand's last night too, and this morning when the Bourse opened he got rid of a large block of governments. That started things. 'No peace with England. Old Gallatin must know,' said everybody, 'He was at Talleyrand's only last night!' And now look! Even the peasants are beginning to come in with one or two bonds. I tell you, if there was anything to it, if the market was in any real danger, Fouché would have closed the Bourse at noon."

They went over and looked through the shop windows, where a stuffed baboon stood displaying on both arms gentlemen's canes and knick-knacks, which were the usual stock in trade of the place whose chairs were now at a premium. The rain had turned to snow. The steps of the Bourse and the square were packed with a sea of backs, hats, and hunched shoulders watching the blackboards upon which a clerk leaning out of a window wrote hieroglyphics from time to time. A groan went up from the mob.

"Five off, at a clip!" said the young Hebrew to whom the hieroglyphics seemed to be familiar.

Vincent came over and joined them, shaking. "I believe Ouvrard was lying the other night," he said. "They are down to thirty-four, and I bought at--Mein Gott!" He moaned. A gamin with a set of discouraging blocks rushed in. An old aristocrat who looked as if he might have been a courtier at Versailles in his youth dropped a snuff-box on the floor and wilted as if he were going to have heart failure. Anthony picked up the box for him. It had a portrait of Marie-Antoinette on it. The old man extended it with a trembling hand but with the grand manner.

"It is a curse, monsieur, for having bought republican securities. 'Securities!'--it must be M. Voltaire there in the window who called them that."

He rose, took his cane and lunged at the baboon which collapsed into a corner of the show-case, grinning diabolically at all those in the room.

"I am going to sell, sell!" shrieked a staid-looking man apparently addressing the monkey. He rushed out. Two others began to shuffle their feet uneasily.

"Ouvrard has just jettisoned two thousand shares," yelled someone, sticking his head in the door. "Do you hear, Henri? Oh, he is gone!"

As if at a signal everyone in the place but Vincent, Anthony, the old aristocrat and the young Hebrew rushed out. They rolled over each other getting down the steps. A handsome, middle-aged banker picked himself up out of the gutter after his colleagues had stamped him flat, and wrung the mire out of his beard. The young Jew broke into an ecstasy of laughter, looking up at the face of the baboon. Vincent began to move toward the door, shaking. Anthony laid hold of him.

"Wait, Vincent," said Anthony. "I don't think he was lying. I feel sure of it."

"I sell," said Vincent. "Enough to get home on!" Anthony looked appealingly at the young Jew who was regarding the little drama before him quizzically.

"Stay and get rich, monsieur," said the Hebrew with sudden sympathy, his smile vanishing. "Why not?"

Vincent hesitated; collapsed in a vacant chair. Anthony gave him a drink from a glass of brandy someone had abandoned.

The old man in the corner snickered behind his hand.

Suddenly a roar went up from the mob. A carriage escorted by police was trying to make its way to the Bourse. It lodged half-way across the square. Someone, they could not see who, got up in it and shouted something.

"It's a messenger from the Tuileries," said the young Jew going out on the steps. "I can see his scarf."

The mob about the carriage began to swirl. In five minutes everyone in as many blocks knew that the rumour of renewed war with England had been officially denied.

A boy dashed up and thrust a note into the hand of the young man on the steps. He walked in smiling triumphantly.

"Ouvrard is beginning to buy," he said. "Now you will see. That lot he threw on the market was only to save his face."

"Up we go," he shouted, snatching a block from a passing gamin.

The confusion outside was now indescribable. A great crowd of hatless men rushed out of the Bourse and down the steps, waving their hands frantically. The mob outside broke up into eddying groups buying and selling. The old man in the corner got up and going over to the window put the stuffed monkey back into place almost affectionately. He then went over to the young Jew and extended him his snuff-box.

"For the first time in the history of my family to one of your race, monsieur. Do me the honour. I have been watching your face during the last hour and it is the most beautiful one I have ever seen. It has been worth forty-five thousand francs to me."

He bowed and went out.

Vincent joined in the laugh. He seemed to have been healed by a miracle. They waited till the Bourse closed, shook hands with the young Jew, who declined to be driven home by them, and wound their way through the groups in the streets who were still eagerly buying and selling while shaking the snow off coat collars. Everyone understood what had happened now. Everyone was trying to recoup himself. Consols soared.

"I shall sell tomorrow morning before the big ones begin to cash in and the crest falls off," said Vincent. And he did.

He came home enormously complacent.

"How much did you make?" asked Anthony grinning.

"Toni, I shall never tell you," said Vincent. "I have learned my lesson. I shall never risk my reason again. I am ashamed."

Anthony laughed at him. "So our friend the Israelite proved a profit after all," he said after a little.

"Yes," cried Vincent leaping up. "But it was you who kept me in that chair. You! And now I am rich. Du lieber Gott, I am rich!"

"If I were you," said Anthony, "I would turn those paper francs you have made your profit in, into coin of some kind and make a cache of it in England. I begin to see now how wise was old John Bonnyfeather in several ways."

"I'll think it over," replied Vincent. "But first I will recoup Anna, and I am going to transfer her investments to Hope and Co., at Amsterdam. How could I ever have borrowed from her? Think of it!"

"Yes," said Anthony, "when I was sitting by you in one of those damned, hired chairs that day I saw Anna sitting in her window at Düsseldorf, under her canaries. There must be flowers in that window, too. I guess she will be big with her baby by now. You remember that day at Livorno when we both agreed what banking was about?"

"Ja," said Vincent, and sat silent for a while. Neither of them ever referred to the matter again.

An urgent letter from the Barings, this time addressed to Anthony, served to hasten his departure from Paris. Old Sir Francis Baring himself had written briefly, enclosing his few lines like something alive encased in the documents which surrounded them.

My dear Sir:

Only a lifelong esteem and boyhood friendship for your benefactor persuaded me to undertake the administration of his affairs. It is that alone which now prompts me to tender you my advice.

Delay no longer. I am in receipt of your letter of recent date and I shall be pleased to see you personally when you arrive here. But no matter how alluring the prospects of future gain may appear to be in the Spanish-Mexican scheme, to which you allude so enthusiastically, your further tarrying in Paris at this time is like to endanger what you have already inherited. Between a comfortable certainty and a gilded possibility no reasonable man should ever hesitate. Suffer me at least to remind you of that. I assume that you are reasonable.

The accompanying letters will inform you of my particular reasons for writing you this. As you have not been brought up in England, you may not perhaps fully appreciate the evils of falling into the hands of those who at a staggering charge turn the hearty, human curses of their clients into feeble legal-prayers to the Court of Chancery.

The enclosed advice from Messers McSnivens, Williams, Hickey, and McSnivens is therefore, be advised, sufficiently alarming. I trust we shall be able to stave the matter off until you arrive.

Your humble obd't servant,

Francis Baring, Bart.

"Well, that settles it. Doesn't it? If Ouvrard isn't ready to have me go yet I shall leave anyway. Go!"

"Let's drive round and see him now," said Vincent seeing that Anthony was so determined. For some days they had not heard from the banker.

The rest of the day was a busy one. They found Ouvrard at the Tuileries with some difficulty but as it proved later fortunately with Talleyrand.

"Come in, come in," said Ouvrard, after the servant whom they both bribed and threatened to announce them at the ministry of foreign affairs had finally done so, "I have just been going over our scheme as it now stands with the bishop upstairs," he whispered, grinning. "He can see no reason why with peace coming on we should not begin operations promptly." He filled his chest for a long talk but Anthony took his opportunity.

"That is exactly what we all feel, M. Ouvrard, and as I am leaving tonight for London I have come to you for the drafts you spoke of desiring me to carry to Sir Francis Baring."

"Tut, tut," said Ouvrard, still puffed up like a fat peacock with the wind he had inhaled for a long period. "Tut, tut, I don't want you to leave right away." The plump hand had come out and rested on his arm as if it would detain him.

"I am sorry, monsieur, that I am unable to make my own convenience entirely yours," replied Anthony; "perhaps in any event you will aid me with having my passports properly endorsed. I understand that despite the suspension of hostilities there are still difficulties."

"Tiens!" exclaimed Ouvrard, stepping back. "It is someone like you that we need to put action into this affair. I myself, I talk. Yet much is accomplished by talk, you will observe, much is done by words . . ."

"The passports are the first step now, aren't they?"

Vincent looked shocked that so important a man should be interrupted in the midst of his words.

"You are right," said Ouvrard. "Come up and we will see Talleyrand now."

They found the former bishop of Autun looking out the window with his back towards them when they entered. Anthony caught a glimpse of his face in the full light as he looked out across the Tuileries gardens and before he seemed to be aware that they had been announced. He did not turn instantly. He seemed to complete his thought, whatever it was, and then turned. Anthony felt it to be a curious thing that the expression on the face of the minister of foreign affairs had not altered in the slightest as he came forward a few steps with a slight limp to acknowledge their presence. He seemed to accept them simply as facts with the self-same completely quiet smile, a very slight one, with which he had been looking out at the grass and trees a few seconds before.

There was something vaguely familiar to Anthony in that smile, something just a little sinister in the shell-like curve of the lips which the smile overcame but did not cancel. Theirs was a moulded self-possession. The eyes, rather small but steady and keen, confirmed the self-possession of the mouth without adding anything to whatever faint warmth the smile might have been useful enough to convey.

And yet the man was not cold. He was animated, alive, no doubt of it. But imperturbable. By always compelling all who approached him forever temporarily to suspend their judgment as to his motives he perpetually kept their attention--and then he would vanish, usually with a portion of Europe in his portfolio.

"Permit me, citizen-minister," Ouvrard was saying--"mes amis, Herr Nolte, whom you will remember, and M. Adverse."

The citizen-minister bowed, limped once and sat down, at the same time indicating that there were other chairs with a courtesy that seemed to make standing up only a little less futile than sitting down. For a moment they hesitated.

"In America, where I lived for some time," said Talleyrand impersonally, "they have a marvellous contrivance called a rocking chair. I have long thought of furnishing the suite of the minister for foreign affairs here with them. They give one the impression of always being just about to attain equilibrium without ever permitting anybody to do so. Do be seated, gentlemen."

They did so while he continued, "I hear you are to be congratulated in holding on to your government stock through the recent flurry, Herr Nolte. There were only a few who were wise enough to do that. They say a certain young Frankfort Jew also made a great fortune."

"I did not make a great fortune, monsieur," began Vincent.

"He became only moderately rich," put in Ouvrard laughing.

"Well, what more do you want me to do for you, gentlemen? I do not suppose, of course, that you came here to express your gratitude. The rumour about the negotiations being broken off was absurd. M. Ouvrard will confirm me, I am sure."

"Ridiculous," said the banker. "The first consul could not have chosen a more fitting person than his brother Joseph to negotiate the treaty. Look how well he did at Campo Formio. I trust you will say so, M. Adverse, in the proper quarters when you arrive in London."

"I shall be delighted to do so provided the citizen-minister can see fit to smooth my way across the Channel."

Talleyrand opened a cahier before him and began to finger its leaves. "Your purpose in going to--London--monsieur?"

"Is to transact some private affairs with Baring Bros, and Co.--and--" he looked at Ouvrard, who smiled encouragingly, "to convey to Sir Francis Baring several Spanish compliments from M. Ouvrard."

Talleyrand smiled. "Your formula is apt enough, M. Adverse. I also hear you have the habit of making friends. M. Auguste de Staël expressed himself warmly about you yesterday at Cambacérès'. I admire Mme. de Staël enormously. I am under great obligations to her."

"It was nothing, I merely acted on impulse, I assure you."

"I have no doubt of it," replied Talleyrand. "When do you leave for London?"

"Tonight, if possible."

"And you are living now at?"

"Forty-seven, Rue de Vielle du Temple--with Herr Nolte."

"The House of the Wolf," said Talleyrand amused. "Now when I was at Saint-Sulpice I remember . . ." he smiled and waved his hand--"and you are gay there?"

"Very," said Anthony and was echoed by Vincent.

"That is well. You sustain a certain tradition. I will tell you that much." He looked at them both with a reminiscent satisfaction. "The twins of the wolf, eh! But come, that is my affair.

"What I was going to say to you, M. Adverse, is, that since you are going to London, I wish you to deliver certain letters for me personally. They will be sent around to you with the rest of your papers this afternoon. Now when you deliver these letters merely say this; that I am personally sincerely desirous of a lasting peace between England and France. Convey that impression from me as a personal expression of my opinion to those to whom the letters will be addressed. Ah,--two things more--assure Sir Francis Baring that no difficulties will be thrown in M. Ouvrard's way by me--quite the contrary. The first consul's attitude on British goods you understand is unalterable. But colonial produce, that, of course, is a different thing.

"And now, monsieur, this is really important. From a certain shop in Bond Street--I will write the name on this slip--I wish you to have sent to me twelve dozen pairs of ladies' gloves, grey with pearl buttons, and this size." He put the piece of paper about his own hand, marked it, and handed it to Anthony. "Mme. Grand will wear no others," he said to Ouvrard.

"In spite of your doubts as to gratitude we are all grateful, citizen-minister," said Vincent as they rose.

"Véritablement," cried Ouvrard.

"La gratitude n'existe pas," said Talleyrand. "But do not neglect to get the gloves at least, M. Adverse. I shall reimburse you for them," his eyes lit up a little.

He did them the honour of limping to the door before bowing them out.

"Who is Mme. Grand?" demanded Anthony, going down the stairway.

"Sh," said Ouvrard. "La bishop--ess. And now let me drive round to the case with you. Ah, the little berlin! I wish you would do something for me in London, M. Adverse," said he, lying back and taking up most of the room on the rear seat. "Have your dealer reproduce the little vehicle for me, but upholstered in red morocco. An improvement, I think."

"I shall see what I can do with my dealer," replied Anthony. The man looked pleased.

At the bank Ouvrard delivered to Anthony ten drafts on the Mexican treasury, each for one hundred thousand silver dollars.

"They are sight-drafts," said Ouvrard, "signed, you will notice, by Godoy, the Spanish prime minister, and by the royal treasurer of Spain. Anyone who presents them is entitled to receive the specie."

"There is nothing to prevent me from cashing them for myself then?" said Anthony.

"Nothing but yourself," replied Ouvrard, sealing the package. "Well, it would not be quite as simple as that. One does not call with a wagon for a million silver dollars, you know, and just drive off. When the time comes certain letters of identification and confirmation will be provided for me by M. Talleyrand to the Mexican government. But you know the procedure in such cases. Do not lose them, though," he said, raising his finger half humorously. "It would ruin Herr Nolte."

Anthony looked from Ouvrard to Vincent.

"Why," laughed the banker, "didn't you know Nolte has gone bond for you?"

He delayed them for another hour going over endless details.

"My God, Vincent, why didn't you tell me you were going bond for me?" said Anthony fingering the package with the drafts gingerly as they drove back to the House of the Wolf. "Suppose something does happen to me!" he exclaimed again as they got out of the berlin.

Vincent did not reply but in the courtyard he stopped and putting a hand on Anthony's shoulder pointed with the other to the plaque of the twins sharing the milk of the wolf. "From now on, as always before already," he said in German, "between us it is still going to be like that?"

"Yes," said Anthony, "and a fine picture of two young bankers sucking the guts out of the state . . ."

"Ach, go on with you," said Vincent. "It is a good sign, a lucky one, Gemini--this is a gay house. Even Talleyrand said so. I wonder what he . . ."

"A government messenger has been waiting for you for an hour, monsieur," said old Paul just then appearing from within breathlessly. "I have been watching him while he waited. That was why Jean opened the gate."

They rushed upstairs like two boys. Anthony signed for the packet from the Tuileries and scarcely waited till the messenger was gone to break its seal.

"Look," he cried, "an order for government posts as far as Havre. The prefect there is to 'expedite my waftage,'--what a curious expression."

"Give me the first post billet," said Vincent, "and I will send Paul out with it now to the government stables. How will it do to have them call for you about nine? A last dinner here, you know. And your luggage will take time."

"That reminds me of something, Vincent. I want you to take care of this bundle for me." He brought it from his room.

"A woman's shawl, eh," said Vincent grinning.

"No, no, that is not it at all. There is something in it which--oh, do not ask me to explain. Keep it safely here till I return. I leave it with you--in the House of the Wolf," he added solemnly.

"Very well, Romulus, Remus hears you," smiled Vincent, and then looked solemn enough himself as he took the bundle and locked it up.

At the hour of nine exactly a light post-chaise with two horses and a government postilion drew up at numéro 47. A sergeant of gendarmes emerged from it.

"May I see your papers, monsieur?" He examined them carefully while two leather trunks and a valise were being strapped on.

Vincent stood holding a lantern lugubriously over the signs of departure.

"I wish you would do something for me when you get to London," he laughed, imitating Ouvrard, and leaning into the carriage at the last. "Have your dealer line this with red-morocco-and-pink-and-green satin--and bird-lime--" he flashed his lantern over the battered interior of the old post-chaise ruefully. "And keep yourself warm, Toni, mein Gott, England is not Africa! Wait, wait a minute, you have forgotten something." He stormed back into the house.

For a minute the grim, grotesque shadow of the postilion and his horses, the post-chaise and its vacant windows stood waiting, leaning forward a little, projected on a blank wall across the narrow street by the lantern Vincent had left on the curb. The ancient bell at Saint-Merri near by tolled a quarter. The sergeant looked impatient. A little snow was beginning to fall.

"All in the house wish to thank you for your extreme generosity, monsieur," said old Paul. Anthony shook the old man by the hand. A horse stamped. The gate flew open and Vincent rushed into the street and began to stuff something through the window of the carriage.

"For winter," he cried, "to keep you warm, Herr Gott, to keep you warm."

"Allez," snorted the sergeant.

Anthony wrung Vincent's hand as old Paul dragged him back, and the post-chaise clattered up the crazy old street. It turned left and rattled along the cobbles of the Rue Saint-Antoine. It turned right, and passing the dark front of old Saint-Merri, headed north along the Rue Saint-Martin, a straight Roman road.

The post-chaise was not going any faster, however, than had the chariots along that same road seventeen centuries before. Nor was it, perhaps, going quite as safely.

"Monsieur goes armed?" asked the sergeant.

"Yes."

"Bon! It is well. I go as far as the Porte Saint-Denis with you. I do not leave the city. You will receive your first galloping relay and an armed guard at the gate. It is better since the first consul has sent around his tribunals. But the post of the Republic is not the post of the days of the kings. Few travel, everything has fallen off. In my boyhood for a few écus one could send a package or even a money order on a banker from any city in France to another. They say if Bonaparte is made king things will go better. Perhaps? He makes good roads for soldiers. But one can no longer send money and letters safely. The Revolution has made men less honest than they were when God was in heaven, the king on his throne, and the devil in hell."

"Are you a legitimist, sergeant?"

"No, monsieur, but in these days I would simply advise you to go armed. Such moral sentiments as still exist do not help deliver the mails. I know that. I myself have secured you a carriage with sturdy wheels. That Committee of Safety was so busy removing heads that they had no time to put on wheels. You had best buy your grease too or the pigs will answer when you drive past. They sell it at the barriers. And now I leave you, citizen--bon chance." He would not be paid. "My opinions cost me a great deal," he said and went into the guard-room laughing.

Anthony felt for his precious papers. They were still there.

At the Porte Saint-Denis before the barrier a fire was leaping like a wild beast in an iron cage. The horses were changed rapidly. Four, instead of three, were now attached. A glowing brick was taken from the fire and put in an iron box. This on a bed of sand was put in to heat the carriage. It was now beginning to snow still harder. A north wind rumbled against the old battlements, the red fire leaped fiercely in the black night. Would they never get through comparing his papers? The sergeant on guard came out with them at last. "All right," he muttered. The armed guard climbed up on the seat behind. "If the citizen would be kind enough to provide cognac?" said the sergeant. "I can get it at the gate canteen for him. It will be cold for those outside." "Three flasks," said Anthony. A rumble of approval and the slapping of the guard's hands on the roof followed. The brandy came. All took a swig. The barrier was suddenly opened letting the wind sweep in bitterly. The postilion broke into a torrent of abuse, and leaning low along the back of the beast he was riding, lashed his teams forward into the storm.

It was the first great winter storm Anthony had ever seen. A gale of a distinctly arctic character was sweeping down from the Pas du Nord accompanied by flurries of fine snow. The roads were frozen as hard and as smooth as iron. The horses which knew every foot of their own familiar stage with a stable at either end galloped steadily by the light of a waning November moon. The guard on the open seat behind crouched low behind the trunk on the roof and beat his arms about him to keep his hands from freezing. Occasionally the horn blared and a dog barked. Then the devouring sound of the hoofs and wheels continued.

Inside the heat of the brick gradually died away. The windows steamed over by the breath of the solitary traveller in the post-chaise became more opaque as they froze until he sat insulated in a little world of frosty moonshine. He wrapped about him the heavy bearskin rug that Vincent had stuffed through the window at the last. He drew his feet up on the seat under him and sank back gratefully into its comforting folds. The world outside seemed to have fallen away. He could not sleep, but as the swinging and rocking, the long forward slide of the carriage continued and the cold became more bitter and penetrating, his process of retreating into the rug continued and he withdrew farther and farther into himself.

He heard them change horses at Villiers la belle Gonesse but after that no more.

Sitting half-awake and numb in the amazing cold, he now retained only what seemed to be the fundamental residue of realization. He was being taken somewhere swiftly and he felt now that he was travelling absolutely alone. Within him was an utter stillness and calm. If he could only retain that. Was it possible? He wondered.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

YOUR HUMBLE OBEDIENT SERVANT

London, 28 December, 1801

Dear Vincent, I arrived here on Weds., the 27th inst., coming up by coach from Plymouth through as bitter a snap of weather as anyone remembers having seen. The trip across the Channel was like to be my last.

You know we both wondered why my departure was arranged by way of Amiens. It was plain enough when I got there. The conference to make the treaty of peace is getting under way there and there is considerable coming and going of envoys, secretaries, and personages by way of Havre de Grace. Otherwhere the blockade is still strict. I received every courtesy as a "messenger." At the prefecture I ran into M. Joseph Bonaparte who was just coming out from seeing the prefect. He remembered me although not my name. I think he thought I was you, but he soon caught himself up very pretty. He told me how Luçay was dismissed. We really did not have so much to do with that as we thought.

It did me no harm, I think, to be seen talking with the first consul's brother. The prefect gave me an order for a special dispatch lugger at Havre when I should arrive there, which I did two days later.

I shared the ridiculously crowded little cabin with a young English diplomat by the name of Spencer, with de Lanark, another messenger of Talleyrand's who looked at me somewhat askance because I would tell him nothing, and young Lord Francis Russell, son of the Duke of Bedford, who was accompanied by his tutor, the Reverend Hinwick Orlebars. The last two were returning from a tour of the lower Germanys and had been blown into Havre by the gale which scattered the blockade it is said from the Scheldt to Finistère. By some influence here the Englishmen were permitted to depart and were glad even of the crowded cabin. As I was in a merry mood at getting off in such style I had the innkeeper send down a large hamper of wines and eatables, which proved in the event a mighty comfort to us all in extremity.

Young Russell was especially desirous of spending Christmas with his family in Bedfordshire and he and I combined with the persuasive metal to prevail on the skipper to put to sea, rather against his own better judgment I think, and the protests of the tutor, a clerical gentleman with small stomach for gambolling with Neptune. There was a lull in the gale the morning of the 19th inst. We put forth, got half-way over, and had raised the cliffs when a brawling norther cold as the hinges of doom swept us down channel like so much fluff. The seas were mountainous and all we could do was drive straight away. The crew, four sea-rats in red knitted-caps, and their pock-marked captain were all but worn out. The water-butt went by the board, and no fire could be lit. My basket with two fat geese, some pastries, and several bottles of wine served to keep us alive. The cold was unexpressible. Your bear rug saved the life of the clerical person, if that is anything to you. He sat wrapped in it eating goose's drumsticks occasionally and praying continually. The other gentlemen, Spencer and de Lanark, rolled about puking on the cabin floor. Their plight was truly miserable, especially so since young Russell, who still has the merciless humour of a boy that can see but not yet feel the miseries of his fellows, plagued them unmercifully by offering them bits of goose liver with emetic results. The sight of his tutor praying in a bear skin sent him into gales of mirth. As I was afraid some in the cabin might gather enough strength to do him bodily harm, I took the young bear up on deck, where, despite the spray and the cold, we managed to be gay and shared our wine with the crew, who were grateful.

Taking it altogether, the experience in the Channel is one of the worst I have ever had. On the third day we got a glimpse of the coast that the skipper recognized as a bit of Cornwall, and as the wind blessedly relented and veered, we were enabled to beat back up the coast into Plymouth late on the afternoon of the 23rd.

I went to the "Swan," as nothing could have induced me to take the night coach for London which all the others did, except Mr. Spencer who came down with a bad attack of pleurisy. I went out and got him a leech who bled him. He seemed very weak, poor fellow. Young Russell and his tutor hired post and were both pressing I should come along. In this I am flattered to believe they were sincere enough but the invitations of sons and tutors do not necessarily imply the welcome of fathers, especially if they be great ones, so I saw them off in a flurry of snow with a merry toot of the horn and young Francis waving his hat and shouting back "Happy Christmas."

A sinking sensation of being left alone followed (Christmas is made much of here). I went back to the "Swan" and a good sea-coal fire and excellent dinner in my own room, where, for the first time in a week, I was both full and warm--and thankful to God for still being able to be so. The lugger is shipping a new mast, I hear.

I strolled about the town next day. This is the cleanest country I have ever been in. It is strange to hear English spoken everywhere and by everybody. My talk is a little curious, I fancy, but passes well enough. They take me for Scotch if for anything. I shall devote considerable attention to polishing the roughness off my tongue and write you in nothing else. This is the language in which I find I do most of my thinking. Little else was spoken, you may remember, behind doors at the old Casa da B (what a polyglot world Livorno was). I also took occasion to provide myself with innumerable warm clothes. I shall gradually become hardened to the northern winter, I suppose, and it will do me good, but at present I do suffer greatly. Almost as good as your bear skin are my Havana cigars for comfort. My stock is running low and I grow alarmed. They smoke the Virginia leaf in pipes here. Only the best is tolerable.

The pleasantest thing that has yet happened to me in England overtook me in Plymouth. I found Mr. Udney in the public room just as I was about to leave for London. He gave a rumble and a shout when he saw me and would not hear of my going up. All my things were carried back upstairs again by his order. Saving your own welcome, I have never had a man so glad to see me. I was quite overcome, and I believe he was, too, for he did swear dreadfully. Had just driven down from his place near Totnes in Devon to transact some business in Plymouth. Really an excuse to get away from a lonely old house, I take it. Mrs. Udney is in Amsterdam on a visit to Florence, the Parishes having recently removed there from Rotterdam since David has now joined interests with Hope and Co. in Amsterdam. If I return that way I shall see them. Mr. U. much cut-up over Florence's having no son or "any other children," as he puts it. He claims it must be David's fault, who I gather is rather a cold fish. The old man is a breeder of horses and I shall not set down his speculations about dear David which were not only frank but downright technical. He was greatly interested to learn that I was going up to London to claim my inheritance. It seems he knew of it through the registering of the will all along. When I told him I hadn't, he cursed J. B. for a sentimental old Jacobite. He is quite sure I was no relation to J. B. and told me how he and Father Xavier arranged to have me apprenticed. All quite accidental, which in a way relieves my mind. After all, when you come right down to it, a great many people do not know their parents any better than I do, even if they do know their names. What do you know about your own father, for instance? (I don't expect you to reply.) The upshot of it was we had Christmas dinner together, and a right merry one, and I got off for London next day leaving the old gentleman, whose hair is quite white now, standing with a very red face in the door of the "Swan," thumping his stick and swearing and insisting that I must come down to Devon for a visit, which I think I shall do, if conditions permit.

I got here the 27th, awful weather as above mentioned, and am staying at the Adelphi. This morning I called at Baring Bros. & Co. to notify them of my arrival and was most courteously received by Mr. John Baring. If not glad, they were certainly relieved at seeing me, as also to discover, I think, that I was not a Sicilian or a Red Indian. I have an appointment for tomorrow, when I may be able to mention that I have an important matter to convey from M. O. to Sir Francis. I requested Mr. John Baring to convey my profound appreciation, gratitude and respect to his father, at which he looked genuinely pleased. I think the slaving business gave them the idea I was a rough and ready customer. I was--but I am not.

You shall hear from me directly as to further developments. This letter is sent by way of Helgoland and Amsterdam by a special messenger maintained between the Barings here and Messers Hope & Co. there. The blockade is unrelaxed. I have not yet bought M. T.'s gloves for him. If you want to know what London is like breathe heavily on your shaving glass and then try to look in it. That is as much as I have seen of it so far, so I will not give you any "reflections."

This rather in haste as the Baring's messenger calls for it shortly and sails tonight. With luck you should have this in two weeks. There is some talk of re-establishing the Calais packet and mails. I think of the House of the Wolf fondly--heaven fend for you and good luck follow.

Your humble obd't servant.

A. A.

P. S. Send by way of Messers Hope at Amsterdam when you answer and address me care of Sir Francis Baring, Bart & Co., Bishopsgate Street, London. They operate abroad as Baring Bros. & Co.

To Herr Vincent Nolte, at the House of the Wolf, 47 Rue de Vielle du Temple, Paris.

----------

London, 29th January, 1802

Dear Vinc,

Almost a month has gone by since I wrote you and I suppose that by this date you must have my first letter. A great deal has happened in that interval which I shall attempt to relate rather in the order of its occurrence than that of its relative importance.

First, my own affairs financial are satisfactorily in order; secondly, the great Spanish-Mexican business, if not launched, is at least set up on the ways and lacks only about £100,000 to knock the blocks from under it and start it moving. That is a large "only" I admit--but to the events themselves:

My own humble affairs were settled with greater dispatch than at first seemed likely.

On the 29th of last month I called according to appointment at the counting house of the Barings in Bishopsgate Street and was received by Mr. Charles Wall, who oversees most of the routine correspondence of the firm. I was taken to the second floor office, a splendid, panelled room furnished with teak furniture and various Indian rarities assembled by Sir Francis, who for many years has been a director of the Honourable East India Company. He now, I find, seldom appears in the city and has turned over the practical conduct of his affairs to his older sons Thomas and Alexander.

In this ample but arctic room I found assembled about an immense teak table in which the candles, for there was a rayless fog outside, reflected themselves funereally, Mr. Thomas Baring, John Hickey, Esq., of the firm of McSnivens, Williams, Hickey, and McSnivens, barristers; a gentleman by the name of Flood from the Bank of England, and several accountants and clerks with various piles of papers. Mr. Thomas Baring seated me beside himself and Mr. Hickey, of whom more later, accepted one of my precious Habana segars after smelling of it like a posy as if it had been an unexpectedly large refresher, which indeed it was. We then, together with Mr. Wall, who took notes, settled down to business.

The first matter taken up was the sum due me from my remittances to the Barings from Africa. These I found to my great satisfaction had been turned into ready money deposited in the Bank of England, and despite the heavy discount on the acceptances of the original foreign bills of exchange, amount with accumulated interest from the Bank to 17,034 pounds sterling, ten shillings, and four ½ pence. The transfer of this goodly sum from the account of the Barings to myself was effected with due formalities by Mr. Flood. I then paid Mr. Thomas Baring 2 ½% net for his firm's handling of the transaction and gave and received receipts. All this was properly witnessed, stamped, recorded by notaries and I know not what else. The whole transaction was overlooked by the genial Mr. Hickey, who, with an apparently casual manner, combined the eye of a hawk, and at one point shook the precise little Mr. Flood into an ague by pointing out that by the omission of a comma in the transfer the whole sum was made liable to be claimed by the crown. Mr. Flood protested his good intentions. "Pooh, pooh," said Mr. Hickey, "don't dribble self-serving testimony, Mr. Flood, punctuate. Nearly all the tragedies in the lives of my clients come from little commac effects. I have a notion to live luxuriously on the fees arising from this one for the rest of my life by not putting a period to it. What will you compound with me for?" Mr. Flood's hand shook as he inserted the comma and Mr. Baring laughed. Hickey is an Irishman, or his father was, and he is said to have made the original pun before the woolsack about litigants being the lambs that furnished the fleece to stuff it with. I tell you all this because I thought you would like to know how the Barings conduct business, since you transact a good deal with them yourself.

The firm is purely a family affair. Sir Francis is responsible for and still directs its policies. As an old member of Parliament and one of the most powerful of the Whigs he has great political influence. Thomas looks after the London house with Wall who is his brother-in-law. Alexander is now in Amsterdam with the Hopes, and, as you know, M. Labouchère of that firm married a Miss Baring. The Barings and Hopes act as one apparently, the latter looking after continental affairs. They are to all intents and purposes a family unit. There is also a Mr. Henry Baring, who I understand is very brilliant but addicted to high play. He and David Parish are very close. They are brothers in whist.

As soon as Flood left, after requesting me to call around and identify myself with certain officials at the bank, we went into the matter of the Bonnyfeather estate. I produced my copy of the will probated at Leghorn and other papers, which Hickey found in order and expressed his satisfaction over. He would, he said, in a short while if all went well, be able to put me in possession of the estate, which had been invested by the Barings in ways too numerous to mention here. I asked Hickey what he meant by "if all went well," and he replied that a very ridiculous but none the less serious situation threatened the inheritance. Without going into the legal phraseology and technicalities of it, for which I naturally take my attorney's word, let me explain--because it is--or rather, thank God, it was funny.

You will recall old Captain Bittern of the Unicorn, no doubt. Well, when I left Gibraltar I gave him the cabin silver and furnishings, among them a chair which he particularly affected for some reason; a chronometer, etc. This was just a small token of appreciation for years of faithful service, and he was not a man upon whom one could press banknotes. "Independence" is his watchword.

When he returned home he quite properly removed these effects to his own lodgings. The ship was then sold at auction by the Barings. The young cub of an attorney in charge of the proceedings dug up an old ship's inventory, and finding that Bittern had removed the cabin furniture, etc., he had the good old skipper taken up for larceny and the goods seized. This was bad enough, the Lord knows, but worse followed.

Captain Bittern had presented the chair to a chapel at Spitalfields, the shrine of an obscure and fanatical Protestant sect known as the "Muggletonians." Furthermore, that chair had been consecrated as the seat of the prophetess, an ancient and fiery old party by the name of Johanna Heathecote. When the bailiffs arrived to claim "her chair," as near as Hickey and I can find out, a riot of no inconsiderable proportions unrolled itself.

Spitalfields is a hungry weaving neighbourhood with a lot of people thrown out of employment by the war. Before the rolling around in the chapel was over the friends of the saints had assembled outside, attracted by what seemed to be more than just the ordinary scufflings of schism.

When the bailiffs, battered and bleeding, emerged with the chair, the crowd, recognizing in them the enemies of mankind, made common cause with the saints and forced the poor fellows to take refuge in a stone stable near by, where some rascals set fire to the straw. The mob, for it had rapidly grown to those proportions, then turned its attention to the bakeshops in the neighbourhood and was proceeding to I know not what further mischiefs when a detachment of the guards and a number of special constables fell upon them, arrested a number of poor souls, put out the fire and rescued the bailiffs who were all but smothered but still had the chair.

Thus the throne of Great Britain triumphed over the chair of the Pythoness of Spitalfields, the latter being sold next day at auction to a Jew for something under £4. God save the King.

I give you Hickey's account of the affair more or less. Several murky fellows found with bakers' loaves under their arms, who are no doubt honest workmen when there is any work, were locked up by the authorities along with the fighting prophetess and the Muggletonian saints and elders. Of course, nobody at the Barings' knew anything about this until it had all happened and the saints were keeping the rest of the prisoners at the Old Bailey awake by singing nasal hymns.

This all happened about three months ago. All of those taken up have now been discharged except two louts with bad records who it seems did set fire to the stables. Hickey did his best to smooth matters over,--enjoyed it in a way, I gather--says that old Johanna Heathecote almost ruined her chances by preaching to the judge and insisting that his lordship was damned now and for all eternity for meddling with God's people. An excited young attorney objected that her evidence was irrelevant and immaterial and his lordship was so pleased that he chuckled the saints out of the dock. It must really have been rather grand, I gather, but it nearly cost me my inheritance.

God's people and Captain Bittern were outraged. They might have proceeded against the Barings in several ways. I don't understand the exact legal situation. Suffice it to say, that if they had entered suit for the return of that chair the ownership of the Unicorn would have had to be adjudicated. As the ship and her dozen prizes were part of the Bonnyfeather estate, and as some of the prizes were made after Mr. Bonnyfeather's death, the status of the whole estate would undoubtedly have been involved. The Barings were only executors, and for an alien heir who had not yet appeared to make good his claim. The whole thing hung on nobody's questioning who owned the property before I established my rights under the will. If a suit was started many a poor barrister would scent big pickings, Hickey says, and the whole thing would have galloped into Chancery. I might then have spent all I made in Africa (and the rest of my life in London) trying to get something for my children, if I ever have any. When I tell you, Vinc, that the whole estate with the sums realized for the Unicorn and her prizes comes to £137,000 odd you can imagine that I looked across that table at the Barings with considerable interest while Mr. Hickey explained. It wasn't so funny then.

Mr. Thomas Baring had been the first to realize the grave state of affairs when a deputation from the Spitalfields conventicle headed by Captain Bittern called upon him. They wanted their consecrated chair given back. Luckily they had retained no counsel and Mr. Baring sent for his, Hickey, whom they listened to as he had aided in getting them released. I am vastly indebted to that man. He suggested to them that they should be legally represented. Luckily for me the poor souls actually asked Hickey to recommend them counsel. He had counted on that. They even wanted him to act. He explained why he could not, without making them feel he was "on the other side," and secured a young cousin of his who consented to advise them.

It was arranged to refurnish the Muggletonian chapel at Spitalfields, to contribute to their charitable fund and to settle the Heathecote woman in rather snug lodgings for life. Thank God she is old, as all this comes out of my pocket. I am afraid Hickey is a sad old fox as he went for six consecutive Sundays to service à la Muggleton at Spitalfields. I believe he would have been converted to keep them out of court. The red carpet and cushions for the benches certainly helped, and the chosen people were at last got off the subject of the chair--all but Captain Bittern. He insisted on the identical chair and threatened to undo all the good work by bringing suit. Hickey had the good sense not to offer him money and of course started a frantic search for the chair. He had, he thought, traced it a day or two before I arrived and he went to reassure Captain Bittern. The old fellow was sullen, however, and would say little. When Hickey told him I was in England he brightened up, however, and admitted he would see me. This was the situation on the morning of my first interview with the Barings.

So we went out to try to get the chair worth £137,000.

It is past midnight now and I shall put off till tomorrow the account of what happened. I had a good dinner tonight at Wattiers and--my eyes are heavy. You shall hear, too, of the Mexican affair in due course. It marches.

22nd January

(I meant to finish this ten days ago but have moved my lodgings since. Will tell you about that later, but have missed this week's messenger to Amsterdam. No mails yet. Anyway, I shouldn't care to trust what I have to tell you to the French posts.)

Out of a conceit for convenience I shall entitle what I am writing you tonight--

Your Humble Obedient Servant and Captain Bittern's Chair

As soon as we left the Barings we took coach and hurried over to Threadneedle Street, where I identified myself and my signature with certain of the bank's officials as Mr. Flood had suggested, and from whence I departed with a goodly sum in banknotes but could get no gold. I also settled with Mr. Hickey for a well-deserved but nevertheless startling fee. I must confess to you that when I drew this money which was partly the proceeds from selling my fellow men I had a superstitious qualm that perhaps Captain Bittern's chair was to be the instrument of my being scourged by Providence. If so, it seemed curious that I alone should be singled out.

We now took coach again and called at various places, with which I am not familiar, where Mr. Hickey expedited in so far as he could the acceptance and recognition of myself as the lawful heir under the will. The fees were again in each instance--large. We then proceeded in the general direction of a place called Hammersmith where we arrived about two o'clock in the afternoon, and had a most vile luncheon of heavy lumps of soggy dough and boiled mutton with small beer. We then set out through various highways and byways--wiping away the beads of perspi