II.OXA-DALRYMn TRAUMEREI Of? GAL1F. LttJKAKY. THERE WAS A WISTFUL CARESS IN THE VERY TOUCH OF THE LAD'S LEAN, BROWN FINGERS TRAUMEREI By LEONA DALRYMPLE AUTHOR OF UNCLE NOAH'S CHRISTMAS INSPIRATION ILLUSTRATIONS BY C. F. PETERS NEW YORK : 1912 : PUBLISHED BY McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY COPTKIGHT, 1912, BY McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY Published April, TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER 2129033 CONTENTS CHAPTEB PAGE I A PURCHASE 1 II A DISCOVERY 8 III BEBITOLA 17 IV LAUBETTA 42 V "THE LADY OF THE LAKE" 53 VI NOCTUBNIA 66 VII MB. PHILIP AINSWOBTH 77 VIII THE LAMBEBTIS 92 IX A BBASS BUTTON 124 X COUNT TEODOBO DI GOMTTO 132 . XI NICCOLO'B VISITOB 146 XII Ox THE CLIFFS fc .... 156 XIII THE STORY OF A VIOLIN 174 XIV A SELF-INQOTSITOB 187 XV AUNT EMILIA 192 XVI THE STOBM 202 XVII MB. AINSWOBTH ENTERTAINS 214 XVIII THE INSPIBATION 219 XIX THE ABTIST 224 XX THE OUTCOME OF A FESTA 231 XXI THE DIAMOND-MAKER 243 XXII MB. PHILIP AINSWOBTH, DETECTIVE .... 256 XXIII SHADOWS 277 XXIV THE PICTURE 281 XXV BEATBICE 288 XXVI NOTES 296 XXVII THE SECBET PASSAGE . . 305 XXVIH IN NICCOLO'S HUT 321 XXIX Two VISITORS 326 XXX COUNT TEODOBO'S FINAL RECKONING . . . 337 XXXI THE VIOLIN 347 XXXII THE LUBE OF THE LAKE . . 369 ILLUSTRATIONS There was a wistful caress in the very touch of the lad's lean, brown ringers .... Frontispiece FACING PAGE "It is a matter of great mystery to me that the American Signori should have chosen our obscure little valley in which to rusticate. " - - 140 "There is no music like the strains one can bring from a violin of the old master's making." ... 176 Back in Cremona Camillo Lamberti sat every day in the master's workshop watching the progress of his violin. ...... -- 186 TRAUMEREI TRAUMEREI CHAPTER I A PURCHASE A N Italian?" ** Kirke Bentley emerged from the ham- mock beneath the elms and looked inquiringly at the precise valet before him. "What does he want? " " 'E says, sir " the Englishman coughed re- spectfully " 'e says as 'ow 'e 'as an old fiddle 'e wants you to look over." " An old fiddle ! " repeated Mr. Bentley, a sud- den flash of interest obscuring the chronic dis- content of his lazy eyes, "that sounds interest- ing. Send him out here, Gribbins." Gribbins' mouse-coloured eyes reflected a faint disgust, but he looked at the broad-shouldered young gentleman in the hammock a trifle un- certainly before he ventured a timid remon- strance. " I begs your pawdon, sir," he urged primly, " but Vs dirty, 'e's ragged, and, sir, Vs exactly like an Anarchist or a Black 'And 'eathen. I told 'im to go about 'is business, but 'e jabbered away so sassy in 'is 'eathenish language and looked so so ferocious, sir that I thought 2 TRAUMEBEI 'e 'ad some intentions of doin' me 'arm. Beg- gin' your pawdon again, sir, I wouldn't trust 'im ! You cawn't tell " " Nonsense ! " exclaimed Kirke impatiently. " Send him out here ! " and the valet, relapsing into his habitual melancholy, moved slowly away across the lawn. It was not the first time Mr. Bentley's love of music had attracted vagrant musicians whose general appearance had filled the Englishman's sensitive soul with horror, nor, doubtless, would it be the last. " My word ! " mused the scandalised valet, mildly anathematising the young gentleman's democratic ideas. " 'E seems right smart, but there is times when I'm sure 'e's orf 'is crumpet 'andsome lad that 'e is and this is another of 'em. John 'Apworth 'imself would 'ave a 'eap of trouble understandin' 'is queer ideas ! " The Italian was indeed ragged and dirty enough to justify the Englishman's description. There was a supple grace of movement about him, however, that instantly commended itself to Kirke's/keen love of the artistic. ! He was lit- tle more than a boy twenty-two perhaps certainly no more with a lean, swarthy face crowned in an unkempt mass of black hair. His sombre eyes seemed unnaturally large, but their dark velvet was soft and melancholy. A red handkerchief, knotted carelessly at the throat, brought out the rich bronze of his skin and lent A PUR CHASE 3 the vivid touch of colour that the true Italian loves. "II Signore like da musik?" he questioned eagerly as he paused beside the hammock. " Yes. Do you want to sell your violin? Let me see it." Kirke examined the violin with a critical eye. The colour of its wood was unusual; a soft, tawny red with a glint of gold in it. He shifted the instrument to get a better effect of its lines of modelling, and as the light changed there was more gold than red, a deep golden-bronze that swiftly crimsoned again at a turn of the wrist. Its beauty of line and colour made a strong ap- peal, and the Italian, watching him intently, caught the eager interest in his face. " II Signore like da instrument? " he queried. " Yes ! Good lines and a fine colour." " Ah, but da tone ! " crooned the Italian proudly. " Listen, Signore ! " Was it the violin or the player? The Amer- ican could not decide. Certainly there was witch- ery in the melody that floated away on the warm, summer air from beneath the Italian's bow. It fanned the American's imagination, keenly alive* to the stimulus of music,! and called up memories of the distant South the languor- ous, melting Italian South cradled in the azure bosom of the Mediterranean. The wild minor melody came indeed* like a fragrant breath from 4 TRAUMEREI the player's own mountains of sunny Italy, whispering of iris-shadowed ridges, of the purl- ing silver foam of mountain cascades, of golden sunsets wrought in Nature's crucible, of orange and lemon and bergamot whose haunting per- fume is indissolubly linked with memories of the South. There was a wistful caress in the very touch of the lad's lean, brown fingers, and the tones that showered from beneath his bow were so full and rich, of such incomparable sweetness and purity, that Kirke half fancied the instrument a sentient thing, alive to the sympathetic emo- tion of the player and eagerly responsive to it. Gently the Italian drew the bow across the strings in a final diminuendo, and as the low wail of the violin ceased, his mouth quivered strangely and he turned away. " Play again ! " The American's tones were oddly curt. He was a little ashamed of the pas- sionate agitation that had surged through him at the call of a peasant hand. The Italian nodded. Reverently he drew the bow across the strings in a lingering legato, and a plaintive tone quivered, rose and fell, thrill- Ing Kirke Bentley's soul with wonder. It grew and grew, a thing of mystery, full of passionate rebellion, grew into a contralto melody of power- ful timbre and died away to a whisper. A tear coursed slowly down the player's swarthy A PURCHASE 5 cheek and in sudden shame he averted his head. " I mucha honxe-seeck, Signore ! " he choked miserably. " Let me have the violin," said Kirke, touched by the lad's simple explanation; and tenderly drawing the bow across the strings, he too played a favourite melody. The magic was not alone in the Italian's fingers; the tone still thrilled with its power and sweetness. " The Signore can play ! " The Italian with the ready buoyancy of the Southerner had com- posed himself and was nodding approvingly. "So you want to sell your violin?" Kirke, secretly fearful of the other's retraction, looked inquiringly at the Italian. " Si, Signore." "Why?" "Go back to Italy, Signore! Lova da leetle lady, Lauretta ! " "What price will you take for it?" " Two hundred dolla." Kirke whistled, noting the other's hesitant manner. " That's a stiff price for an ordinary violin ! " he suggested. " 'Tis no ordinare violin ! " denied the Italian proudly. " My familee owna da violin dis mana hundred year ! " This latter statement the American frankly doubted. The violin, however, had pleased his fancy and he was in no mood for a bickering 6 TRAUMEREI discussion of its value. ' Decisions with him were always rapid. " Very well," he said abruptly. " I'll take it. You're quite sure," he added carelessly, "that you didn't steal it? " " Si, Signore." The tone was very humble, the eyes downcast ; but as Kirke turned away sat- isfied, a little ashamed, perhaps, of the ques- tion in his instant recollection of the honesty he had read in the lad's face, the Italian col- oured hotly and looked away. "Very well. Come up to the house and I'll pay you." Kirke spoke in Italian the lan- guage was a favourite one smiling at the other's start of astonishment and the eager vol- ubility of his quick response. There was a child- ish delight in his manner as he eloquently re- peated his assurance of the violin's merit, so rapidly indeed that the American threw up his hands in laughing protest. Gribbins saw the gesture from an upstairs window and, construing his master's conduct as the conventional response to a hold-up, was plan- ning with great deliberation to remove an an- tique weapon from the wall of the den in which he stood and organise himself into a band of rescue when it was borne in upon his slow wits that the two were approaching the house in friendly converse. But slightly reassured, he descended the stairs in considerable trepidation, A PUR CHASE 7 pausing on the landing a disgusted witness to the transmission of a large roll of bills to the hand of the vagrant musician who departed with a simple " Mille grazie, Eccellenza. Addio!" "Addio!" Kirke watched the Italian depart, mentally approving the lithe grace of his slender body. He turned to find Gribbins behind him, still eye- ing the retreating figure with gloomy suspicion. " Gribbins," he said, with difficulty suppress- ing a smile, " do you know where the case of my old violin is? " " Yes, sir," replied the valet, " it's right 'ere, sir, in the music room." " Very well. You will please put this violin that I've just bought in it. It's going abroad with us." "Very good, sir." The Englishman took the violin gingerly. To him it had become imbued with the doubtful personality of its former owner and was accordingly an object of sus- picion. " And Gribbins, it's not to go with the other luggage, you understand. You're to carry it ! " Gribbins' face lengthened perceptibly and his mouse-coloured eyes grew, if possible, more sadly resigned than usual. However the young master's slightest whim must be obeyed. " Very good, sir ! " was all he said aloud. CHAPTER II A DISCOVERY whole truth of the matter," mused Mr. Bentley gloomily, staring out from his hotel window over the hills of Genoa and moodily apostrophising himself, "is, Kirke Bentley, that you're most infernally lazy ! It's a painful truth and you're very sorry, but you don't want to go on to Switzerland to-morrow, and if you hadn't such an ambitious mother and sister, you most certainly wouldn't!" The young gentleman's eyes roved restlessly over the Italian landscape outside his window, indifferently defining its charm. After all, he told himself discontentedly, the climbing pal- aces on the heights, the steep streets that wound their serpentine way upward, even the amphi- theatre of hills bathed in the golden haze of the early summer '.did but point the fact that he must leave it all on the morrow to join his mother and sister at Murren. Presently, however, the restless beauty of the scene caught him strongly. In certain moods he was keenly? alive to the appeal of colour and to-day the slopes of La Superba wooed the idler 8 ADISCOVERY 9 with a bewildering maze of tints, Blue, tipped with a delicate rose or a splash of violet, lay over the hills, and the landscape was gloriously mottled with dancing sun-gold. \ Lazily appre- ciative, he fancied the scene before him impris- oned upon canvas and, frowning suddenly, turned away to shut out the reproof subtly etched upon the ridges. Unconsciously he shrugged away the thought of an indolence that had been an insidious dormitive to a genuine talent, a talent cultivated by two years of work with the great Salvatore and since wantonly neglected, and in abrupt self-defence, fell to thinking of the summer ahead of him. Of the cup of travel this discontented young gentleman had drunk full and deep, finding in the dregs of satiety the inevitable bitterness. There had been a time, however,! when the fire of an autumn sunset flaming through the branches of a leafless tree, limned stark and dead against a windy sky, or the purple mist of a distant mountain had sent the blood racing through his veins in a fever of exaltation, an artist's passionate worship of the great canvas of Nature J Later, however, as the discontent bred of idleness appeared in his eyes and dulled his finer perceptions, Nature had seemed jeal- ously to veil her deeper beauties, hoarding them for the inspired eyes of the Chosen. Occasion- ally, in fitful enthusiasm, he could still pierce 10 T R A U M E R E I the veil and feel for an instant the flood of in- spiration, but for the most part he viewed the world with the indifferent eyes of the hardened globe-trotter. " Heigho ! " he yawned presently, " who was it 'called for his pipe and called for his bowl and called for his fiddlers three?' Gribbins, the violin, if you please." The valet brought the instrument gingerly - it had not yet acquired caste in his eyes and returned to the adjoining room. " Mr. Bentley is plumb daffy over that fid- dle ! " he ruminated disconsolately. " 'E's fussed with it the 'ole voyage over and I for one cawn't see what there is about it to so take 'is fawncy. I shouldn't be at all surprised if 'e caught some 'orrible disease through it. I've seen 'im put 'is chin on the very place that Black 'And 'eathen 'ad 'is chin, and 'e not knowin' at all that I rubbed it all over with a disin- fectant. Like as not 'e doesn't care! 'E made such a bloomin' row about its smellin' queer the day I did it that I 'adn't the courage to tell 'im!" and Gribbins shook his head ominously as a flood of melody, powerfully sweet and beau- tiful, poured from the strings of the disinfected violin. The violin, whatever its collection of bac- teria, had indeed strongly caught the fancy of its new owner. The emotion of the ragged, A DISCOVERY 11 dark-skinned musician as he had stood beneath the giant elm, evoking a silver shower of melody from his violin, and later plaintively pleading " home-seeckness and love for da leetle lady Lauretta," had imbued the chance purchase with a very definite tinge of romance. The music died away. Gribbins tiptoed to the door to see if his master wished to dress, but Kirke sat perfectly quiet, the violin in his hand, gazing absently at \ the circle of hills which, green and tranquil above the climbing line of stuccoed dwellings, lay dark against the gold of the setting sun.\ The valet silently appraised the dark, clean-shaven face, the lazy eyes and square, defiant chin of his master and as silently retreated. He knew better than to interrupt this mood he had tried the experiment. \ The wind, laden with delicate perfume, blew the curtains of the window softly back and forth. It was redolent with the odour of fruit and flower from the mountainside. Above the glory of the sunset, the sky was streaked with float- ing streamers of colour topaz and sapphire some already deepening into the wistaria pen- nants of the coming night. From the nearest hillside a mule-bell tinkled audibly in the quiet. The rider's scarlet sash flashed like an intermit- tent flame as he rode upward through the light and shadow. Kirke's eyes closed drowsily. The scent of orange blowing in at the window was 12 TRAUMEREI quite irresistible.' A second later when the con- scientious Gribbins peered cautiously into the room again, his master was asleep, the violin still clutched in his hand. From his momentary nap, Kirke was awak- ened by a dull clatter. The violin had slipped to the floor and lay at his feet. Annoyed by his own carelessness, he stooped to regain it, gasp- ing in dismay as his eyes encountered a gaping hole in its side through which the interior of the instrument was plainly visible. At first sight the violin appeared to have been smashed by its tumble, but a hurried examination re- vealed the startling fact that the curved piece of wood which formed the indentation, in the centre of the violin's side was in reality a con- cave panel which, swinging back upon a small interior hinge, had been released by the sudden contact of its tiny silver spring with the floor. Kirke, whistling softly in astonishment, stared at the gilded inscription on the inner surface of the curving wood. Camilla Lamberti, 1712, it read, and below in brighter gold, Dioneo Lam- berti, Beritola, Italia. Save for a tiny silver disc, the sole surface indication of the hidden spring, the panel when snapped back into place gave no hint of its secret. " Fits tightly, of course, so as not to interfere with the sound ! " mused the astonished owner, shifting the instrument to inspect the corre- A DISCOVERY 13 spending section of wood on the other side. In- stantly he caught the gleam of another silver disc, in every way similar to the first, and, thrill- ing with electric prescience, pressed it firmly with his thumb-nail. The second panel snapped back, revealing an inscription, which, illumined vividly by the light of the setting sun, seemed made of letters of golden fire. Kirke drew his breath sharply as he read: Antonius Stradiuarius, Cremonentis, Faciebat Anno 1712. It was there a gripping reality in spite of the American's stare of incredulity. The mark of the immortal master of violin makers fol- lowed the magic words a double circle and the enclosed initials, A. S. This, then, was the secret of the powerful tones which had so stirred him; of the curious rubes- cent gold that one caught in its varnish and speedily lost again in the flush of the deeper colour. The peculiar blending of red and gold had been indeed the famous Cremona varnish whose secret formula had died with the old mas- ters who knew so well how to mellow the wood and enrich the tone by its application. Again the picture of the young Italian rose before him and the strains of the old violin echoed mournfully in his ears. How wonder- fully well the lad had played! The reverent 14 TRAUMEREI touch of the lean brown fingers took on a new meaning as the American stared at the golden inscription. A Stradivarius ! Genuinely delighted, Kirke ran his fingers lightly over a triangular patch on the back where the varnish had been rubbed off, revealing a wood, fine-grained and soft. Again and again he read the master's name, blessing the lazy whim that had made him the owner of the old violin. Ah! but was he? The inscription on the other panel recurred to him and he found it un- comfortably suggestive. Who was Dioneo Lam- berti? Where was Beritola? What could ex- plain the ragged Italian's possession of so rare an instrument or his willing sale for but a frac- tion of its value? Suppose the possibility must be faced suppose the instrument had been stolen from the man whose name appeared in brighter gold beneath that of his ancestor. Kirke frowned uneasily. There was an excel- lent case for the defence, he told himself stub- bornly. No doubt Signore Dioneo had been dead for centuries! Perhaps the violin had come to him at Camillo Lamberti's death, an event which must have occurred in the eight- eenth century. In spite of his ready argument, however, the absence of any date after the second Lamberti's name and the brighter glint of its golden rec- A DISCOVERY 15 ord, suggesting a later application, troubled the American. There was, of course, an equal chance that the owner of the name was alive to- day, and as Kirke recalled the circumstances of his purchase from the Italian peasant, the pros- pect of theft became ominously plausible. Moreover, the similarity of the dates follow- ing the master's name and that of Camillo Lam- berti (1712 in each instance) suggested that the latter had been the original owner of the won- derful instrument which bore his name. If his descendant were alive to-day, and its rightful owner, then the violin must be a precious heir- loom that had come down to him from the eight- eenth century. Perhaps at this hour this very instant, indeed ! the Italian was mourn- ing its loss. Impulsively Kirke despatched Gribbins with an inquiry concerning the where- abouts of Beritola. The Englishman presently returned with the information that it was " a walley willage in the 'ills to the north of Naples - that 'e 'ad 'ad a 'ard time findin' out, for the clerk spoke a language that 'e called English but which was in 'is opinion pure Chinese ! " Kirke stared thoughtfully at the distant hills. The warm rose-gold of the sunset was gone now, its aureole of brilliant colour swiftly fading away. Shorn of its vivifying glory, the land- scape looked cold and barren and unsympathetic. The American's code of honour, scrupulous in 16 TRAUMEREI many details that another would have peremp- torily discarded as quixotic, demanded a cer- tain investigation. If Dioneo Lamberti still lived in Beritola and was the owner of this won- derful instrument, stolen from him perhaps by its musical vendor, his duty was quite plain. He must acquaint himself with the history of the violin and, if it corroborated his suspicion, return it, quite unmindful of the personal sac- rifice it entailed. This decision, unpleasant enough at first, grew more attractive at the thought that it afforded an excellent excuse for an immediate withdrawal from the fashionable Alpine diversions of his sister's party. Yes ! most certainly he would go to Beritola, find Signore Dioneo if he existed, and make some discreet inquiries. It would be highly interesting and novel, conditions which this whimsical young American always craved. All his former reluctance banished in a wave of enthusiasm, he seized a paper and scribbled rapidly: MBS. HORACE BENTLEY, Hotel des Alpes, Miirren, Switzerland. Count me out of the Alpine climbing. Am going to Beritola, Italy. Important. Will write particulars. KIBKE. " Gribbins," he said as the valet patiently re- appeared, " send this telegram at once ! " CHAPTER III BERITOLA THE little Neapolitan steamer bound from Genoa to Naples busily chugged its way into the moonlit Vesuvian Bay, a sheet of silver which, stretching ahead to the crescent shore of Napoli,! rippled and sparkled with the mirrored radiance of the summer night.l Kirke Bentley stood on the deck, feeling mystically at- tuned to the splendour of the Southern night with its changing lights and shadows. Yes, that great luminous disc above was the same moon that had poured its effulgence down upon the world since the beginning of time, but for Kirke, fired by the novelty of his quest, its shim- mer bore a new loveliness. It flecked the waves with lambent silver and turned to ghosts the bare masts of countless vessels riding at anchor in the bay; it traced a Titan filigree of silver, patterned in fantastic shadows, along the coast where it melted into the frothing line of the sea. The torch of the giant sentry Vesuvius flamed suddenly over the bay, and as if in trained re- sponse the lights of the city flashed one by one into a half-circle of living sparks, engirdling the 17 18 TRAUMEREI shore with a chain of firefly sentinels, bril- liantly armoured. To the American, in his romantic frame of mind, the scene was irresistible. The moonlit bay, the fire-mountain fitfully reddening against the dusky background of the night, the per- vasive tinkle of mandolins and guitars from the smaller boats gliding about the bay, the lights of the city flashing ahead of them like a neck- lace of fire-jewels as they glided in a row-boat from the steamer to the shore; nay more, the very mission upon which he was bound, hunting the owner of an old violin, ingeniously panelled, which bore inscribed in letters of gold the name of the immortal master, Antonius Stradivarius ! All seemed but part of the gossamer structure of a dream, shrouded in an iridescent mist of romance and unreality. What more fitting complements of each other, the American asked himself, than his quest and its moonlit portal? Kirke's plans were as yet but vaguely defined. In the morning he sought the advice of his hotel- keeper and was instantly assured that Eccel- lenza would certainly find suitable private ac- commodation in the village of Beritola. In- deed, if he did not, the gracious host stood ready to forfeit his worthless life upon demand, a sentiment sensibly affected by the generosity of the American's buono mano. The dilapidated vehicle recommended by the BERITOLA 19 hotel clerk for safe portage to Beritola held forth an excellent promise of sudden dissolution as it madly rattled up in the afternoon. Kirke watched the disposal of his luggage in the ram- shackle interior with considerable foreboding. Fearful lest the rickety platform should flatly refuse to endure its added burden, he him- self presently stepped in, debating with a grin whether it might not perhaps be the saner method to kick out the bottom at once and de- mand a new one. His fears were plainly re- flected in the face of his solemn valet and Kirke smiled broadly at the thought that the precise Englishman would be obliged to ride with the driver an irresponsible vetturino of most rakish aspect, who had gravely introduced him- self as the hotel clerk's favourite brother. His flapping hat, in which a dissipated feather bobbed drunkenly about, was tilted gaily over one ear, its general style suggesting nothing so much as the headgear of a scarecrow. A volu- minous scarlet tie, in which he displayed a pardonable pride, was carefully spread out in a huge bow beneath his chin, above which grinned a swarthy, dare-devil face, wreathed in an ir- resistible smile of the utmost friendliness. Gribbins, however, was quite immune to the picturesque charm of his companion. The rich, bronze skin and even, flashing teeth he regarded as proofs of unusual depravity, and as he settled 20 TRAUMEKEI his thin figure gingerly by the side of the Italian, he eyed him with such furtive disapprobation that Kirke laughed outright. The driver, after assuring himself that Eccellenza was quite com- fortable and that none of the component parts of the antique vehicle had as yet tumbled to pieces, suddenly seized the reins and roared: " Wah ! Wah ! " The effect was electrical. Gribbins sprang to his feet, convinced that he was the object of a murderous and totally unwarranted attack, seated himself quite as abruptly as the horses lurched forward, and for the rest of the journey maintained a dignity that was truly awe-in- spiring. But the driver was bent upon sociability. He chattered and grinned and gesticulated cordially to the unresponsive Englishman whose nose in its steady rise threatened to become part of his forehead. The crushing effect of his nasal con- tempt, unfortunately, was lost in the frequent necessity of dodging the illustrative swoops of the other's whip. The vetturino, who seemed in- deed a perpetual well-spring of jubilation, was quite undismayed by his companion's silence. He presently launched forth upon a -funny story whose ridiculous ending threatened to overwhelm him completely. Indeed it affected him to such an extent that in wild abandon he gave the end of his scarlet tie an hilarious tug and was obliged BEEITOLA 21 to halt his horses to re-tie it. Now perceiving that the Englishman ignored the point even when his master laughed, the driver jocularly dug his elbow into the valet's ribs to sharpen his dull wits, whereupon Gribbins turned upon him a face of such horror-stricken disgust and appre- hension that Kirke laughed again. His staid companion's emotion, however, did not quench the Italian. He made a comical grimace of com- prehension at Kirke and chattered volubly until the end of the journey, frequently returning to the subject of his horses upon whom he bestowed an extravagant eulogium, designating them proudly as Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel, long ago accorded the palm of being the very best equine stock in all Italy, and possibly in all the world for aught he knew to the con- trary ! Gradually the road unwound itself before them, a kaleidoscopic ribbon of beauty, many-hued. Through miniature inland towns, which left a confused impression of the dark eyes, great ear- rings and brilliant bodices of laughing peasant women, back to the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea; through villages of weather-beaten fisher- men it wound, revealing now the grey ruins of a castle and now the gold of an orange grove; now skirting the water's edge, now bounding along shelves of rock far above the sea ; a merci- ful Providence alone protecting the occupants 22 TRAUMEREI of the Neapolitan rattle-trap and their reckless driver. At the side of a hill the driver turned sharply inland, winding in and out through v a maze of hills that momentarily grew steeper. \ The Amer- ican decided that they were travelling through a range of mountains thrown off from the main branch of the Apennines. This the driver veri- fied with a series of staccato nods that threat- ened to sever his head completely from the scar- let tie, exploding immediately after into the voluble explanation, accurately illustrated by the whip, that the unbroken line of hills through which he was at present driving and whose scenic vagaries no man in all Italy but himself knew thoroughly owing to the superior moral, physical and mental qualities the acquirement of such knowledge required, extended from the Apen- nines straight to the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and that Beritola lay in a wonderful little valley in the very heart of these hills perhaps a mile, certainly no more, in from the shore. And such a valley ! Body of Bacchus ! Wait -wait until Eccellenza should see it! Fertile? Christoforo Colombo! Yes! The word could not begin to describe it. Peasants who dwelt there were very rich; "but," he added, with a comprehensive shrug of his broad shoulders, " we poor devils who can not even raise money enough to pay our taxes think of Beritola as a Paradise BE El TO LA 23 where the poor man can not only pay his taxes, but live well to boot!" This was apparently such a fabulous state of well-being in the driver's estimation that the contemplation of it rendered him speechless for a second, but he broke forth with redoubled energy at a question from Kirke. Taxes? Presence of the Devil! Never were there such taxes short of the Nether Kegions where His Iniquitous Highness himself levied them! Taxes on all fruit and flesh sold pub- licly ; taxes on all signboards bearing the eupho- nious names of perfectly respectable merchants; taxes on every box of matches that one's decrepit grandmother sells for such a small sum that Ec- cellenza would willingly feed such insignificant coins to the wild pheasants who were yonder strutting through the thicket. Per Baccho! A tax on the glorious grapes even while they were growing on the equally glo- rious vines, the unfortunate owner becoming a double loser if the crop spoiled after the tax was paid. Why! Shades of Garibaldi (and a good man he was too!) if the eloquent opposition to Italian taxes desired to take that empty bottle in the road back to Napoli he indicated it with a swoop of his whip that grazed Gribbins' ear and made him jump he would be obliged to pay a tax upon it! No doubt, although Eccel- lenza could see truth emanating from every line of his countenance, and in Napoli he was called 24 TRAUMEREI " Truthful Tony," (the owner did not feel called upon to explain that it was usually uttered in tones of admiring sarcasm), no doubt he would find those statements hard to believe, and if the driver had not extraordinary faith in his own unimpeachable integrity, he himself would have similar difficulty. Kirke tried to check his diatribe with a ques- tion about Beritola, but finding to his dismay that it merely served to divert its course into another channel, he sank back again in his seat and shrugged in amused resignation. Beritola? Blessed Mother! Why, the grand- fathers and great-grandfathers of these blessed Beritolians had lived in the very same houses that now sheltered their lucky descendants. In- deed 'twas even said, " Once a Beritolian, always a Beritolian." The driver himself would ask nothing better some day, when he had married his sweetheart, Peronella, than to have a little house in Beritola, but that of course was impos- sible quite impossible owing to a certain conspiracy among the Government heads whose chief object was to see that he made no money, unless he acquired it surreptitiously from the generosity of foreigners. Kirke smiled at the utter ingenuousness of the veiled suggestion, and the driver, whose success Italian diplomats were striving to impede, feeling that he had delicately intimated his readiness to BERITOLA 25 accept an enormous buono mano, grinned with brazen good-fellowship at Gribbins, flourished his whip in an excess of impudent good nature, and turned his attention to the road which had grown too steep and rough for indifferent driving. Up the steep slope of a mountain they toiled, threading a precarious course between jutting crags covered with cactus and brier the ve- hicle clattering over the rocky ground in mo- mentary danger of collapse up to a summit crowned with evergreen oaks and carpeted in a velvet of emerald moss and wild-flowers. The driver stopped and pointed far below with the inevitable whip. "See, Eccellenza!" he said proudly. "The valley of Beritola ! " \At their feet lay a tiny valley guarded by a circle of hills which rose one above the other as far as the eye could reach. The distant peaks were capped in cloud Nature's tossing helmet plumes lent to deck the vanguard of the march- ing mountain files on their way to join the mighty army of the Apennines. The valley lay sleeping in the warm glow of the afternoon sun- light, a vale of oranges and roses, it seemed to Kirke, into whose fertile depths summer, flitting lightly across the rampart of hills, had rained down showers of fruit and flowers in tropical benediction upon her chosen favourite. ) Near by 26 T ft A U M E R E I on a wooded ridge the towers of an old stone castle, heavily buttressed, loomed grey against the line of sky and forest behind them. A watch-dog, ancient and grim it seemed, guarding the valley at its feet. Below lay a myriad of tiny gabled houses scat- tered about among the trees with no thought of symmetry. Their tiled roofs gleamed brightly in the sunlight, dotting the valley with blinding flashes of diamond fire. Rose and jasmine climbed about the porches; fields of grain flashed gold in the sunlight ; groves of orange and lemon, heavy with fruit, and olive trees of unusual size and peculiar silvery green filled the intervening fields and occasionally hid the slope of a near-by hill. Peasant women moving about among the trees dotted the landscape with spots of crimson and yellow a warm riot of colour typically Italian! Truthful Tony's whip described curves and squares and angles to Gribbins' obvious discom- fort as his enthusiasm, waxed stronger. Did Eccellenza see the lake and the tiny chapel? Holy Mother! Was it not small enough for a dolls' mass? And yet the driver shook with laughter they called it the Duomo after the famous Florentine Duomo designed by the illus- trious Brunelleschi! Perhaps, if Eccellenza looked very sharply, he could see the inverted egg-shell upon the roof of the chapel from which BERITOLA 27 it had acquired its high-sounding title. Mother of God ! These Beritolians ! They had a world of their own down there. The driver wiped his eyes and by degrees controlled his mirth, al- although he rumbled intermittently for some time. The American smilingly admitted that the picturesque Duomo and its slender Campanile adjoining were indeed Lilliputian suggestions of Brunelleschi's Florentine Duomo and the famous bell tower of Giotto ! " Eccellenza is pleased?" Tony's handsome face was radiant with enthusiasm. 8i! For the instant Kirke could find no words adequate to express his admiration of the bit of pastoral loveliness at his feet. With the excep- tion of the castle and a pretentious villa to the left, evidently the country home of some Nea- politan aristocrat, there was no evidence of any life in the valley save that of the prosperous peasant. The soul of the artist was revelling in jthe rich colour, the light and shade, the dim perspective, and the vanishing point of sky and cloud and misty mountain. I. " It's wonderful ! " he added later, " wonder- ful, wonderful ! " The driver flashed his even white teeth in a grin of delight and looked suggestively at Grib- bins, who was staring straight down the steep mountain road ahead of him, speculating in 28 TRAUMEREI melancholy apprehension upon the approaching dissolution of the cart. Tony instantly evinced symptoms of a desire to stimulate his compan- ion's appreciation with the butt end of his whip indeed it was headed for its goal when Kirke intervened with a hasty question and starting violently, Gribbins stared in alarm at the madcap Italian. Finding Tony's bold, dark eyes fixed impudently upon his face, however, he coughed behind his hand in consid- erable embarrassment. Reassured an instant later by a wild explosion of mirth from the Nea- politan who appeared to have been suddenly and completely overwhelmed by the Englishman's appearance, he offered uncertainly: " Mr. Bentley, 'e is a queer one and the cart is a 'eap worse! My word, sir, but it is an 'eathenish outfit." " Wah ! Wah ! " roared Tony maliciously, grin- ning like a fiend in the delight of starting up Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel with the call that 'iad once before startled his solemn com- panion, and swaying back and forth in his seat in another uncontrollable outburst of laughter as the Englishman jumped. Down the hill they bounced and clattered, and as the driver's mirth subsided, he informed Kirke that the road they were travelling was the sole entrance to the lit- tle valley of Beritola, A crowd of youngsters with tousled curls and BERITOLA 29 great, soft, dark eyes ran out to greet the vis- itors with screams of delight. The arrival of a stranger in Beritola was epoch-making, and it would be no fault of theirs if he were not prop- erly received. The village women, too, emerged from their houses, calling out eager questions to the driver, who, recognising a national trait in their artless curiosity, never suppressed by any false consideration for its object, patriotically called back all known details and a few others relative to Eccellenza's startling wealth and lineage. Kirke had long ago succumbed to the irresist- ible personality of the rakish Italian. Now he grinned in delight at the driver's brazen, good- natured discussion of his fare, secretly aston- ished at the details which Truthful Tony, sub- limely indifferent to the adjective prefixed to his name, imparted with an air of the utmost satis- faction and a firm belief in their accuracy. It was quite evident that the Neapolitan exponent of the truth was thoroughly enjoying himself, and Kirke sank limply back in his seat, laugh- ing in secret enjoyment. The inquisitive prog- eny of the valley, deeply sensitive of the unusual honour conferred upon them by this visit, speed- ily organised themselves into a reception commit- tee delegated to escort Eccellenza wherever he w r as going. To Gribbins' horror, they followed the cart up the valley, a constantly growing cav- 30 TRAUMEREI alcade, good-natured and admiring, dodging the mockingly threatening swoops of Tony's whip and making frank overtures of friendship to the strangers. " I know Manuel Ciapelletto, Signore," volun- teered Tony, turning to Kirke. " He once took a great English author to live with him during the summer, a person of most unchristian stingi- ness. Perhaps I may drive Eccellenza there? 'Twas I alas ! who brought the author." Assured of Eccellenza's ready assent, the volu- ble Italian once more broke forth into an ad- miring rhapsody, proudly indicating the pictur- esque hedges of aloes and pomegranates that en- closed the gardens, the miniature vineyards and the tethered goats as if they in a measure reflected infinite personal credit upon him- self. " They are very independent, Eccellenza, these Beritola men and women ! " he observed in con- clusion. " They make their own wines, they have their own goats that give the milk, they grow the vegetables and the fruits and " he chuckled and winked prodigiously " they pay the very big tax to the Government for their blessings, but Holy Mother! they can afford it!" With a final brandish of his whip that was greeted with whoops of delight from the juvenile reception committee, Tony pulled up before a BERITOLA 31 tiny house whose I porch was over-run with a shower of crimson roses, > He alighted in the midst of the gaping youngsters with a spring, and roared, " Manuel ! Manuel ! " in a voice calculated to summon the master of the house from any distance. Its force was only equalled by its mysterious suggestion that Manuel's des- tiny had in some way been altered by his benev- olent intervention. A tall, well set up Italian, whose loose peasant blouse and jacket revealed a bronzed throat and broad muscular frame, emerged from the cottage and returned the driver's greeting with a good-natured nod. Tony straightway burst into a frantic babble of ex- planation at which Manuel, with a quick glance at the American to see if he resented the driv- er's volubility, laughed aloud. Kirke caught his eye and smilingly shook his head. "You can't stop him!" he said in Italian. "I've tried!" Tony slapped his knee in the delight of the discovery that the American Signore had so quickly come to understand his little idiosyn- crasies. " Holy Mother ! " exclaimed Manuel, coming nearer. " 'Tis only too true, Eccellenza; Tony is the prize liar of Napoli. He only goes to con- fession when he breaks his record and tells the truth ! " By the friendly twinkle in his eyes as he spoke the American guessed that the irre- 32 TRAUMEREI sponsible owner of the rickety cart was a fa- vourite. Tony tried to look reproachful, failed dis- mally, and joined in the laugh at his expense with a roar of delight. He seemed immensely proud of his reputation. " Eccellenza wishes to see the English au- thor's rooms," nodded Manuel, perceiving that Tony appeared to be on the border of another ex- cited explanation " Lauretta, Lauretta ! " There was a movement at the latticed front window as if the owner of the name had been peeping, then a slender girl, clad in a short red skirt and bodice with a blue apron trimly tied at her waist, stepped from the house, shyly fin- gering a rosary. Tony greeted her with a low flourishing bow, swooped his hat through the dust in the enthusiasm of his obeisance, and gravely brushed the ragged feather immediately afterward with an air of the utmost concern. The American, however, startled by the ex- traordinary picture before him, stared at her in undisguised astonishment. The beauty of the peasant girl was as rare as it was wonderful. Moreover, she was a type quite her own, in no way resembling the type of fair-haired women commonly seen in Southern Italy. Her waving hair was half gold, half red ; the blending of the two perhaps into an exquisite ruddy gold. Her eyes? Kirke frowned in the quick effort to BERITOLA 33 analyse their colour. No! of course they could not possibly be red who ever heard of red eyes? but certainly there was a hint of its rich glory in their tantalising depths. At least they were a rare blending of red and brown and gold changing with her moods. They were long and oval and Oriental-looking, the silken lids delicately veined and fringed with lashes of black, the arched brows above them traced in jet against the clear, colourless olive of her skin. " Lauretta," said Manuel Ciapelletto, " show the American S ignore the two upstairs rooms that the great author used." He turned to Kirke in quick apology. " We have no inn, Eccellenza. Few visitors find their way to Beritola." Kirke was grateful for the Italian's ready ac- ceptance of his own arrival. The rampant curiosity of the village women had made him somewhat apprehensive. Manuel accepted with- out question the American's hearty praise of the valley and his intimation that Tony's alleged brother, the hotel clerk, had recommended it as an ideal spot for rest and quiet. " Eccellensa will find plenty of that ! " he smiled, and turning, motioned Lauretta to lead the way inside. Kirke followed, quite prepared to accept what- ever hospitality the house should offer. The valley had cast a magic spell over him and en- thralled his senses. Fruit and flower and south- 34 TRAUMEREI era sky, warm and glowing, sent the blood leap- ing through his veins in a fever of admiration. He paused on the threshold of the cottage and drew in deep breaths of the fragrant air, an in- visible incense heavy with perfume. In the pow- erful music of the great organ of Nature he found no dissonance to mar the harmony of her blended beauty. The people pleased him. Na- ture had breathed into them the spirit of the valley. They were all simple and natural, quick, hot-blooded, impulsive children of the sun that shone so fiercely above them. Tony's impudent good-nature, Manuel's quiet humour, the artless curiosity of the villagers they were all typical of a life that would never grasp the meaning of conventional restraint. Was Dioneo Lambert! the master of the an- cient castle yonder guarding the gabled vil- lage at its feet? Was he the rightful owner of the priceless violin whose golden inscription had led the American to this Italian Arcadia, reveal- ing a beauty that stirred the innermost depths of his Nature worship? Verily his quest and the ultimate goal were fittingly complemental ! The rooms which the great author of unchris- tian stinginess had honoured with his literary presence were in accordance with the prevailing custom of the Italians in summer, uncarpeted and roughly paved in brick. Their rude mural frescoes attracted Kirke in proportion to their BERITOLA 35 contrary effect upon Gribbins, who eyed the rep- resentation of a hairy, grotesque Bacchus on the wall opposite him in silent horror. The valet's last vestige of hope incontinently fled when his master smilingly nodded his approval. Numbed by the young gentleman's successive ec- centricities, he haughtily descended the stairs to attend to the luggage, groaning within himself as he deposited his own portmanteau in the rear room, not, however, before he had carefuly dusted the floor with a newspaper. He must now remain in Beritola until Mr. Bentley chose otherwise, for nothing short of the personal intervention of the devil himself could compel him to ride back to Naples with that grinning fiend of a driver. The gross familiarity of Tony's prodding elbow still rankled. Below stairs Tony was preparing to depart, his heart gladdened by a buono mano whose size would have made the inimical court diplomat shiver enviously. He had bowed and scraped his gratitude in a series of evolutions so intricate that Kirke had doubted his ultimate ability to disentangle himself. The aggravated angle of his hat attested his increased well-being. An in- quiry concerning the mail facilities elicited the astounding information that Italy was vastly su- perior to all other countries in this respect, mak- ing an especial point of accelerating all mate- rial addressed to Americans. True, Eccellenza's 36 TEAUMEEEI mail would come no further than Napoli, but al- though Tony was a very busy man (and this re- mark received a tacit confirmation in its pecul- iar effect upon Manuel who seemed loath to let it pass without some endorsing comment of his own), Tony himself, for a slight consideration which he would leave entirely to the magna- nimity of his employer, would depart from his recent resolution to be very careful of his strength this hot summer and each morning, if Eccellenza so desired, he would drive over and deliver the written communications of Eccel- lenza's admiring friends. Kirke arranged for a liberal supply of newspapers and magazines, of whose literary merits the versatile driver pro- fessed an expert knowledge and rare powers of discrimination, and having completed arrange- ments for outwitting those small-minded states- men who were conspiring against Tony's finan- cial welfare, watched the breezy Italian drive off with a deafening clatter of bolts and boards. The American turned to find Manuel smiling broadly. "Eccellenza" he chuckled, with an expresMve shrug, " I once rode over from Napoli in Tony's cart. Per Baccho! 'Tis a gamble! " With a light laugh, Kirke bounded up the stairs to his room, peering from his front win- dow with an exclamation of delight. 1 Framed in the casement lay a medieval sketch of castle BERITOLA 37 and hills, hills whose summits, rising one above the other, were veiled in mist and purple shad- ows. Off to the south a curling cloud of smoke capped Vesuvius. ! Dioneo Lamberti might or might not exist, the American told himself jubi- lantly, the charm of the little valley remained the same! Suddenly conscious of an unnatural silence in the rear room, Kirke left the window. He found Gribbins seated upon the edge of his bed sunk in a lethargic gloom. He was moodily in- specting the frescoes on the wall as his master entered. " It's no use, sir," he quavered, " I cawn't get used to them circus pictures. I'm trying 'ard, but the werry thought of wakin' to be-'old 'em fills me with 'orror! To me, sir, they're neither ornamental or decent. 'As an artist 'ad this room, sir? " Briefly Kirke explained the Italian's mania for frescoes. "That's Proserpine and Ceres and Pluto," he added, "and there's the fatal pomegranate " but the valet merely sniffed his ignorance of the old myth, adding in deep dis- gust, " Ooever they are, sir, the female 'as not enough clothes and that 'orrible monster with 'orns is no sight for a man com in' out of a sound sleep ! " In truth, the artist's conception of Pluto was almost as weird and terrible as it was original, 38 TRAUMEBEI and the sanguinary pomegranate suggested a re- cent murder. Kirke wheeled in quick authority as the Englishman once more expanded into a querulous jeremiad. " See here, Gribbins," he exclaimed sternly, " you must make the best of matters or get out, understand? The driver will be back in the morning with some things from Naples, and if life becomes unbearable by that time, you can re- turn with him and I'll pay your passage back home." Gribbins promptly announced in quavering tones that " 'e 'ad no intention of leaving, sir," and to himself he added that he had no intention of giving that Neapolitan cut-throat, Tony, the opportunity to murder him and " make off with his waluables ! " The " waluables " in question consisted of a ponderous watch-chain of English shillings, a highly valued heirloom from his grandfather which hung in cumbrous state from pocket to pocket. He returned to the unpack- ing of his master's luggage in a state of acute melancholy, presently following the young gen- tleman down to supper with a gingerly precision of movement indicative of complex emotions. A table of pine boards, scrubbed to the shin- ing point, lay invitingly spread with brown earth- enware. To the American the vivid colouring of the fruits that lay heaped upon it typified the spirit of exuberance that dwelt in the valley. BERITOLA 39 The rich purple of the fig, the scarlet of the enormous cherries, yes! the crimson, too, of the roses brimming over the side of a brown bowl and of the blazing poppies there was no re- straint in their tropical glory. The fierce heat of the sun that had fostered them knew no tem- pering. Its scorching rays had left an imprint of intensity upon fruit and flower and human blood. Manuel's wife, an energetic little woman, brown as a nut, with a faded remnant of the beauty that had been Lauretta's inheritance, hur- ried back and forth bearing savory platters from the kitchen. These Gribbins eyed with discreet indecision before he proffered them to his mas- ter, inwardly condemning the avidity with which that young gentleman ate the strange concoc- tions, apparently with no thought of analysing them! Kirke smoked a thoughtful pipe on the little porch while the Englishman mincingly partook of his own supper. The dusk was creeping down from the hills, slowly veiling the valley in a som- bre mist. One by one the lights of the cottages leaped up, dotting the purple twilight with points of fire. A thrill of exaltation surged through the American, born of his reverence for the beauty of the valley and excitement at the peculiar train of events that had led him to it. The hours fled by one by one in the fragrant 40 TEAUMEREI darkness, but Kirke still sat on the cottage porch, lazily content. The breeze that came down from the mountainside laden with sugges- tions of oranges and pine brought with it the sounds of the night, the soft twang of a guitar, the music of an accordion, or an occasional plain- tive voice raised in minor melody. Off to the south glowed the fitful pillar of fire that crowned the Neapolitan volcano by night. Some instinct of caution had withheld the American's immediate inquiry for Dioneo Lam- berti. Now as he gazed up at the twinkling lights of the old castle with keen interest, he re- flected that its grim grey walls might harbour the very man he sought. In swift review he questioned again the identity of the Italian lad as the scene beneath the elms back home re- hearsed itself bit by bit, and in a sudden flash of revelation, as vivid as a lightning dart cleaving the heavy darkness of the summer night, he heard again the Italian's plaintive words : "Go back to Italy. Love da leetle lady, Lauretta ! " Kirke rose abruptly, a curious light in his eyes. Had the fellow meant Lauretta Ciapel- letto? If so, the discovery was fraught with meaning. The Italian lad had come from the little village whose name was inscribed in letters of gold on the panel of the Stradivarius. Vainly the American pieced together the little informa- BEEITOLA 41 tion in his possession. The corresponding dates following the names of Camillo Lamberti and the master; certainly they must indicate that the violin had come into the Lamberti family imme- diately upon its completion. That other name of more recent application the family name still unchanged, suggesting a treasured heirloom. The peculiar formation of the instrument with its gold lettered panels luring the American to this wonderful little valley of Beritola, the home, perhaps, of Dioneo Lamberti and the homesick Italian exile and certainly of Lauretta Ciapel- leto. And last of all this curious coincidence of names! Was the beautiful little Italian girl the vagrant musician's " leetle lady, Lauretta "? In the light of all this, Kirke was inclined to answer in the affirmative, and the ragged exile's one time presence in the valley seemed very significant ! CHAPTER IV LAURETTA KIRKE arose long before the patient Grib- bins had opened his eyes upon the horned horror on the opposite wall, dressed quietly and crept downstairs. The front door stood wide open. Outside he met Manuel's wife coming down the valley, her lean, brown fingers firmly spread upon her hips to balance the weight of an enormous bundle of dry twigs which she carried upon her head with apparent ease, although the weight was evident in the tremulous vibration of her long ear-rings. " Madonna mia! " she exclaimed, her wrinkled brown face expanding into a grin at the sight of the American. " Illustrissimo leaves his bed early. See, the valley still sleeps. None but I and the accursed pecorajo yonder rise to fight for twigs for the morning fire ! " She hurled a fierce imprecation at a figure whose bundle of twigs seemed to be considerably smaller than her own. He in turn shook his fist at his antagonist who screamed a parting malediction back at him and turned to Kirke. " Povero asinaccio!" she burst forth in sub- 42 LAURETTA 43 lime scorn, her dark eyes flashing fire, "each morning we fight. There are twigs in plenty, but still we fight, and I, Marietta, always win ! " Kirke, somewhat mystified by the inexplicable rancour of the pair, since there were undoubt- edly " twigs in plenty," ascribed it to the fierce little brown woman's apparent love of excite- ment, and, smiling broadly at her irresponsible method of gratifying it, offered the suggestion that it relieved the monotony of the morning. Marietta's dark eyes twinkled shrewdly and she laughed outright. Illustrissimo's frank, good- natured shaft, with its kernel of truth, pleased her, indicating as it did an understanding of the fever of excitement that burned in her veins and constantly sought expression. Tingling as the morning breeze swept down from the mountain- side full in his face, Kirke strode on up the val- ley. [ The gabled village lay in a glow of gold poured down from the east where, in the regal splendour of his rising, the Sun King had paused on the crest of a mountain before as- cending his brilliant trail of heat. The dew upon the orange trees flashed in the sunlight with changing opalescence, emerald and rose and gold imprisoned in a treasure house of crystal. Here and there golden envoys of the Sun King crept down over a terraced mountain of orange, caught the sparkle of the dew, and 44 TRAUMEREI transformed the mountain into a grove of jewels. * To the ready fancy of the American, the ancient towers of the castle stretched along the ridge ahead of him, lay against the azure of the sky like a mammoth cameo clearly cut! Marietta's assertion that all the valley but she and the accursed pecorajo still slept proved to be quite true. Turning to the left in his walk, the American presently found himself confront- ing the villa he had glimpsed from the top of the hillroad. The house itself gleamed white and cool from a file of trees and shrubbery. Showers of jasmine climbed about the pillars of the portico, freighting the air with peculiar fragrance. ! In the terraced gardens beyond statues of famous Italians flashed white against a background of cypress and ilex. A thick hedge of scarlet geraniums enclosed the grounds like a line of flame. As the wind stirred their petals, they seemed like blazing tongues of fire kindled into crimson by the burning rays of the sun. Kirke whimsically chose to see in this fancied line of fire about the villa a quaint sig- nificance. From the trellised walks and marble balus- trade to the fountain whose splash was start- lingly audible in the silence of the early morn- ing, the grounds were loyally Italian in con- ception. In spite of Nature's kindly veil of vine and shrubbery, however, the villa betrayed a LAURETTA 45 need of repairs, and the outbuildings, leaning crazily, seemed in imminent danger of collapse. Reluctantly, for the artistic appeal of the old villa had been strong, Kirke walked on, past the school-house to the lake, a placid sheet of water mirroring the line of foliage on its banks and the chapel whose eggshell Duomo had excited Tony's good-natured ridicule. The shadow of the slender bell-tower lay across the lake like a long, dark finger tracing on a silver page the record of the sun. On the shore in a thicket of trees lay the chapel, so near the water's edge indeed that its rude platform of stones had been worn to smoothness by the rippling of the lake. With a sigh of infinite content Kirke seated himself on the opposite bank, idly tracing the tapestry of light and shadow at his feet. Whim- sically he leaned forward with a smile at the fancy to look for the lovely lake Nereid who had woven the magic strands into a pattern of re- flected tree and sky and chapel. Perhaps she would reveal to him something of Signore Lam- bert! ! If the water nymph had any intention of dis- closing herself to the inquisitive American peer- ing down into her crystal retreat, however, it was destroyed in embryo by a heavy footstep so lacking in romance, so utterly unimaginative, and diffusing such an atmosphere of square toes and common sense that the very echoes rang 46 TRAUMEBEI mockingly across the lake. Kirke turned to be- hold Gribbins, breathless and anxious, eyeing his master in considerable perturbation. " I begs your pawdon, sir," he gasped, " but I arsked that Marietta where you 'ad gone with the sign language that John 'Apworth taught me, and she laughed like a bloomin' 'eyeena gib- bering away so sassy, sir, that I was sure they 'ad done away with you already. I 'unted till I found you, sir." Kirke laughed. "And breakfast?" he sug- gested. " Ready, sir. I gathered that from Mariet- ta's wicious motions." Kirke breakfasted in his own room at a small table drawn up at his request to the window. Off to the south, where the pillar of fire above Vesuvius had glowed and faded in the darkness, a plume of silvery smoke rolled and curled like a summer cloud. Lauretta, as fresh and pretty as the roses she heaped in a bowl on the table, darted back and forth at the excited commands of Marietta, delivered in shrill screams from the bottom of the stairs. "Lauretta!" " 8i f madre." "The padrone's cherries! Madonna mia! You've forgotten them again. Did I not tell you " " Scusi, madre. I could not carry all." LAURETTA 47 " Hurry. I weary of holding them. Ma- donna ! how slow you are ! " "Lauretta!" " 8i, madre" " The padrone's table. Is it by the win- dow? " " Si." " On the left? " " No, madre, on the right ! " "Mother of God! I said the left!" There was a rapid creaking of stairs and Marietta appeared, alert and vivaciously competent. Laughingly, Kirke asserted his entire satisfac- tion with everything, and, having assured her- self by a deft rearrangement of the table, the tense little brown housekeeper hurriedly de- parted to the lower floor, where they heard her fiercely berating Manuel because that " accursed goat was in the cabbages again ! " Smiling at the commotion that immediately arose in the cabbages, Kirke turned from the contemplation of the castle's towers and ram- parts to find Lauretta gazing intently at him a curious look in her long, red-brown eyes. " Eccellenza wishes anything else?" she in- quired, with a start of confusion as his glance encountered her own. " No, I think not. Oh, yes," he added, with as- sumed carelessness, " who lives in the castle yonder? " 48 TRAUMEREI " Count Teodoro di Gomito, Signore." Kirke was conscious of a genuine thrill of dis- appointment. The castle had seemed an emi- nently fitting abode for the owner of the old Stradivarius. " Eccellenza conies from Am-er-i-ca? " sud- denly questioned Lauretta, her gaze full upon him. " Yes." The girl drew closer, her eyes ablaze with eagerness. " Un-i-ted States of Am-er-i-ca? " she ques- tioned. " Yes." " It it is a very big place? " " Well, yes, it's fairly sizable." With the American's keen eyes upon her she seemed to hesitate for an instant, then she bent impulsively toward him, a wave of red mantling the clear bronze of her skin. To Kirke's secret astonishment she was trembling with excite- ment. " Eccellensa has perhaps seen Pietro in that far country?" she burst forth eagerly. " Pietro? " Kirke knit his brows in thought- ful review, a bit of acting to mask the quick gleam of interest in his eyes. Lauretta's lim- ited comprehension of the distant country's size evidently did not preclude the possibility of universal acquaintanceship. Her question had LAURETTA 49 instantly brought back the scene beneath the elrns at home and the Italian lad's plaintive con- fession of his love for the little lady Lauretta ! " 8i, Signore. Pietro Masetto. He left Beri- tola eight months ago and went to the Signore's country across the sea. Eccellenza has heard of Nuova York? See," she went on in growing excitement, " I have here a letter from Pietro." She pulled a worn, dirty letter from her bosom and pointed to the postmark. It had grown in- distinct in its long journey, but the word New York was still visible. Kirke returned the let- ter, convinced of the absent Pietro's identity. Caution forgotten in a reckless impulse, he turned to the girl. " Would your Pietro be likely to be interested in violins? " he queried, and instantly regretted his imprudence. Lauretta's beautiful face flamed red and two ominous points of gold fire glittered in her wonderful eyes. " No ! No ! Signore," she cried fiercely, " you shall not say that ! " She clenched her hands and passionately stamped a small foot until the breakfast table clattered with the vibration. " You shall not ! I say, you shall not ! " A flood of angry tears followed the fiery outburst. " Scusi, Signorina! " Kirke was profoundly apologetic. He was thunderstruck at the girl's tempestuous revelation of defiant fear and loyalty. " I once knew a Pietro in New York 50 TEAUMEREI who kept a violin store," he added, lying grace- fully. To assure the girl of his utter indiffer- ence he looked carelessly from the window, frowning in disgust at his own thoughtless blunder. A belated caution whispered that it would be most unwise to arouse suspicion, par- ticularly in this girl who had been in touch with the exile and was probably cognisant of his af- fairs. " A violin store, Eccellenza? " questioned the girl. She was calmer now. At the American's ready explanation she had flushed hotly, biting her lips in the effort of self-restraint. " Yes, on lower Broadway." Kirke recalled a quaint little shop whose dusty collection of in- struments had often attracted him, and described it with enthusiasm, unblushingly christening the unknown proprietor " Pietro " with every appearance of unimpeachable veracity. Lauretta wiped the tears from her dark lashes, with a covert glance at the American. " Scusi, Signore!" she offered lamely in self- defence, " my heart aches for Pietro." " A poor excuse for such an outburst, my little friend ! " reflected Kirke, but aloud he said, " don't worry, Signorina! It isn't your Pietro who keeps the violin store. He's been there for the last ten years. Your Pietro is probably sail- ing back to you. Passage money," he added mentally, " paid out of my two hundred ! " LAURETTA 51 "Si, Signore. Pietro says in his letter that when he has saved the money he will come back to me," admitted the girl, hurrying away at a frenzied summons from Marietta. The American finished his breakfast in thoughtful silence. The events of the morning had resulted in one very strong conviction. Lauretta Ciapelletto was the sweetheart of the vagrant Italian from whom he had purchased the Stradivarius. What, though, was the meaning of the storm of passionate tears with which she had greeted the mere suggestion of his interest in violins? Did she know the history of the strange instrument securely hidden away in his trunk? Certainly there was more than coinci- dence in this curious revelation of the morn- ing. Idly he watched the girl return, idly watched the appointments of the little breakfast table one by one disappear. One question lay upper- most in his mind and impatiently he debated the wisdom of voicing it. Lauretta had paused on the threshold to make quite sure there had been no domestic oversight in the ordering of Ec- cellenza's room. Reflecting that it was an in- quiry any curious stranger might make and that his own hesitancy was but the result of a hazy suspicion, Kirke lazily arose and flicked the ashes from his cigarette. " One minute, Lauretta," he said carelessly 52 TRAUMEREI as she turned to go. " Who lives in the beau- tiful old villa with the jasmine growing over it and the hedge of red geraniums around the grounds?" The girl faced him with startled eyes that were swiftly veiled by long lashes then she answered calmly enough: " Signore Dioneo Lamberti, Eccellenza." CHAPTER V "THE LADY OF THE LAKE" MARIETTA'S morning altercations with her "accursed pecorajo," ending as they usually did in a burst of glory under his very window, proved an amusing source of informa- tion for Kirke in the week following his mysti- fying interview with Lauretta. At first he had sleepily resented the intrusion of their shrill voices and ended by growing interested in their bickering gossip. Each morning the rival twig- gatherers impartially discussed the happenings in the little valley for the sole purpose, the listening American decided, of arraying them- selves indiscriminately upon opposite sides. They taunted each other furiously on subjects which to Kirke seemed of interest to neither. " The Signorina Beatrice, Heaven be praised ! will be home this week ! " announced Marietta one morning in challenging tones. " She will not ! " came in decided tones from the opposition. "Madonna mda!" screamed Marietta, "my Lauretta goes each day to the villa to work! She knows " " Your Lauretta," declared the pecorajo im- 53 54 T R A U M E R E I perturbably, " knows nothing ! I, too, go to the villa to work in the garden when I may leave my sheep." Marietta instantly exploded into a vitupera- tive storm of words that rained madly down upon her antagonist's head for several seconds, concluding very decidedly, " I tell you, Niccolo, the Signorina is coming. Our padrone at the villa has said it ! " " Count Teodoro di Gomito will be glad ! " observed Niccolo in the tone of a man who sees his way to give further offence. " The Count Teodoro is a fat pig ! " There was infinite scorn in Marietta's voice. " Nevertheless the Signorina Beatrice will marry the fat pig," asserted Niccolo with a laugh. "Per Baccho! What matters it, my friend, if one is a fat pig if he has a title, much money, a castle, and can marry a beauti- ful daughter of the Lambertis'." The pecorajo at times became acutely philosophical, well- knowing that it goaded his rival to a reckless frenzy. "Marry Count Teodoro?" Marietta laughed mockingly. "Niccolo, you are mad!" She lowered her voice though it still remained per- fectly audible. "Wait, wait until she sees the handsome American! Holy Mother, he is hung with gold pieces ! " Kirke grinned at the frank statement. "ADY OF THE LAKE" 55 Niccolo asserted his unqualified approval of the " handsome American who was hung with gold pieces," and Kirke immediately sat up in bed alert for the answer. As he had expected, Marietta, stung into the necessity of contradic- tion, flatly denied all the American's claims to admiration and excitedly catalogued a mythical list of his shortcomings remarkably inconsistent in the light of her usual friendly solicitude for his welfare. " And Mother of God ! How he does eat ! " she exclaimed in conclusion. Impulsively Kirke leaped out of bed and leaned from the window. " And so, Marietta," he said reproachfully, struggling to maintain an impressive gravity, "that's the way you feel about it, is it? I'm ugly, and disagreeable and eat too much." "Madonna mia! No!" she exclaimed fiercely, flinging out her arm in dramatic denial. "II- lustrissimo knows better, but " she pointed an accusing brown finger at Niccolo " must I not give him the lie always? " Kirke withdrew his head with a chuckle of delight and returned to bed, whence he heard Marietta continuing in vindictive tones, "Nic- colo, you have made trouble for me with the padrone! You, too, are a fat pig, a lying beast, a thief ! You you would rob the suckling pig of his mother to make a pork pie ! You you 56 would " she paused to find some disgraceful accusation in keeping with the utter depravity of her antagonist and finished triumphantly, "you would steal the name plate from your grandmother's coffin ! " "Why not?" came the philosophical retort; " it might be silver ! At least, Marietta, I do not steal violins! " and with this parting taunt, Nic- colo strode up the valley, mockingly singing the verse with which he always ended the morning disputes. " l Addio, mio caro a/more, Un amplesso, e poscia addio, Non tflia pena, non v'ha dolore.' ' This proceeding as a rule aggravated Marietta to the point of desperation, but this morning she received it in utter silence. Kirke heard her enter the house and viciously bang the door. He himself was considerably startled by Nic- colo's final words, implying, as they did, a knowledge of the subject that lay uppermost in his own mind. Bit by bit from the morning wrangles, Kirke gleaned a store of facts that he would have hesi- tated to acquire by questions. Lauretta's passionate outburst and Niccolo's taunt had taught him the need of caution. Dioneo Lam- berti's name was frequently mentioned and al- ways in a tone of reverential affection. It was the one subject upon which the rival twig-gath- erers seemed agreed, a mighty tribute in itself. His passion for music, his secluded life in the villa with his adorable old sister, the Signorina Emilia, and his daughter Beatrice, Count Teo- doro di Gomito's rumoured suit; gradually the Lamberti biography, tantalisingly incomplete, unfolded itself in the early hours of the morn- ing. Marietta expanded handsomely upon the virtues of her " beloved padrone " and his fam- ily in whom she asserted an aggressive pro- prietorship by reason of the Lambertis' domes- tic dependence upon Lauretta's daily trips to the villa. Kirke suspected that Count Teodoro, whom Marietta irreverently designated upon all occasions as " the fat pig," was hated and feared in the valley in proportion to the love and re- spect inspired by the musician, an opinion graphically confirmed by Tony. Keenly interested in the man whose person- ality had won for him such affection and hom- age, the American daily planned his walks to include the villa, eager for a glimpse of the musician whose name was inscribed in the Strad- ivarius. His efforts were unavailing. Either his selection of a walking hour was unfortunate or Signore Lamberti never left the interior of his villa. Kirke devised endless plans to invade his privacy, plans that speedily mocked him 58 TRAUMEREI with their utter impracticability. Back in Genoa it had seemed but a delightful bit of ro- mantic adventure to visit Beritola and present himself to Signore Lamberti, if he existed, with a courteous inquiry about the violin. Once in Beritola, however, the delicacy of the errand to one of Kirke's temperament became appalling. His own pride, his quick consideration for others, his proneness to nice distinctions reared the barrier. The thought of forcing an ac- quaintance with the proud old Italian, whose careful seclusion was a matter of choice, became extremely distasteful. In the tranquil loveli- ness of the valley practical considerations fled before the subtler distinctions of chivalry. To inquire if the old musician had willingly parted with his violin or if, in the light of Lauretta's passionate tears and Mccolo's assertion, the ab- sent Pietro had stolen it either explanation fraught with pain to its former owner seemed crude and harsh, a primitive mental surgery that might reveal an embarrassing pecuniary need. He had hoped for another unguarded ad- mission from Lauretta, but since her first men- tion of Pietro the little Italian girl had main- tained an aggravating silence and Kirke dared not question her too fully without disclosing the story of his purchase. He had no intention of challenging a false owner to declare himself by a careless hint of his errand, and he was stub- "LADY OF THE LAKE" 59 bounty resolved to learn the history of the pre- cious instrument in full before relinquishing his own claim to it. To the American, the long, drowsy days were delightful. From his morning plunge in the lake to the starlit nights, he was lazily content, a growing wonder in his heart at the valley's daily revelations of beauty. Gribbins looked on askance. His master's whims were beyond comprehension. Mr. Bentley's deliberate disre- gard of the conventionalities of dress manifested itself in an unaccountable aversion to dressing for dinner and a curious predilection for a suit of flannels, picturesque and becoming enough, the valet grudgingly admitted, but certainly not suitable for constant wear. Mr. Bentley's ap- petite had grown beyond the limits of decency; and Mr. Bentley indulged in long, solitary mountain tramps, during which the English- man fortified himself from assault by carefully barricading his bedroom door with a trunk and was only restrained from searching for the de- linquent by a standing threat of instant death. Moreover, the American's friendly overtures to the peasants became daily more cordial. When he lounged up the valley in the early evening, bareheaded and coatless, the sleeves of his silken outing shirt rolled back to the elbows and his hands dug deep in his trousers' pockets, he democratically joined in their discussions with 60 TBAUMEREI a native-born fluency that to Gribbins seemed positively unchristian in an English speaking gentleman; and so presently Mr. Bentley's in- explicable habit of dreaming in the shadow of the ilex trees bordering the lake during the long hot afternoons and irresponsibly falling to sleep in an utterly defenceless attitude, thereby invit- ing destruction at the hands of the murderous inhabitants of the valley, resulted in a quavering protest. " Gribbins," Kirke replied sternly, " you are the only evidence of modern civilisation in this valley and I propose to forget your existence. For the time being you're an automaton who brushes my clothes by steam. If I choose to fall asleep along the lake, I'd prefer to do so without the consciousness that your melancholy eye is glued upon me from the nearest bush as it was this afternoon. You sign your death-warrant if you follow me again. I'll set Tony on you ! " The finality of this decision was irrevocable. Gribbins steeled himself to resignation and bit- terly conned over the details of his sojourn in a village of " blood-thirsty macaroni-eaters " to re- late to his oft-quoted confidant, the mysterious John 'Ap worth. He presently became inured to Tony's exuberance, however, and could "take the magazines and papers from him without a shiver, though he always kept a protecting hand upon the ponderous watch-chain of shillings, an act "LADY OF THE LAKE" 61 of suspicious foreboding which the Italian with his ready wit rightly interpreted and promptly proceeded to justify by threatening swoops in the direction of the valued ornament. To Kirke there was but one jarring note in the summer idyl, a letter from Mtirren full of reproaches from his mother, hurt and aggrieved by his change of plans. The story of the vio- lin in barest outline had been followed by a description of the villa and its figurative hedge of fire, of the old castle on the ridge, of the rare charm of the valley nestling in its shadow Kirke had felt rather proud of the description but the answer proved that the budget of ex- planation had failed in its duty of peacemaking, as he knew it would, and with a little shrug of sincere regret at his mother's attitude, Kirke again took up the fascinating thread of his new life the unpleasant impression of the letter obliterated much in the fashion of a counter- irritant by the unexpected honour of meeting Count Teodoro di Gomito face to face for the first time the day it came. Kirke, eager for the cool shadows t that fringed the lake, had turned into the road skirting the villa when a man appeared upon the portico and walked briskly toward the hedge of fire. For an instant his heart leaped in a hope that was summarily rejected as the man advanced. Marietta's graphic description was unmistak- 62 TRAUMEREI able. Count Teodoro was walking rapidly to- ward him, frowning in evident annoyance. He passed the American with a quick look of sus- picion and continued up the road. Kirke looked the Italian squarely in the face, thrilling with instinctive aversion, predisposed, perhaps, by Marietta's frank discussion of his unpopularity. He saw a man of perhaps forty, tall and squarely built in spite of a certain heavy em- bonpoint; a face decidedly handsome in its perfect regularity of feature, its fine eyes and bronze skin, heavily marked by the blackness of hair and brow and moustache. There was a masterful assertion of importance in the Italian's manner, and Kirke watched him disappear, a little surprised by his own impetuous dislike. A dry, intense heat lay over the valley, in- fusing a drowsy languor in the very air. It crept into the American's veins and speedily lulled him into sensuous indolence as he lazily sought the shadows of the lake shore. Opposite the waters laved the base of a giant rock with a sleepy murmur. Where the sun flashed along the surface of the lake it threw off a blind- ing radiance in vivid contrast to the dark pools of sapphire eddying in shadow. The lake re- flections were brilliant images repeating in a marvellous perfection of detail the intensity of the day. Off to the north, where the lake curved musically around a jutting point, a towering hill seemed grimly to barricade its rippling line of silver, a dark file of peaks and ridges stretch- ing far in the distance behind it. I From half-closed lids, Kirke watched a canoe float idly around the northern bend. It was ap- parently empty, but as the stream bore it closer he was a little startled to see a hand trailing in the water, seemingly inert and offering no re- sistance to the current. In quick alarm the American recalled a canoe rocking at anchor near by. It had tempted him daily as it strained at its rope with no protection but the coat of arms blazing upon its bow, an intimidating in- fluence heretofore sufficient in itself, but to-day, with scant respect for the nobleman whose glory it flaunted, Kirke slashed the painter and paddled out into the lake, intent upon inspect- ing the drifting boat and its motionless occu- pant. A bit of white fluttered over the stern in the faint breeze that swept the lake as the American deftly turned his canoe and floated toward it. A girl lay asleep in the frail cockle-shell, gracefully indifferent to the uncertain whims of the elements, one slender white arm buried in the crimson silk of the pillow behind her head, the other still trailing in the water. The American's eyes flashed with admiration, the keen appreciation of the artist for grace and colour and the fitness of things. There was a 64 T R A U M E R E I suggestion of the Orient in the girl's indolent pose, in the rich tints of the cushions, in the deep saffron of the lining wood of the canoe, re- peated in a mellower tone in the wood of the guitar lying carelessly in the stern. The wind had ruffled the sleeper's hair into a sombre mist, framing a face oval and clear cut; it had lashed her cheeks into a delicate colour which the American instantly likened to the soft hue of a crumpled rose leaf. Yes, she too was Oriental in colouring from the black masses of her hair, so dark indeed that its shadows seemed heavily purple, to the olive skin delicately etched by the jet of brows and lashes. Again the wind sprang up and rippled the sur- face of the lake. This time it snatched a slip of paper from the girl's canoe and sent it flut- tering toward the American. The paper bore but four lines of writing, hurriedly copied, it seemed, from a favourite poem. Kirke read them, approving the mood that had led the girl to copy them. The unknown poet had pictured a lake of blazing heat fringed in shadow, magic- ally imprisoning an atmosphere of fierce heat and indolent languor; he had crystallised in poetic form the tremulous spirit of the South that brooded to-day over the lake, seeking to en- tangle men in its sinuous meshes to make them prisoners of the sun, to lull them treacherously "LADY OF THE LAKE" 65 into calm, while nursing the slumberous passions of mind and body. Both canoes were floating idly with the cur- rent. With a smile Kirke drew a pencil from his pocket and scribbled rapidly across the paper in Italian, To " The Lady of the Lake ! " Are you the lovely Nereid who weaves the reflected tap- estry in the water that you dare to dream upon its fickle bosom and tempt the Lake to claim its own? A solicitous Goblin, hidden along the shore, will watch your fairy barque until you wake to control it! With a gleam of amusement in his eyes, the American noiselessly slipped the paper beneath the strings of the guitar to protect it from the fitful breeze and paddled briskly back to shore, fearful lest the sleeper should waken before he had found a safe retreat. In the shadow of a thick clump of ilex he flung himself down to watch the progress of the drifting canoe. A strange bird sent a harsh call ringing across the lake and the girl abruptly sat up. Kirke saw her lean toward the guitar. An instant later she swept the lake shore with startled eyes, rap- idly turned and paddled to the north, darting out of sight around the bend whence she bad floated. CHAPTER VI NOCTURNIA T TABIT is a merciless tyrant to whom we all A A unconsciously surrender. '. It drove Kirke to the same ilex trees the following afternoon; it ruthlessly directed his eyes to the northern bend of the lake; it even pointed a tantalising finger at the Count's canoe and projected a mirage before him in which the American saw himself seated in its aristocratic interior, pad- dling around the bend of the lake to explore its northern shores, a suggestion which he abruptly frowned away. Inconsistently, how- ever, although the weather and the water had succumbed to the Tyrant and were repeating the same tone of light and heat, it failed to produce the dreaming " Lady of the Lake," an absurd violation of precedent decidedly annoying. In her stead it inaugurated an irresistible drowsi- ness, born of the crooning of the lake, of the woodland orchestra of piping birds with its long, rolling drum-beat by the cicadas, of the hot afternoon's wearisome vigil, a drowsiness that near sunset terminated the American's scientific effort very ambitious in view of the distance to analyse the geological strata of the bill at 66 NOCTURNIA 67 the northern bend, and lulled him into a rest- less slumber. He awoke with a start, conscious of a glimmering patch of white directly oppo- site. By degrees it resolved itself into a sheet of paper conspicuously pinned to an ilex bough and, reflecting that it had not been there before Ms brief siesta, Kirke lazily rose to examine it. There was a pencilled inscription scribbled across the surface. " To the Presumptuous Goblin (unduly so- licitous) Hidden Along the Shore!" he read, a quick flash of amusement in his eyes at the mocking quotation, "are you Father Neptune himself that you presume to chide a dreaming Nereid? The lake and I are old friends, Sig- nore Americano! " Kirke re-read the mocking message in startled interest. The consciousness that the " Lady of the Lake " had mischievously pinned it to the ilex bough while he slept thrilled him unac- countably. Her apparent knowledge of his identity, however, puzzled him. He had been securely hidden when she awoke and his scribbled warning had been couched in careful Italian. If, as he shrewdly suspected, she had to-day discovered his retreat by chance, how had she guessed that the sleeper was the presumptu- ous author of the scrawl tucked beneath the guitar strings? A little piqued by the reflection that he had 68 no clue whatever to the identity of the mocking Nereid, he sought the water's edge and faced the breeze that was now blowing full and strong across the lake. It was long past sunset, i Above the ghostly line of cypress on the farther shore, the sky had grown delicately violet, splashed with fading rose and amber. Dusk was veil- ing the distant ridges; through the crepuscular dimness their outlines loomed grey and indefi- nite, one by one resolving into fantastic moun- tains of smoky mist. \ Sublimely indifferent to the culinary manage of the Ciapellettos, Kirke stretched himself out upon the lake shore with a sigh of infinite content, revelling in the soft, glimmering tones of the southern twilight. The lake slowly purpled, a haze trembling above it, half grey, half violet. It crept from shore to shore, blotting out the lines of cypress and ilex and deepening at the northern bend into shadows of ebony. The outline of the chapel opposite grew indis- tinct, still retaining, however, the picturesque semblance of a dream church. And suddenly from its shadowy walls, the tremulous tones of an organ swept softly across the lake. To the American the music seemed a fitting expression of his own response to the beauty of the twi- light. It grew, in crescendo, to chords full and rich and deep as the unseen player opened the great diapason of the organ and flooded the lake NOCTUENIA 69 with a rolling majesty of sound, the blare of the organ trumpets triumphantly heralding the ap- proach of Night. The rumbling music of the Pedal Bourdon echoed among the hills with the muttering sound of distant thunder. It died away, giving place to the plaintive harmony of the reeds, then clear and sweet above its accom- paniment rose the wail of the organ oboe in solo, an inanimate singer voicing the perfect melody of Schumann's Traumerei. The familiar strains awakened the memory how distant it seemed! of Pietro, of the vio- lin, for the melody that had floated out from be- neath his own bow that day in convincing test of the violin's value had been the very one that now softly sang its way to his heart. Im- pulsively he sought the Count's canoe and paddled across the lake to the chapel. The en- trance lay away from the shore at the end of a forest path and, finding the door ajar, the Ameri- can noiselessly entered. A single candle burned upon the altar, and in the dim circle of light, too faintly luminous to shine through the rear win- dows overlooking the water, sat a girl reverently fingering the organ keys, her eyes upon the great pipes above her head. Kirke could not see her face. The dark head and white gown of the player, however, were familiar. He recognised in them " The Lady of the Lake " and moved si- lently to the shadows at the left to watch her 70 TRAUMEBEI profile. The expression of her face was rapt and earnest and thoughtfully tender. Certainly a girl of many moods! The pretty indolence of the dreamer in the canoe, the capricious humour of the Nereid who had pinned the mocking mes- sage to the ilex bough, and now this reverent girl seeking a musical expression of her emo- tional force, Kirke marvelled at the curious tem- peramental revelation of each. The music changed to a crooning whisper it seemed indeed but the echo of a distant 'cello and stopped. Kirke emerged from the shad- ows and approached the organ. The girl turned in quick alarm at the sound of his footsteps, colouring a little as her eyes met those of the American. " You seem fond of solitude, ' Lady of the Lake! '" observed Kirke quietly. " I am ! " she flashed back pointedly, quickly recovering herself, " and its invaders I ruth- lessly condemn to the mercy of the waters with whose command you have so artistically en- dowed me ! " A hint of displeasure crept into her voice. " You startled me," she added slowly. " You startled me, Signorina ! " accused Kirke gravely. " The chapel was dissolving into mist and I thought the sounds that crept from it were indeed Trdumerei. I even fancied that they formed the mystic melody of the Twilight In- carnate stealing across the lake to express to me NOCTURNIA 71 the harmony of her blended shadows in chords of fairy music." " Very pretty, Sir Goblin ! " mocked the girl, swiftly veiling the gleam of appreciation that had flashed up in her dark eyes. " Are you such an ethereal being," she went on satirically, glancing curiously at him, " that you enjoy im- munity from mundane pangs of hunger? Or do you indulge in long, solitary vigils along the lake in the hope of dethroning King Neptune? A continued abstinence might possibly reduce you to the necessary royal vapour! I thought of course," she finished disapprovingly, " that you had gone home like a civilised being with a con- ventional appetite ! " " I had a disturbing experience," apologised the American, " which explains my domestic lapse. A very sarcastic Nereid communicated with me this afternoon in writing." " Impossible ! " mocked the girl in wide-eyed astonishment. " It does sound so, doesn't it? " Kirke looked straight into her eyes. " It has made me feel very ethereal, as if I had absorbed her super- natural qualities. Naturally in the light of such a transformation, I couldn't with decency de- scend to eating ! " " Nevertheless," averred the girl, smiling, " the Nereid dined very substantially an hour ago and returned to the chapel under the delusion 72 TRAUMEEEI that the shore was quite free from goblins!" " It would seem," commented Kirke absently, apparently addressing an organ stop, " that a Nereid whose peculiar gifts enabled her to fer- ret out the nationality, identity, and hiding place of a Solicitous Goblin with absolutely no clue, would experience no great difficulty in as- certaining the presence of a misguided mortal mooning on the lake shore ! " " If the Goblin became a misguided mortal in her absence," came the quick retort, " the Nereid might possibly have undergone a similar trans- formation. That would account for her delu- sion." " You paddled very softly or I should have heard you ! " The girl flushed. " I always paddle softly and slowly at twilight," she offered defensively; then catching the sympathetic comprehension in the American's face, she continued naively, " it seems a sacrilege to disturb the shadows. I just creep over them ! " She rose as if to go. " Tell me," pleaded Kirke inconsequently, " how you knew ! " A gleam of mischief sparkled again in the dark eyes. The girl who in her brief melting mood had confessed her unwillingness to dis- turb the lake shadows had been replaced again by the mocking Nereid. NOCTURNIA 73 " Italian gentlemen," she said enigmatically, addressing the organ stop which the American had selected as his confidant, " who are suffi- ciently cultured and imaginative to talk of Nereids in written warnings do not confuse the tenses of their verbs! " "Did I?" "You did!" " And automatically declared myself a for- eigner," deplored Kirke. " That was because I hurried so." " Besides," added the girl lightly, " Italian Nereids are omniscient. I should have known anyway." " Which accounts, perhaps, for your ready rec- ognition and invasion of my hiding place? " " Had it occurred to Signore Bentley " Kirke started at the name. She was indeed omnis- cient ! " that he is the only forestiere in Beri- tola? You deliberately appropriated my ilex summer house along the lake where I read in the long hot afternoons," she accused sud- denly. " Perhaps you can imagine my horror when I sought it to find a prosaic American lazily sleeping in it ! " " It was a sacrilege," agreed Kirke, " but I was tired of waiting." The girl ignored the implication. " Besides, I have another exhaustive source of information." She moved swiftly toward the 74 TRAUMEREI door. "The Lady of the Lake must return to her watery throne," she said whimsically. " It behooves not a daughter of the mist to gossip with mortals." " You are no longer the Lady of the Lake ! " declared the American. " The conception is far too commonplace. I shall call you Nocturnia, the wilful Queen of the Southern Night. It car- ries with it a suggestion of the night and the shadows and the mystic music floating over the lake, breathing the dreaming melody of the Trau- merei" " You are very fanciful," the girl said quietly, closing the chapel door. " I've forgotten the candle ! " she added contritely. Kirke retraced his steps and blew out the flickering light. When he again sought the chapel entrance she was gone. Impatiently he hurried to the lake shore. It was quite dark but the slender sickle of the moon hung above the lake, casting a pale radiance upon the water. A dancing pathway of greenish-silver lay across from shore to shore and but a few feet away a canoe rocked in the gleaming trail. " You should be afraid to go home ! " called Kirke softly and a little suggestively, manfully suppressing a desire to follow her. " You forget," came the answer lightly over the water, " that I am Nocturnia, Queen of the Southern Night. A royal guard of fireflies 75 awaits to escort me on the farther shore ! " She pointed to the other side where the soft glow of fireflies pulsed intermittently in the velvet dark- ness. " But you go to the north ! " objected Kirke. " Only by day. By night I moor on the other side ! " She turned and looked back over her shoulder, her dark, mocking face illumined by the ghostly light of the rising moon. " Buona notte, Signore Americano!" she called. There was a dip and a splash and a shower of sparkling jewel-drops from the paddle whose blade gleamed like silver as it left the water; then the canoe darted swiftly across the lake in the rippling pathway of the moon to the wait- ing fireflies who seemed indeed to swing their lanterns from time to time to guide the Queen. The moonlight danced along the water, bathing her slender form in radiance, and Kirke fancied it floated about her head like a luminous veil of silver mist. She was indeed Nocturnia! he thought, his eyes alight ; Nocturnia, a creature of whims and fancies, of nocturnal shadows and melodies and dreams, a capricious goddess of the southern night, the midnight shadows of her hair impris- oned by a floating veil of moonfire, her escort a battalion of fireflies drawn up in glittering array on the farther shore, her fairy barque, in which she paddled across the lake of rippling moon- 76 TKAUMEREI light, propelled by a blade of purest silver! And high above in the sky hung the Night Queen's coat-of-arms, an argent crescent in a field of stars! CHAPTER VII ME. PHILIP AINSWORTH would think," ruminated Kirke, glar- ing at an accumulated pile of mail, "that a fellow could purchase immunity from fiendish business letters once in a while. I wish I could send out a thought wave that would gently in- timate to Rogers what I think of him. It would probably combine all the artistic quali- ties of an earthquake, a flood and a fire in its effect upon the territory through which it passed. ' Copper going up ! ' What the deuce do I care if it goes up and copper-plates the sky!" Kirke savagely tore his way through a pile of correspondence conscientiously forwarded from Miirren by his mother, and answered the more important ones with a curt line, intimating that his lawyers had instructions to cope with all necessary business problems that should come up during the summer, a proceeding which to his growing discomfort involved the whole after- noon. .The breeze that crept through the window was drowsily warm and fragrant. ' Outside, the cicadas were shrilling insistent reminders of the 11 78 TRAUMEREI heat that mantled the valley in a fiery haze, but Kirke, staring absently from the window with his pen trailing off into an elongated scrawl, was unconscious of the blinding glare of the sun. He saw only the lake, rippling musically around the northern bend, the moss and the cypress along the shore, the chapel! A mule trudging along beneath a stack of straw obtruded itself within the line of his vision and the mirage van- ished. The bell about the donkey's neck tinkled audibly in the quiet. The swarthy peasant, walking beside it, an enormous grape-vine leaf grotesquely tucked behind each ear in fancied protection from the heat, flashed his teeth in a friendly grin and waved a brown arm in salu- tation. Kirke returned it and with a sigh turned back to the letter that lay before him, a final effort to appease his mother. His pen had barely touched the paper again, however, when the calm of the sleepy afternoon was shattered by a sound so thoroughly out of keeping with the atmosphere of Beritola that Kirke leaned out of the window in startled as- tonishment. A big Panhard was pounding its way down the steep mountain road, the whirr of the exhaust alarmingly distinct. The mon- ster belched forth an incredible number of hoarse honks in declaration of arrival and Kirke grinned at the instant commotion in the valley. In evident alarm the peasants MR. PHILIP AINSWORTH 79 poured from their houses, crossing themselves devoutly. The car came rapidly on at a speed that would have thrown a traffic squad into hysterics. A head encased in leather cap and goggles pro- jected itself through a cloud of dust and in- quired in execrable Italian if he had " struck " Beritola of which in its literal sense there was no doubt in Kirke's mind and upon re- ceiving a panic-stricken reply in the affirmative, drove like mad through the gaping villagers and stopped suddenly with a sharp report from the vicinity of the tires. The valley instantly cleared, most of the peasants seeking the safety of their cottages and cautiously peering from doors and windows. Fate had halted the Pan- hard within a short distance of the Ciapelletto cottage and an instant later Kirke heard a voice whose familiar accents were unmistakable. " For heaven's sake, Riley," it drawled. " don't tell me you've blown out another shoe ! " The chauffeur's freckled face cracked in a broad grin, revealing a mouth of incredible di- mensions. " Shure, sor," he said, " be the delicate little sound that jist soothed me ear, it do be afther lookin' that way! The divil's in 'em. These dago roads is hell on tires, sor. Oi've a notion we've struck a glass mine this time. Did we blow all the guineas aw r ay? " 80 With a grin of delight Kirke bounded down the stairs. A young giant, whose leather leg- gins and motoring rig were thickly creased with dust, lazily emerged from the machine and was about to seat himself upon the ground in the capacity of advisory spectator to the proposed change of tires when his eyes suddenly lit upon Kirke, who was silently regarding him in con- siderable amusement. " Kirke Bentley," he roared, shaking himself until the dust flew, " I'm after you ! I'm com- missioned by the Government and your maternal ancestor to drag you by main force to an asylum for incurables." Kirke grinned and held out his hand. " Shake hands," he suggested, " and we'll talk it over." Philip Ainsworth seized the proffered hand and wrung it heartily, jerked off his goggles, and having removed his leather cap, gave it a ter- rific bang against the side of the car to remove the dust. Shorn of his cranial appendages he revealed a tousled mop of wind-blown brown hair and a grimy face. It was evident that a scientific application of soap and water might result in a decidedly good-looking, clean-cut young man, but at present the only feature visi- ble through his mask of dirt was a pair of dark blue eyes that flashed a warning of perennial mischief and daring. They twinkled good- MR PHILIP AINSWORTH 81 humouredly at Kirke's reply and the lower part of his face expanded into a broad grin. " Why don't you tell me you're glad to see me? " he suggested lazily. " Don't tempt ine to be a hypocrite ! " re- torted Kirke, smiling. " Truthful to the last ! " murmured his friend admiringly. " Even after he had become a dod- dering imbecile, first made known to his friends by a sudden trip to a village he'd never heard of before, he retained that scrupulous accuracy of statement for which we all loved him. Riley, you might be fixing that tire." The Irishman obligingly descended and be- came the nucleus of a growing crowd. Kirke ushered his irrepressible friend up to his room with a grin. " I gather," he observed, " that I am to have your blessed companionship for the night ! " " Sons of Garibaldi ! what hospitality ! " ex- ploded Phil. " Yes, figlio mio, to-night and many other nights ! " " Not on your life ! " came the prompt reply. " Twenty-four hours of you is nerve-racking for a peaceable man like myself. To-morrow night at sundown you disappear over the crest of yon hill, Panhard, Riley and all ! " Kirke smilingly curtailed his friend's elab- orate exposition of his plans for the summer by summoning Gribbins. In response to his order 82 the Englishman haughtily descended the stairs to look after Mr. Ainsworth's luggage, a proceed- ing which resulted in a muffled altercation be- tween him and Riley. The valet's distrust of the abandoned chauffeur was instinctive. Riley's crimson locks, his freckled face and the dare- devil gleam in his eyes had awakened it ; his ad- miring imitation of the Englishman's upturned nose as the latter paused at the Panhard, his lurid profanity as he mended the shoe, and his polite query if there was any truth in the prev- alent opinion that the English were a race of blockheads established it beyond recall. The domestic adjustment that followed was rife with excitement, and Kirke regarded the in- vasion of his rooms with considerable amuse- ment. It involved a wild scurrying upon the part of Lauretta, Marietta and Riley, reinforced by the more dignified assistance of the English- man, who watched the chauffeur's energetic ap- propriation of his own room in silent horror. Between puffs of cigar smoke, Mr. Ainsworth lazily marshalled his cosmopolitan forces with a running fire of ridiculous comment. His eye presently fell upon the little supper table by the window, about which Marietta was circling in wild excitement, and without further ceremony he seated himself, complimenting Marietta ex- travagantly in his unique Italian upon the tempt- ing array of food. MK. PHILIP AINSWORTH 83 " Madonna mia! " shrieked the little brown woman, pounding her hands together in fierce delight, " a mad fellow, that young man ! " It was quite evident that his vagaries had already proclaimed him a kindred spirit. At the conclusion of the little supper, Mr. Ainsworth arose, carefully arrayed a line of ex- cellent cigars along the edge of Kirke's bed like a picket fence with the suggestion that they be- gin at each end and smoke toward the middle, and proceeded to enlighten Kirke concerning his plans for the summer which were, to say the least, startling. " I'm lazy," he commented, appropriating the first picket, " and I have an extraordinary feeling of weariness ! " Kirke grinned but wisely refrained from com- ment upon this lifelong tendency of Mr. Ains- worth's. " I hadn't much interest in Alpine climb- ing" " Nor I ! " interpolated Kirke. " And so when your letter arrived at Mtirren with the sad news of your sudden seizure, I er " Phil cleared his throat and averted his eyes, " I grew restless. Your mother was fret- ting about your eccentricity she really had doubts of your sanity, old man and so with that innate generosity for which I am justly famous, I offered to risk my life and look you 84 TEAUMEREI up. In fact," Phil beamed with the utmost friendliness and waved his cigar about, " I'm going to spend the summer with you." " Indeed you're not ! " " You surprise me ! Your remark, however, is merely another indication of your insanity and as such does not affect my decision. I like the looks of this valley immensely. I'm just in the mood for rusticating, since it entails no physical or mental effort of any sort, and you know, Kirke, that I'm never happy where you are not ! " " You'll have to learn to be happy without me," grinned Kirke, amiably, stretching his legs out comfortably and imitating the comprehen- sive cigar swoop with which Phil had announced his decision, " I've changed my original inten- tion. Instead of leaving to-morrow night you'll go early in the morning." Phil looked out of the window and regarded the castle intently. " You'll get over it, old man," he said kindly. " Doc Carrington says he's up at Miirren now with the aspiring icicles that you have er " he drew an old letter from his pocket and affected to study it with an air of exaggerated gravity. " Oh, yes, some encephalic disorder superinduced by physical inertia. I presume the laity would call it lunacy resulting from acute laziness. He says you'll recover if you have proper care, such as I alone can g|ive you." ME. PHILIP AINSWORTH 85 Mr. Ainsworth flicked the ashes from his cigar, ruffled his brown hair with a characteristic mo- tion, and remarked, " now, sir, you're going to tell me the true story of this violin business. The brief account you sent to Mu'rren sounded like a rave from a foolish house. When your mother told me about the violin with folding doors by the way, Kirke, you're quite sure it hasn't velvet portieres as well? I said imme- diately, much to the dear lady's disgust, ' H'm, well, Kirke has fallen into bad habits. Must be hitting it up ! Does he explain how the ground floor of this violin is laid out and what sort of a curious monster inhabits it?' Your sister caustically inquired the meaning of the classic phrase ' hitting it up,' and I explained that it meant eating ' loco weed,' a Western plant that seriously interferes with one's organs of thought." Kirke arose and peered into the hallway to as- sure himself that no interested eavesdropper lurked in the dim recesses, cautiously closed the doors cutting off the hall and the back room in which there appeared to be a temperamental clash between the valet and chauffeur based upon the relative merits of England and Ire- land, and unlocked his trunk. Phil read the in- scription upon the panel of the violin in genuine astonishment. " A Stradivarius, Kirke ! " he exclaimed, 86 T R A U M E R E I whistling, " you didn't mention that in your let- ter!" " No," confessed Kirke, " it sounded too im- probable. I didn't tell half the facts " ; and as Phil examined the instrument, Kirke related the story in full; the careless purchase from the Italian in America, the peculiar outcome of his nap at the hotel in Genoa, Lauretta's passion- ate outburst proving her identity as the ragged exile's sweetheart, Niccolo's enigmatic assertion, and last of all, the astounding fact that Dioneo Lamberti, whose name appeared upon the other panel, was a musician living in Beritola. "And your theory?" Phil leaned forward in his interest. His habitual frivolity had slipped from him like a discarded cloak. " That there's more to it than ordinary theft! I'm convinced, of course, that Pietro Masetto stole it from Dioneo Lamberti, but " he paused uncertainly. " Of course," agreed Phil, " the bare fact that Pietro Masetto hails from the same place as Signore Lamberti is suspicious, giving all the circumstances their due weight, the inscriptions on the violin and Pietro's probable financial in- ability to purchase the instrument from its right- ful owner ; but, had it occurred to you, Kirke, that Pietro would not be likely to sell a genuine Stradivarius for two hundred dollars if he knew its value? It's the Dolphin type, I notice, and MR. PHILIP AINSWOBTH 87 as such is worth between five and ten thou- sand. On the other hand, if he didn't suspect its unusual nature, he wouldn't be likely to steal an apparently commonplace instrument and de- mand the price you paid for it." " That's exactly what has convinced me that it's no commonplace theft," said Kirke decidedly. " You remember he assured me it was no ' ordi- naire ' violin. Besides, the boy's eyes were hon- est and decent." " And so," observed Phil presently, a flash of humour in his eyes, " you came to Beritola not knowing whether Signore Lamberti was alive or not ! You're a whimsician, old man." " What, may I inquire," began Kirke with elaborate courtesy, "is a whimsician?" " A whimsician," was the sage retort, " is er frankly speaking, a whimsician ! Don't demand details. Your story is mighty interest- ing, Kirke. As I think it over, however, I'm a little inclined to think that Signore Dioneo may have pawned the violin and Pietro picked it up." They talked far into the night, the fire of their cigars incessantly glowing in the darkness of the little room. Outside, the valley lay in a mist of moonlight, and Phil, looking at the circle of hills beyond capped with the glory of the South- ern moon, traced the ghostly outline of their ridges against a sky softly aglow with an ethereal lunar light, and grew strangely quiet, feeling 88 T R A U M E R E I something of the ardent enthusiasm of the man opposite who was voicing his deep appreciation of the starlit valley, of the long, hot days, of the potent charm of this impulsive life of the South, of the lure of the lake and its cypressed shores ; but oddly enough, although Phil's softened mood had made him eloquent, he omitted to speak of the tremulous music that had swept across the lake in the purple dusk, or of the girl who had paddled across in the pathway of the moon with a gleaming blade of silver ! Mr. Ainsworth characteristically began his first day in Beritola by reaching out of bed in the early hours of the morning and propelling one of Kirke's shoes through the window at the bickering twig-gatherers, much to Marietta's de- light, for it hit her accursed pecorajo. With a beautiful stolidity of conscience the disturbed slumberer fell asleep again as soon as their voices died away, responding later in the morn- ing to his bedfellow's prodding thumb with an enigmatic grunt. In the rear room a grumbling exchange of satire, of which the words " race of blockheads " was plainly audible in Riley's taunting voice, re- ceived a sudden impetus to violence in the dig- nified reply : "At least, Riley, we are not a race of carrot 'eads!" MR. PHILIP AINSWORTH 89 Apprised by the commotion that followed that the Americans had arisen, Marietta, much to Kirke's mystification, appeared in the doorway with Illustrissimo's shoe. " Same which I shied at two human ' dago ' sparrows squabbling under my window ! " ex- plained Phil imperturbably, and learning the identity of the sparrows from Kirke, instantly proceeded to dilate apologetically in Italian upon a peculiar species of nightmare which period- ically seized him in the early morning. Marietta received the news of his somnolent affliction in silence, but her eyes twinkled shrewdly and she exchanged a glance of understanding with Kirke, proffering the remarks with a grin, that the shoe had hit Niccolo in the back and he had gone off even forgetting to sing " Addio, mio caro amore," in his furious conviction that Marietta had dele- gated Manuel to attack him from the rear at the psychological point of their interview. Kirke's mail that morning contained a letter from his sister which shed considerable light upon Phil's sudden arrival. He wisely re- frained from mentioning it to his irresponsible guest whose explanation of his abrupt depart- ure from Miirren had not been particularly lucid. It ran : " Frankly, Phil and I have quarrelled. He left Miirren in a terrible rage, telegraphing that dreadful Riley at Geneva, where he left his car, to be in readiness for a 90 TKAUMEKEI rough trip. He told mother that he was going to Beritola for, as he recalled it, Kirke at least had an agreeable dis- position. More, he dashed around banging doors and acting generally as if he were a volcano until Billy Renter good- naturedly inquired, ' What's your hurry, Phil? Anybody dead?' and the amiable Mr. Ainsworth replied in a voice that nearly shrivelled Billy up, ' not yet, but there probably will be before I leave ! ' " Kirke smiled. The manner of his chum's de- parture had been quite as characteristic as his whirlwind invasion of Beritola! Whatever Mr. Ainsworth's mental disturbance had been when he left Miirren, there was no rev- elation of it in the days that followed. He lazily adapted himself to the drowsy calm of the little valley and, although his comments upon its beauty were eminently characteristic, Kirke was astonished at their undercurrent of gen- uine appreciation. The lure of the South occa- sionally revealed the emotional depths that Mr. Ainsworth so assiduously sought to conceal be- neath his habitual mask of frivolity. Kirke had been a little disturbed by his friend's irresponsible invasion. The daily free- dom of his surrender to impulse seemed jeop- ardised by the presence of another. The lazy, dreaming hours, the lake vigils would all of course have to be banished, he told himself dis- contentedly, but it soon became evident that Mr. Ainsworth intended to pursue the even tenor of his days according to inclination, and expected MR. PHILIP AINSWORTH 91 his chum to do the same. He had readily divined the charm that held Kirke enthralled, the absence of conventional restraint and the emotional riot of his senses in the old Nature worship. And so the two men came to an in- stinctive understanding, and to his great sur- prise Kirke found no break in his lazy days. Phil accepted his whims without question. Where he had expected a restraint at which he would inwardly chafe, Kirkei found only an in- timate companionship for which he was pro- foundly grateful. I CHAPTER yill THE LAMBERTIS BERITOLA had scarcely recovered from the explosive arrival of the Panhard and a second American when it found food for still further excitement. Interest this time centred upon a vacant house, the property of Count Teodoro di Gomito which lay perilously aslant on the slope of a mountain near the Ciapellet- tos. The gables emerged from a thicket of trees like a Swiss chalet;! a wild tangle of rose and jasmine climbed over the porch, and from the rear windows the mountain stretched steeply upward, seamed by winding goat-paths. A twisting trail wound its way up the mountain- side to the cottage door, dwindling there into a narrow mule path that skirted the rocks to the summit I In this cottage one eventful morning, with the versatile Riley as cook and his English col- league as housekeeper, the Americans took up their abode, Mr. Ainsworth aptly christening the bachelor establishment the Villa Spa Gett. The arrival of a Neapolitan furniture van, flanked by an admiring cavalcade of peasants, ushered in a day of events. Marietta's frenzied 99 THE LAMBERTIS 93 superintendence, relentlessly gibed by Piccolo in the character of spectator; the constant crowd of good-natured peasants about the door; interminable disputes between the cook and the housekeeper, squabbling about the proposed di- vision of duties; Tony's arrival and conviction that the domestic affairs of the Americans re- quired his expert direction (an announcement which brought down Marietta's wrath upon his head and won him an instant backing in Nic- colo) the ensuing dispute in which the en- tire valley took sides until Eiley appeared with a broom and cleared them all off the premises all this went to the making of a day of commo- tion which found a dramatic climax late that afternoon. Quiet had settled over the Villa Spa Gett with the final departure of Marietta. Kirke, com- fortably smoking his pipe on the porch in the shelter of the crimson rambler, looked down over the valley stretched at his feet with a sigh of content. The tiled roofs below deflected the afternoon sun in dazzling sheets of light. From his elevation the American caught/ the glimmer of the lake darkly outlined in cypress, of the chapel cross flashing gold, of the old villa hedged in crimson. ; From the ensemble of the landscape a figure detached itself, striding rapidly toward him. It climbed the mountain road to the Villa Spa Gett, and presently resolved itself into the 94 TRAUMEREI semblance of Philip Ainsworth, flushed and ex- cited. " I'm the only individual with brains and tact in this valley ! " he announced as he seated him- self. " And modesty," prompted Kirke. " You omitted that ! " " I've just been talking to the estimable Lam- berti ! " exploded the valley's sole representative of brains and tact, mopping his forehead, " Sig- nore Dioneo Lambert! himself ! " Kirke stared incredulously. " If you'll just stop talking/' grinned Phil, "and gently intimate to those dark and melan- choly orbs of yours that their stare is becoming embarrassing, I won't mind telling you how I did it. I casually wandered by the villa, an in- quisitive habit caught from you, and quite as casually looked in. A tall man with a mass of snow white hair and a pair of the blackest eyes and eyebrows I have ever seen was clipping roses at the side by that queer looking old well. I immediately decided that it must be the mys- terious Lamberti himself. So without any false delicacy I promptly stepped over the hedge of fire as you so poetically call it without burn- ing my trousers by the way and inquired if I could have a drink. I explained that the well with its quaint lattice and moss and all the rest of the picturesque fixings looked very inviting THE LAMBERTIS 95 to a thirsty man. Now, see here, Kirke, I was thirsty. That smile of yours is an insult to my veracity. He assented very courteously he's one of those graceful, old-fashioned chaps and while I was drinking I explained my life's history in my best Italian. You needn't grin! It may be unique in spots, but it gets there just the same. Well, I consumed a couple of gallons of water cudgelling my brain for some Italian who might serve as a mutual acquaintance, and Signore Lamberti began to look apprehensive for the various buttons of my attire, when, quite suddenly, Abbato flashed into my mind. I won- der now that I hadn't thought of him before. Remember? He was the Italian ambassador in Washington when the governor was in the Sen- ate. They were great friends. I stated the fact casually and the Lamberti promptly fell upon my neck and wept. That may be slightly exag- gerated. At any rate, he straightened up, ex- tended his hand with a courtly r'r that made me look around to see if my prime minister and retinue of slaves were anywhere in sight, and informed me in the most cordial fashion that any friend of Signore Abbato's was most certainly a friend of his. They 're I cousins, besides being the dearest of friends !A^ We're invited to break bread with the gentleman to-night, and after the exertions of the day I feel that I can break a great deal. Seriously, Kirke," Phil grew sud- 96 TRAUMEEEI denly thoughtful, " he's the most magnetic old chap I ever met and his personality somehow fairly fascinated me. He elevated me so much in my own estimation that I had some thoughts of going to-night attired in a Roman toga with Riley in similar costume following me as my trusted freedman, but unfortunately Riley's gen- eral physique isn't in keeping with the garb of Rome ! " 'A glorious panoply of colour lay ahead of them as they descended the mountain road at sunset. The sky behind the castle was vividly banded in topaz. Long, glittering spears of light lay athwart the valley as the Sun King couched his golden lances against a terrible armour of fire. In the fiery halo of the sunset the rolling vapour above Vesuvius was but faintly discernible. To Kirke, as he viewed the landscape arched by a vault of tropical splendour and barricaded upon all sides by serrated ridges afire with the last light of the day, the very atmosphere of the valley was laden with mediae val romance.* The prospect of talking with the man whose ances- tor's name lay written above his own upon the panel of the Stradivarius had awakened a fire of excitement within him that he sought in vain to control. In mental panorama a stately cav- alcade filed through his mind, peopling the val- THE LAMBERTIS 97 ley with a throng of the Middle Ages and at the head rode an old Italian with burning eyes and the frost of life's winter upon his head, bear- ing aloft in harmonious accoutrement an old violin himself as fitting a denizen of the chivalrous age gone by as the shadowy ranks he marshalled. The blazing line of the geranium hedge re- called the present, and in silence the two Ameri- cans walked up the gravel to the old villa. Phil clanged the quaint brass knocker, and as it left his hand, Kirke noticed that it was a bronze re- production of Michelangelo's grinning mask of a Satyr. It somehow hinted of the Italian's patriotism and loyalty. The door swung back, and Dioneo Lamberti himself appeared upon the threshold. Kirke thrilled in response to the magnetic appeal of the man before him. He was tall taller than Phil his physique attesting a wiry strength and powerful nerve force. A pair of great black eyes, which, deeply set beneath heavy brows and lashes of jet, 1 burned with the mysterious fires of the dreamer,! and a waving abundance of snow- white hair, bearing in it at times a glint of silver, offered a contrast which Kirke at first found a little startling. There was pride and dignity in the fine old face, but the mouth looked a little tired and sad. In his erect carriage, both graceful and impressive in spite of a certain sug- 98 TRAUMEREI gestion of rigidity, the American recognised the inflexible demeanour of the mature man who takes a covert pride in the mastery of his sinews. " Favor isca! " he said with quiet courtesy, holding the door open for his guests, and there was a genuine hospitality in his manner and a rare old-fashioned courtliness that Kirke found irresistible. " Ah, Signore Ainsworth," he added, extending his hand with a smile as the two Americans paused beside him, " and you, Signore Bentley, I am indeed glad to meet you ! It is a curious world. I little suspected that I should one day have the pleasure of entertaining those who hon- oured my cousin with generous hospitality in a distant land." He turned again to Kirke. " Signore Ainsworth has of course mentioned our mutual acquaintance, Benedetto Abbato, my cousin and friend? " His dark eyes gleamed humorously. "An enthusiastic fellow! He is in a perpetual state of effervescence. From his bubbling descriptions, I imagine he regards Signore Philip Ainsworth, Sr., as his patron saint. 1 ' " I'm sorry not to have met him ! " said Kirke, genuine regret in his voice. " Signore Ainsworth tells me," the Italian re- garded his informant with a smile, " that during my cousin's ambassadorship you were endeavour- ing to ' change the map of Africa ! '" He quoted THE LAMBERTIS 99 Phil with a flash of humour, adding, " I trust you have no such linear designs upon our little valley ! " " None ! " laughed Kirke. " I had no idea," he offered gravely, "that the world contained such a wonderfully lovely spot." " Few visitors come to Beritola," observed the Italian, "but I myself think it is well worth a visit. It is of course rather inaccessible, but as a little Italian proverb of ours runs,)' Jo Ijill, no valley ! ' It is, I think, true of all things in life," he concluded thoughtfully. \ He turned and led the way through a wide- old-fashioned hall to a rear room overlooking the garden. The windows were open and (through the casements the scent of roses stole in from the nodding bushes, still warmly aglow in the brightness of the sunset.) Below a mantel of black walnut, whose sombreness was relieved by the antique candlesticks of brass on either end, yawned a great fireplace, and once more Kirke thrilled at the artistic loyalty of the old Italian, for the andirons that flanked it were bronze images of the Winged Mercury of John of Bologna facing each other in restless flight. Above the mantel hung a picture of Michel- angelo's David, the youthful body in nude strength and grace facing on the opposite wall the full maturity of Lorenzo di Medici brooding in the shadow of his helmet over the Titanic 100 TRAUMEREI figures of Night and Morning with which Michel- angelo had adorned his tomb. In silence Kirke turned to the latter. It held for him in the grave beauty of the warrior's shadowed face the charm of sanctity. Its powerful appeal to-day, as always, moved him strangely. The old Italian was at his side in an instant. He looked keenly at the American's face and nodded quietly. " You are right ! " he said abruptly. " It's like no other in all the world ! " There was the in- effable reverence in his voice of a venerator at the shrine of something holy. Kirke felt that in that instant the dreamer had bared his very soul and that in spirit they two had bowed in tribute to the mighty genius of the Renaissance. In the old rose garden outside the window, a laughing voice broke the silence. Kirke wheeled in startled interest. In the wilderness of colour beyond the casement stood a girl laden with roses. Niccolo, busily clipping more in spite of her protests, had heaped them in her arms until they brushed her cheek and showered down in a tangled cascade against the white of her gown. Purple shadows lurked in her hair and the deli- cate colour of her cheek rivalled the rose that brushed against it! From the American's startled eyes the rose garden vanished and he saw again a canoe rock- ing in a trail of moonlight. So vividly came the THE LAMBERTIS 101 recollection that he saw for an instant the pul- sating glow of the fireflies in the gloom of the further shore and Nocturnia lightly mocked him as she paddled away. The mist of moonlight about her figure whimsically fashioned itself into a shower of roses as Marietta's words, " the Sig- norina Beatrice will be home this week. Our padrone at the villa has said it ! " flashed back in bewildering revelation. Signore Lamberti, unconscious of his guest's disturbance, had turned to Phil with a courteous query. Now he led the way through a door at the side of the room to a shaded portico, present- ing the Americans to the solitary occupant with a stately, old-fashioned bow. " My sister, gentlemen," he said quietly, " the Signorina Emilia." " The Signorina Emilia ! " Philip Ainsworth instantly caught the winsome charm of the dear old dreamer rocking gaily back and forth in the shadow of the portico. The moonlight of the even-tide of life lay in silvery radiance upon her dainty head, diffusing its brightness all about her in caressing protection of the eternal youth within her, seeming indeed to shield her from the ravages of Father Time who had grimly piled up eighty-one years at her tiny feet and fled at the laugh with which she received them. Kirke, alert for the sound of footsteps, had given her but a swift glance of reverent admiration, but 102 T R A U M E R E I Phil, in a curious wave of tenderness, saw a frail little lady crowned in a mass of silvery hair; a face delicately patrician; eyes, deep and dark and soft! There was the same vivid contrast in eyes and brows and hair that had so fasci- nated Phil in her brother. How beautifully the winds of the passing years had drifted the snows of life's winter! The fire that burned in her dark eyes hinted something of the electric vitality within her. A great Neapolitan doctor had once remarked that her body was a storehouse of nervous energy kept in order by a will power almost super- human, and that some day the frail structure would collapse without warning. " What a wonderful little lady ! " thought Phil, his eyes softening. " The sable of her dress matches her eyes and the kerchief her hair! She should always wear black silk with a bit of white lace at her throat and always a cameo to fasten it! It suits her exactly." He learned later that she always did. For twenty years in whimsical obedience to a de- lightful bit of vanity that had taught her the ar- tistic value of the contrast, she had worn but one style of gown, a soft silk as black and lus- trous as her eyes, quaintly cut in the fashion of another time. It fell about her figure in trail- ing folds, set off at the throat by a snowy ker- chief caught with a cameo rimmed in gold. THE LAMBERTIS 103 " My dear," she would explain with a bewitch- ing nod of her head, " I have a little inheritance, just enough to keep me in black silk dresses and lace kerchiefs. No more," with a winsome flash in her dark eyes, "but then, I don't need any more! " Phil, fascinated by her charm, swiftly crossed to the old sister nodding brightly in response to her brother's presentation. Emboldened by the friendly light in her eyes, he quietly readjusted her head-rest with a laughing remark and seated himself beside her. " My dear boy," she exclaimed naively, patting his hand with an impulsiveness that was charac- teristic, " your Italian is execrable ! " Phil with the wryest of faces agreed, and the laugh that followed smoothed away the restraint of formality. There was a light footfall and a flutter of white in the doorway. Instantly Signore Lam- berti was upon his feet, presenting the two Americans to the girl who had just entered the portico, and bowing with the courtly deference of a royal chamberlain. " Ah, daughter," he said quietly, " I have been listening for you ! " Kirke faced the girl and gravely bowed his ac- knowledgment, alert for some sign of recogni- tion in her face, but the eyes that met his were calmly inscrutable. Once the American fancied 104 TRAUMEREI he caught a glimmer of amusement beneath the long lashes. It was instantly lost, however, in the demure dignity with which she received him. Kirke found it very difficult to reconcile his memory of Nocturnia or the wilful nymph who had scribbled the sarcastic message and posted it upon the ilex bough, with this girl before him, welcoming them both with graceful impartiality. Verily her moods were as many as the varying expressions in her dark eyes. Kirke never forgot the supper that followed the first of many in the old Lamberti villa: the quaint old silver and china upon the snowy cloth; the old-fashioned room with its high- backed chairs of walnut richly carved and in- laid like the mantel ; the rose-glow of the antique candlesticks, illumining the dark face of the handsome, white-haired Italian, punctiliously attentive to his sister, his daughter and his guests; of the Signorina Emilia, Kirke had not remained indifferent to her winsome charm for long; and of Beatrice, a daintily competent hostess whose profile tantalised him with mem- ories of the lake as she bent over the silver tea urn, as gracefully at her ease in pouring the steaming amber into the cups before her as she had been in paddling across the moonlit water or in improvising the organ melody that had swept mystically across the lake. If anything had been needed to complete the picture, Kirke THE LAMBEETIS told himself, it found its final perfection in Lauretta, appearing from time to time to serve the supper, the burnished gold of her hair flash- ing from beneath a coquettish cap, her eyes shining with excitement at this sudden friend- ship of all of Marietta's boasted proteges. " Lauretta is very much interested in the American Signori ! " observed Beatrice, her eyes meeting Kirke's with impenetrable gravity. " Ah ! " murmured the American cryptically, "then Nereids are not omniscient! A certain mystery is solved and a Goblin disillusioned ! " The girl coloured, fencing adroitly, however, with a quick question in English. Signore Lam- berti looked up and smiled at the surprise in the American's face. " Ah, yes," he explained pleasantly, " daugh- ter and I have waged many a war with your ex- cellent English ! " It was evident that the little family was one of unusual culture. The American saw its im- print in the tasteful surroundings, in the books and pictures that lined the walls, in the old Italian's curious adaptation of sculptured forms manifested again in the candelabra upon the table. The cluster of lights branched from the hand of a miniature Apollo Belvedere, and the rose shades bore sketches of Beritola in water colour to whose execution the old Signorina con- fessed with a laugh of deprecation. 106 TEAUMEREI Phil had fallen into a merry discussion with the old sister; Signore Lam-berti toyed with his fork in a fleeting moment of preoccupation and Kirke turned again to Beatrice. Her eyes flashed humorously. " You must tell us about your wonderful America," she said swiftly, checking the words upon his lips in tantalising anticipation of their reference, " Signore Abbato is very fervent in his admiration ! " " I'm afraid," averred Kirke seriously, " that your wonderful Italy has woven a spell about me. Everything else seems remote." Signore Lamberti suddenly roused from his revery and turned to Kirke, his eyes glowing. The fire of a proud patriotism had softened the lines of weariness about his mouth. " Ah ! Italia adorata! " he said dreamily, " you are right, Signore Bentley. It weaves a won- drous spell. There is no other country like it in all the world. It is the cradle of the arts, the chosen home of the Muses. There is creative power in every fibre of her being, a glorious, passionate expression of her inner fire. Some- times I think over the quota of great men that Italy has given the world and I say, i Verily, in- deed has she been God's chosen country ! ' Art- ists, poets, sculptors, musicians; what other country can flaunt such a glittering army of genius? Perhaps you will say that it is all past THE LAMBEKTIS 107 grandeur. Some day, however, Italy will again startle the world with a new expression of her divine creative fire in another quota of such men as Michelangelo, Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, Petrarch, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Dona- tello, Leonardo da Vinci, Benvenuto Cellini, Guido Reni, Boccaccio " he paused for an in- stant in breathless ecstasy, " what need to men- tion Ghiberti, Giotto, Fra Bartolommeo, Fra Angelico, Cimabue, or the powerful men in dif- ferent lines such as Guicciardini, Galileo, Bru- nelleschi, Machiavelli, Savonarola," he threw his hands out with an expressive gesture. " Ah ! " he exclaimed suddenly, " 'tis impossible to name them all. A complete roll call would engirdle the earth ! " He called Lauretta and gave a few rapid di- rections. She hurried away, bearing upon her return a fiascone of wine. The Italian himself poured the sparkling liquor into a row of gob- lets. "A wine made by my ancestors many years ago," he explained simply ; then raising his glass with a proud gesture he offered reverently : " Italia adorato, amid! " In silence they rose and drank the toast, Kirke thrilling at the ardent patriotism of the man be- fore him. " To your health ! " added the Italian cour- teously, bowing to the Americans. 108 TRAUMEREI " To yours, sir ! " offered Kirke, raising his glass. He spoke quietly, but his pulse was leap- ing in response to the powerful appeal of the Italian's magnetism. " You forgot Camillo Lamberti in your roll call of genius ! " declared Aunt Emilia proudly, as they seated themselves. " My own ancestor," the musician explained to Kirke who had instantly recognised the name, " a famous musician of the eighteenth century." " To say nothing of Amerigo Vespucci and Cristoforo Colombo," put in Phil reproachfully, "to whose indefatigable efforts is largely due our presence here to-night ! " " We have a great deal in our past of which we may be very proud," explained the old Sig- norina as the laugh at Phil's statement subsided. " They were wonderful days," she added dream- ily, " wonderful days ! " and in very truth the little lady lived and had her being in the past infinitely more than in the present, thinking, speaking and dreaming of its grandeur. " Many people say we Lambertis are a re- markable family," she said to Phil, with a proud toss of her snowy head, " a race of handsome men and beautiful women. In my own girlhood I, too, was beautiful like Niece Beatrice ! " And Phil, looking at the delicate curve of face and throat, thought of a fading rose-leaf tipped with frost and could well believe it ! " Even to- 109 day," she went on, patting her abundant hair softly with a quaint egotism that was character- istic of her but never displeasing, " I have an unusual head of hair for one of my age. It is still thick and long." "And beautifully silver!" whispered Phil. The old Signorina laughed with pleasure and patted his hand. " You know just how to please an old lady," she said wistfully, " an old lady who pines for the flattery of her girlhood." What a dear old dreamer she was! proud of her family, proud of her girlhood beauty, and proud of her beloved Italy. Phil had watched her rise to the toast of " Italia adorata," her slight figure quivering proudly as she touched her lips to the wine with delicate grace. The man at her side marvelled as she talked at the wealth of incident her mind had treasured from the sinking ship of the Past. Her mind was like an old-fashioned trunk filled to overflowing with a multitude of silken robes and priceless laces, all belonging to the past and all unspeakably lovely! She seemed to caress each one with reverent fingers as she brought it forth, wist- fully eager for admiration, shaking a shower of faded rose-petals from the folds of rare brocade packed away in the blossoms of memory, f There were no shadows in her cherished hoard. Care- fully she had put aside the memory of the storms 110 TRAUMEREI the Ship of the Past had weathered and dream- ily conned over and over the recollection of the silvered strands of the Enchanted Isles that her barque had touched as it floated along on the Sea of Years to the Harbour of Eternity. I Phil drew her on and on, questioning, commenting, praising, until a faint flush like the glow of coral crept over the soft wrinkled cheeks. Sig- nore Lamberti watched the two heads bobbing together as they talked with a quiet smile. " You too are a musician, Signore Bentley," he said abruptly, turning to Kirke. " Your friend spoke of it." " A lover of music ! " corrected Kirke gravely. " A dilettante, I fear, on a few instruments." "And those?" " Piano, guitar, and violin." He halted im- perceptibly before the final word, finding it a lit- tle difficult to utter. "You will play for us?" questioned the Ital- ian quickly. " We Lambertis are a race of music-lovers." He rose as he spoke, leading the way to a room at the side. With a courteous gesture he mo- tioned his guest to the piano, an old-fashioned instrument flanked by busts of Verdi and Luigi Cherubini. The light fell full upon the wall behind it, illuminating a picture which the American faced in startled interest. It was the picture of a tall man with blazing eyes and snow- THE LAMBERTIS 111 white hair, his chin resting upon a violin above which he held the bow poised in his slender hand. The eyes looked far beyond, glimpsing the unseen forces from which the player drew his inspiration. Kirke had thought it a painting of Signore Lamberti himself. As he traced the details, however, he became conscious of a dif- ference, vague and elusive, but undeniable. The violin? In spite of his original sus- picion, he now saw that it was not the one that lay hidden away in his own trunk and the dis- covery was a little disappointing. There was a powerful contrast of light and shadow in the picture a daring fulfilment of the suggestion in the eyes and hair, painfully intense in its final effect. The American forgot its suggestion of his own errand in his admiration for the fault- less execution. The masterful stroke of genius had conveyed in it an irresistible sense of sound and motion. The poised bow seemed momen- tarily ready to strike the strings in a wail of melody ; the mystic fire in the eyes seemed alive, passionately proclaiming the surrender of the body to the spiritual expression of an inner music. A small cross of gold gleamed in the corner above a scrawling signature. " My ancestor, Oamillo Lamberti ! " explained the Italian quietly. " My sister spoke of him a while ago." "And the artist?" 112 TRAUMEREI " Niccolo Lamberti, his brother." The American longed to ask why the man whose powerful genius was evident in the pic- ture before him had not made his influence felt throughout the world of art. Something pecul- iar in the old Italian's tone, however, restrained him. In silence he seated himself at the piano facing the picture of the man whose name was inscribed upon the panel of the Stradivarius. Idly, his eyes fixed upon the rapt musician of another century, he improvised a melody that drifted of its own accord into the Traumerei. As the melody sang itself from beneath his fin- gers, it brought with it the memory of Pietro watching him with mournful eyes as he played it once before on the strings of the Stradivarius, and of another night when Beatrice Lamberti had played it upon the chapel organ in the twi- light. The singing harmony had become ir- resistibly woven into the thread of his life. Softly he played it to the end, instilling into it something of himself of his passionate love for the music with which Nature had so lav- ishly endowed him and something of the mem- ories it evoked. Through the arch of the door- way beyond he could see Beatrice still sitting at the little supper table with her chin resting thoughtfully upon her hand. The glow of the candle-light flashed along the silver and il- lumined her face. As the final note died away THE LAMBEETIS 113 she looked up. There was no mockery in her eyes now ; a generous tribute of appreciation lay in their depths, annihilating the barrier of sex to meet him on a common ground of vibrant sympathy. Signore Lamberti had listened in perfect si- lence, his eyes alight. " Ah, yes," he said dreamily, " Schumann ! Beautiful, beautiful. But few can play it so! On the violin, too, it is my favourite melody." " And mine ! " agreed Kirke quietly. Through the open window floated the sound of a peasant's voice plaintively singing the Miserere. Signore Lamberti smiled. " I suppose," he suggested, " that you have already noticed the innate musical talent in these valley peasants? Melody seems born in an Italian." " I have, indeed ! " agreed Kirke. " Frankly it has been a source of wonder to me. Each one of them appears to know 11 Trovatore from be- ginning to end." "Ah! Every Italian can sing the Trova- tore! " Dioneo's eyes flashed. " I was thinking particularly when I spoke of an idle, lazy fel- low here in Beritola a dreamer who loved nothing so much as his music. It had been born in him, first finding expression on an accordion and later on an old violin that someone gave him. He used to lie around on the mountain- 114 TRAUMEREI side playing, and sometimes the music that floated down from the hills in the twilight was astonishing. He rarely worked, eking out an erratic existence with his fiddle. Finally I grew so interested in him that I brought him here to the villa and taught him the necessary technique. Ah! Signore Bentley, I wish you could have heard the lad play. It was indeed marvellous." " He is still in Beritola? " questioned Kirke. "No. He left here months ago. He was Lauretta's sweetheart, you may have heard of him in the valley Pietro Masetto." Kirke's grasp upon the arm of his chair tight- ened. Quickly he scanned the speaker's face, astonished at the friendly interest in his voice. There was no hint of suspicion in the tranquil tones. Signore LambertP s face glowed with the pleasure of his share in Pietro's attainment. Surely, thought the American, if he had suspected his protege" of theft, some faint indication of it would have been revealed in his manner! " His gratitude was indeed pitiful ! " went on the Italian, his face softening ; " he would kiss my hand and say, l Ah, Signore Lamberti, I had a feeling, a great feeling in my soul, it was walled up here,' striking his breast fiercely, ' like a flood, something that begged to come out and I knew not how. You have opened the gate ! ' " THE L A M B E R T I S 115 Beatrice had entered quietly while he spoke. Now she stirred uneasily in her chair and Kirke fancied he caught a flash of resentment in her dark eyes. A faint wave of colour swept over her face and she fingered the lace about her throat a little nervously. " And so it is settled," the old Signorina was saying to Philip in the brief lull her cheerful voice could be heard distinctly " we shall study Italian together and perhaps I may be able to correct that dreadful accent. You will come to-morrow? " " Yes. And I shall teach you English." The door from the hallway softly opened and Lauretta appeared. " Count Teodoro di Gomito, Signorina ! " she announced. To Kirke the announcement came like a sud- den dissonance in a perfect melody. Count Teodoro entered, bowing low over the hands of the ladies and acknowledging his presentation to the Americans with easy urbanity. "We are already almost acquainted," he sug- gested suavely. " The American Signori, Dioneo, are my tenants in the little mountain cottage. You have found it attractive, Signore Bent- ley?" " Very." "And you, Signorina," he smiled genially at Beatrice, " this is, alas ! the first opportunity I 116 T R A U M E R E I have had of welcoming you since your return. I, too, have been away." With a tinge of malice Kirke recalled the look of annoyance with which Count Teodoro had left the Lamberti villa but the week before. The girl he had vainly sought had been indolently floating on the bosom of the lake in her canoe, quite unconscious of the nobleman's chagrin. The American watched the Count bend atten- tively over Beatrice's chair, audibly begging for particulars of her recent visit, and again he was conscious of the antagonism which had stirred within him once before. It received a definite impetus in the curious scene that followed. Count Teodoro had continued to voice his so- licitous curiosity. For some reason, however, the girl was oddly reticent. One by one she gracefully evaded his queries, seeking, with heightened colour, to divert his interest to an- other topic. It was quite in vain. Count Teo- doro stroked his handsome moustache and bent closer, questioning her persistently. Irritated by the man's unaccountable lack of perception, Kirke quickly shielded her from his importu- nities by a tactful counter-question, somewhat astonished by the flash of gratitude and relief in her eyes. The whole occurrence had puzzled him. The girl's evident unwillingness to answer had been strangely out of proportion to the importance of THE LAMBEETIS 117 the questions asked, and Count Teodoro's delib- erate disregard of her wish had been almost rude. Kirke in a flash of anger felt that he understood the Italian's insolence. It had been the act of a man who heedlessly plans a final effect, ob- livious in his self-absorption to all else. His at- titude as he bent over Beatrice Lamberti had been one of conspicuous devotion carefully studied to convey an impression of proprietor- ship. The flaunting challenge had borne in it a veiled warning to respect his rights! Peasant gossip had coupled the names of these two. Kirke, with the memories of the lake shedding the iridescence of romance and poetry about the slender figure of Nocturnia, looked at the obese nobleman bending over her and shuddered at the incongruity of the suggestion. Handsome, mas- terful, self-possessed and gallant yes, he was all of these and knew it but his heavy corpu- lence of body decried the ensemble. "And you, Dioneo?" Count Teodoro turned to the old Italian, well content with the means he had taken to define his position in the Lam- berti household. " I am well," was the quiet reply. " And you?" Count Teodoro twirled his fierce moustache briskly. " As usual," he affirmed. " I have been more than busy." " Count Teodoro is a very energetic scientist," 118 TRAUMEREI explained Signore Lambert! with a quiet smile, and Kirke fancied that the Count's grand man- ner had displeased him. " A little scientific research," shrugged Count Teodoro. " I trust it may one day benefit the world." Careful as his show of modesty had been, however, it produced a contrary effect. The scientist dismissed the subject with a polite wave of his hand and turned again to his host, his full, deep voice booming grandly through the room. In the full panoply of a superb self-possession, Count Teodoro presently allowed a tinge of pat- ronage to creep into his manner toward his host. Kirke, listening to their careless discussion in outward calm, caught it instantly. To him, powerfully held by the old Italian's magnetism, the effrontery of Count Teodoro's superior atti- tude, conscious or otherwise, was revolting, the sacrilege of a vandal who desecrates a temple. There was an inheritance of hot blood in the Bentley veins. In rising anger he caught Phil's eye and significantly signalled his desire to leave. Kirke rose. As he did so a peculiar look of suspicion flashed up in Count Teodoro's eyes. Once before the American had caught a similar look, and now, coupled with his inability to fathom it, he found it doubly irritating. In sudden resentment he faced the nobleman and THE LAMBERTIS 119 looked squarely in his face. Their eyes met in subtle antagonism, then the Italian shifted un- comfortably beneath the level gaze of the Ameri- can and turned away. Tacitly each man had avowed his dislike of the other. Outside Phil struck a match to light a cig- arette, and confronted the blazing eyes of his chum. " Phew ! " he ejaculated in sudden surprise, " I haven't seen you look like that, old man, since you thrashed Bobby Griffith in football days ! " Kirke did not reply, and Phil, blessed with unusual wisdom at times, refrained from further comment. Quietly he held out his cigarette case and struck a match. As the flickering light expired and Kirke's cigarette glowed brightly in the darkness, Phil smiled strangely. / A velvet pall of darkness lay over the valley, thick and fragrant with the scent of orange and rose and jasmine that lurked in its sable folds. Overhead it was pierced by glittering javelins of starlight and the faint luminescence of the moon rising behind a distant hill. ? " Our excellent landlord," observed Phil sud- denly, "reminds me of a whale. He has the same physique as that much misunderstood mammal a convex waistline and general portliness. Besides, he has the added qualifica- tion of exuding a sort of oil of politeness from 120 T R A U M E R E I all his conversational pores. I'll have to ask Tony to buy me a harpoon ! " The fancy seemed to appeal to Mr. Ainsworth. In the days that followed he frequently re- ferred to Count Teodoro as " The Whale," occa- sionally varying the monotony on state occa- sions by the elaborate cognomen, " The Cetaceous Mammal." The Americans sat out upon the porch of their mountain cottage until midnight, watching{ the moon appear above the hills and overflow in a flood of silver upon the valley below. It threaded its course among the stars until it hung far above them,\a night lamp for the sleep- ing world. They talked steadily, of the Lam- bertis, of Count Teodoro, of the quaint atmos- phere of the villa and the rare old-fashioned hospitality of the inmates, of Aunt Emilia, of the vivid picture of Camillo Lamberti and the old musician's account of Pietro Masetto, reverting many times to the odd chain of circumstances that had attended the purchase of the Stradi- varius. "And certainly," commented Phil thought- fully, " Signore Lamberti would not have spoken of Pietro in just that manner if he believed him guilty of the theft of his Stradivarius ! " " No," admitted Kirke. " It would be impos- sible. After all, Pietro may be innocent." Even as he spoke, however, he recalled the hos- THE LAM BERT IS 121 tile look in Beatrice's eyes at the mention of the exile's name and frowned thoughtfully. They presently entered the villa and bolted the front door. As they did so, a figure emerged from the darkness at the side of the house and crept softly away into the shadows of the night. Long after he had gone to his room, Kirke sat by his window wakeful and restless. Looking back to the first revelation of the curious old fiddle it had seemed to open an unseen portal and bid him enter. Whimsically he had obeyed, to find himself in a labyrinth of conjecture, blindly following a silver thread. At first it had been but a hair of suspicion, frail and un- stable, leading him, a modern knight-errant, in quest of adventure, across \a bay silvered with moonlight to a valley of fruit and flowers. In the tropical rose-glow of the southern vale,\ a little Italian girl in a blaze of passion had helped to strengthen the guiding line of silver, until bit by bit, as he wound it into a ball in his eager pursuit, it had grown into a strand of assured suspicion. Looking back he had caught the gleam of another cord, which, branching from the one in his hand, lay stretched across the ocean to a distant land, firmly knotting there about the wrist of a ragged, homesick exile whose honest eyes belied the suggestion of the glitter- ing bond. Again he had gathered up the grow- ing thread of suspicion, eager to trace it to its 122 T K A U M E R E I goal until in the lure of the lake and the mystic goddess veiled in moonfire, it had for a time lay limp in his hand, trailing and ignored, and once more a girl, burdened with roses, had knotted the silver strands and pointed ahead! And the man had stared, a little startled that the mock- ing nymph of the southern night, who had been a thing apart, should be involved in his curious quest. Fate had seemed to decree that those who came into his life on the other side of the unseen portal should be subtly entangled in the line that had led from the panel of the Stradi- varius to Beritola, winding about Lauretta, Niccolo, Dioneo Lamberti and the dreaming Nereid of the Lake and stretching across the sea to Pietro in America. Yes, it had entangled Philip Ains worth, too, leading him across the hedge of fire to the cousin of Benedetto Ab- bato! Kirke leaned from his window, watching the moonlit valley patched with shadows, the hills shrouded now in purple gloom and lighted only by the dim effulgence of the stars as the fickle moon deserted them, projecting upon the silent landscape a chain of pictures ; there was the old Stradivarius, Dioneo Lamberti with his dark eyes and snowy hair, the mysterious Pietro, Lauretta, the two dead Lambertis of another century, the genius of one visualising the genius of the other in a wonderful painting! Of the THE LAMBERTIS 123 memories of the evening, however, one picture rose above them all, framed in the wood of an arching doorway. The dim radiance of candle- light flashed along a table set with old-fashioned silver and china ; it shed a glow of rose upon the face of a girl as she leaned thoughtfully upon the table, her chin resting upon her hand, her eyes full of unspoken tribute to the man whose reverent lingers softly played the Traumerei. And quite suddenly Kirke felt an overpower- ing desire to know where Beatrice Lamberti had been when he first came to Beritola and why she had not wanted to tell the Count. CHAPTER IX A BRASS BUTTON THE drowsy wail of Niccolo's bagpipe floated down from his eyrie hut on the summit of the mountain behind the Villa Spa Gett. It was a weird and mournful accompaniment of the evening twilight, a melody evolved from a curious instrument fashioned by the ingenious hand of the shepherd himself from the skin of one of his sheep. Three of the legs were rudely made into pipes and the fourth formed the nucleus of the mouth-piece. Niccolo had proved himself a creature of habit. As regularly as he bickered for twigs with Marietta in the morning, so nightly the wailing protest of the departed sheep floated down the mountainside. Two men wearily climbing the road to the Villa Spa Gett in the dusk paused as the first strains of the bagpipe reached them. " The last straw ! " commented Phil in deep disgust. " Niccolo is torturing that inflated mutton skin again. Ye gods, each night must I endure a mutton symphony. I wish the ghost of the departed quadruped would return and steal his musical hide." The speaker sat down upon a rock and flatly 124 A BRASS BUTTON 125 refused to budge. " Riley can bring me my sup- per," he stated. " It's enough to walk out from Naples and bark every inch of shin scrambling over rocks. You're too infernally ambitious, Kirke. If it hadn't been for you, I'd have re- turned in state with Tony ! " Kirke calmly boosted his friend with his knee and they struggled on up the trail. " Thank you again ! " said Phil gratefully. " If it hadn't been for that knee of yours, I'd never have reached Beritola. It's helped con- siderably." He peered through the trees at the Villa Spa Gett. A light gleamed brightly in the kitchen and Riley's voice was suddenly raised in mock- ing imitation of the bagpipe. The nasal whine, startlingly like the pattern, presently drifted into an erratic song, fitted to Niccolo's wailing obligate, and resolved itself into a weird improv- isation of which Gribbins was the unwilling subject. A savory odour of coffee floated down through the pines as Riley poured the boiling water into the urn and swore fluently at the hot steam that rose about his hand. With the lighting of a lamp which Gribbins had set among the china of the table, the window behind the porch vines suddenly framed a cheerful promise of supper. The Englishman appeared in the doorway strain- ing his eyes down the trail in search of his de- 126 TRAUMEREI linquent master. He greeted the Americans with a garrulous complaint of certain indigni- ties he had suffered through the day at the hands of his abandoned Irish tormentor and at Kirke's emphatic command for supper stalked gloomily back to the kitchen. " I thought," remarked Phil casually, in the midst of supper, " that you stopped in for any mail that had happened to accumulate since Tony's trip this morning." " I did. There was only one letter and that was for me. I read it while you were buying that long list of domestic necessities which you appear to regard as indispensable to our com- fort. It contains a postscript which you may find interesting." " From whom?" " Margaret. She says," Kirke read the post- script aloud, " tell Phil it's neither necessary nor polite to ignore us altogether. We haven't heard a word from him since he left Miirren and mother doesn't like it ! " Kirke grinned broadly at his sister's final words. Mr. Ainsworth, however, appeared not to hear them. " Something," he announced inconsequently, " is lumbering up the trail ! " The sound of heavy footsteps echoed beneath the window, creaked clumsily up the steps of the Villa Spa Gett and halted at the open screen T K BRASS BUTTON 127 door which led from the living-room to the porch. An instant later a ponderous knock reverberated throughout the house. Phil rose. A fat and perspiring butler in gorgeous livery stood revealed in the circle of light outside the door. He was a physical pro- totype of Count Teodoro with an impassive countenance and alert, roving eyes. "It's the Oily Echo who buttles for the Whale," announced Phil under his breath. " A message from his lordship, Count Teodoro di Gomito for the American Signori ! " pro- claimed the butler sonorously. Phil pushed back the screen door and received an imposing document ablaze with the noble* man's coat-of-arms. The Italian bowed heavily and departed, his bead-like eyes making a sly examination of the room and missing noth- ing. Grinning at Riley's envious comment upon the departing livery as viewed from the kitchen win- dow, Phil opened the heavy envelope with af- fected veneration. " We have been taken up by the aristocracy ! " he announced. " His lordship formally invites us to dine with him Thursday evening. I shall go," he declared with finality. " I shall not! " was the dry response. Phil seated himself and tossed the invitation across the table. 128 TRAUMEKEI " In this particular instance," he said slowly, " I think it would be wisdom to accept." " Wisdom be hanged ! " grumbled Kirke. "We're under no obligation to him!" " Granted. The fact remains, however, that he owns the Villa Spa Gett. It is just as well to conceal one's opinion of the landlord. We're very comfortable here and he could kick us out" Kirke shrugged his shoulders and returned to his coffee, but he offered no further objection. Had he known his chum's real reason for pro- pitiating their aristocratic landlord he would have been genuinely astonished. Early that morning as the Americans rode into Naples with Tony, they had met Count Teo- doro driving homeward. To Phil, thoughtfully stirring his coffee, the details of the incident re- curred unpleasantly as they had many other times throughout the day. The Italian had halted his horses with a civil greeting. " A day in Napoli, Signori? " he queried pleasantly. t( &i, Signore." Kirke had answered with the Bentley air which always made his friend grin in secret enjoyment, . it was so ominously cour- teous ! " You will of course visit the Villa Eeale? At sunset it is most picturesque." A BRASS BUTTON 129 "Gmzie, Signore. We shall indeed avail our- selves of your suggestion." That had been all. Phil, however, stealing a furtive glance at the Italian to watch the effect of his chum's overwhelming politeness, had caught him in an unguarded moment. Count Teodoro's eyes, as they rested upon Kirke, had flashed sud- denly with smouldering fire. Had the sugges- tion not been so preposterous, Phil would have unhesitatingly analysed the look as one of con- centrated hate and rage. There had been more to it than the jealous anxiety of an aspiring lover who resents the propinquity of a younger and more comely man than himself; it had sug- gested the fury of an animal who is driven to bay and turns to tear the hunter to pieces. Al- though Phil had instantly condemned this fancy as theatric in the extreme, the occurrence had made him wary. His desire to-night to accept Count Teodoro's invitation had been largely due to his determination to guard against any open show of hostility. Phil finished his coffee and lit a cigar, indo- lently watching Gribbins restore the living-room to order. Having removed the evidences of its brief metamorphosis into a dining-room, the Englishman drew the shades, placed the day's papers on the table and noiselessly withdrew. "Well," questioned Kirke, "has the prospect of dining at the castle rendered you speechless? " 130 TEAUMEEEI For answer Phil rose, rambled aimlessly about the room, opening and shutting the drawers of a desk and peering into the closet, and presently seated himself amidst an elaborate parapher- nalia of pens, ink, paper and an enormous Italian dictionary, with the announcement that he was about to answer Count Teodoro's invitation. Kirke regarded the self-appointed scribe with a grin. " Is your Italian equal to the strain ? " he queried. " My Italian," remarked the social secretary with professional pride, " is like none other in the valley. You forget that it has been carefully pruned for several mornings now by the Sig- norina Emilia ! " He scribbled intermittently for some time. " There ! " he announced tri- umphantly, closing the dictionary with a bang, " I've accepted for myself in the politest terms and then I've added a postscript, providing for any little eccentricity you may develop, in which I say very informally, ' P. S., Kirke says you can go to the Devil. He'll come if he wants to.' " Kiley appeared in the doorway, grinning, his daredevil face crowned in the terrible towel tur- ban he had affected since his installation as cook. " His Dagoship lost wan of his beauteous but- tons ! " he announced. A BRASS BUTTON 131 " Keep it," yawned Phil, " for a watch- charm." The cook pocketed the gaudy bit of brass and turned away, but neither of the Americans no- ticed that he flashed a warning look at Grib- bins and frowned thoughtfully. CHAPTER X COUNT TEODORO DI GOMITO THE Americans clanged the brass knocker at the castle door and inspected in silent in- terest the grim walls that rose about them. From the barbican of the ancient tower, whence in olden days the alert watchman had peered, to the protecting ramparts and loopholes, yawn- ing in readiness for belching fire-arms, the old castle gave out a bellicose message of an im- pregnable preparation for the fortunes of war. Though no sentinels marched bravely to and fro upon the ramparts and the sally-port lay open in twentieth century security, there was an indescribable suggestion about the ancient fortress of the days of Guelph and Ghibelline. The great door before them presently creaked open in the hands of Giacomo, the butler. Kirke, eyeing the gorgeous livery which had ex- cited Riley's ridicule, recalled Marietta's de- scription of the Count's staff of servants. "II Signore Conte?" she had exclaimed scathingly. "Madonna mia, he counts each soldo! In that great castle he has but two, my sister Therese for the kitchen and that accursed 132 COUNT DI GOMITO 133 pig of a Giacomo for everything else ! Presence of the Devil, what a man ! " Giacomo bowed the Americans into an enor- mous corridor paved in stone and warmed into a semblance of cheer by rugs of mahogany red. It was dimly lighted by an antique lamp of bronze. Count Teodoro emerged from the shadows at the rear and greeted his guests urbanely. " Good evening, Signori ! " he said in excellent English. " Ah you are surprised that I speak your English? 'Tis even so. The Signorina Beatrice and I speak it at times by way of di- version." Phil felt that his careless reference to the girl had been artfully premeditated. " However," went on Count Teodoro pleas- antly, " both of you gentlemen are such accom- plished linguists that perhaps we may abide by that old saying, * When you are in Rome, be a Roman.' Since we are in Italy, let us then talk Italian." His handsome eyes lingered on the faces of his guests in smiling inscrutability. Kirke took refuge in a careful formality, but Phil, with an odd expression in his eyes, met the Italian's ad- vances with apparent cordiality. " It is very kind of you to partake of my hos- pitality," went on the Italian easily. " To a bachelor of my retired habits such an evening is a rare treat. You are both warm from the 134 TKAUMEREI climb? Allow me." He quickly turned to a side table and poured three glasses of a thin, sour wine. " Myself," he shrugged as he set his glass down, " I prefer the cognac. In this climate, however, it works with the sun." Phil praised the wine with a mental reserva- tion and finding to his huge diversion that the Bentley air was once more in prominence, deftly drew his chum into the conversation and left him stranded. " Indeed, Signore," protested the Italian suavely in response to a polite remark of Kirke's, " I am only too glad to have this opportunity of showing you my castle. It is very old and very interesting. There are some genuine Giotto frescoes in the chapel." He turned to remove a great key from a hook on the wall, amiably stroking his moustache. Phil, whose keen eyes missed nothing, fancied that a faint smile played for an instant about the Italian's mouth under cover of his hand. The occurrence, trifling as it was, annoyed him. Whatever amusing element there was in the present situation, he reflected, was patent to Count Teodoro alone. Their host led the way up a flight of stone stairs and unlocked a door at the head. Thence he guided the Americans through an endless pro- cession of stone corridors which clanked drear- ily at their unaccustomed contact with human feet, offering in apologetic excuse for the deso- COUNT DI GOMITO 135 lation of the dusty rooms on either side their prolonged desuetude. His own apartments lay entirely in the other wing of the castle. Kirke scanned the old rooms one by one, a lit- tle ashamed of the persistent antagonism that welled up within him at the sound of Count Teo- doro's deep voice booming through the corridors. The Italian before him was the scion of a long line of ancestors whose culture and refinement lay revealed, in spite of dust and cobweb, in this great, deserted portion of the castle, cut off from the master's luxurious apartments by lock and key. Walls had been wonderfully wrought in coloured marbles; floors laid in an exquisite mosaic; surely but Count Teodoro's voice echoed close at hand and the American shrugged. The ancestral Gomitos, he told himself, had been cast in a different mould ! Through the castle barracks and state court, grim and mouldy relics of a past grandeur, the three men passed to the chapel beyond, dimly alight for their inspection. The light from the altar candles flickered on the Gothic windows and etched strange shadows on the sombre walls. The Giotto frescoes? Kirke stood before them in silent appreciation. The man who had been the artistic harbinger of the spring of the Ital- ian Renaissance had given of his best to this re- mote castle chapel. " Giotto was a friend of the of the builder 136 TRAUMEREI of the castle," explained the Italian. " Tradition has it that he planned the Campanile at Flor- ence within these walls." Phil turned restlessly to the chapel door, de- pressed by the great loneliness that hovered over the ancient wing of the castle like a funeral pall. Count Teodoro, however, in a burst of en- thusiasm recalled him, indicating some old statues of the saints. The Italian had suddenly grown eloquent in his appreciation. A curious light flashed up in his fine eyes, and Kirke, mind- ful of the feeling that stirred within himself at times when he faced the embodiment of a man's genius, secretly credited his host with unsus- pected depths. Not so Phil, however. His practical hard-headedness had instantly detected in the Italian's zealous appreciation an unnat- ural element. Was Count Teodoro making a pretence of an intellectual enthusiasm which he did not feel for purposes of effect? Phil thought so. The nervous excitement in the Italian's eyes and his fleeting self -consciousness had be- trayed him. Reluctantly, it seemed, Count Teo- doro at length ushered his guests back to the great hall and thence to his own apartments. Of these but one room repeated the tone of antiquity sounded in the disused portion of the castle. Kirke, who had been a little displeased by the modern luxury with which the Italian had surrounded himself, found his interest re- COUNTDI GOMITO 137 viving again in the Count's library. The wall opposite the doorway through which they had entered was panelled to the height of a tall man in Flemish oak, heavily carved, above which stretched an exquisite fresco. The other walls of the great room were lined to the ceiling with books. Phil, seeking the windowed recess at the side, found his outlook grimly barricaded by the rocky slope of a steep hill, one of the file which stretches from the castle to the Tyrrhenian Sea. There were one or two bizarre twentieth century touches, a phonograph and a Neapolitan sport- ing paper. In the main, however, Count Teo- doro had been content with the library of his an- cestors. "And here, Signori," the Italian opened a door at the side, " you see my laboratory." The Americans found themselves in a shelved room of extreme disorder. Crucibles, retorts and labelled bottles were grouped about in con- fusion upon floor and table and chairs. The ashes of a brick furnace heaped about a crucible of iron attested the fact that the scientist had been summoned away in the midst of his work, the red coals of his fire paling to ashes in his absence. Count Teodoro removed the forgotten vessel with a shrug and a smile. " You see," he explained pleasantly, " I had forgotten the boiling crucible in the pleasure of your company. My furnace," he added care- 138 TRAUMEREI lessly, indicating the bright scarlet of the bricks, " has just been bricked in anew. See, here is the closet in which I keep my chemicals and all these are my utensils." Kirke glanced carelessly about him. The eye of the artist had instantly found the defect in the picture. The apparent disorder of the Count's laboratory was too extreme. It suggested a carefully studied effect to render the Italian's scientific research more impressive. Indeed, as in everything else of Count Teodoro's, from Giacomo's livery to the luxurious apartments, it was overdone, revealing an inborn love of os- tentation. " I presume," suggested Phil, carelessly indi- cating a group of vessels close at hand, " that you break a number of utensils in the interests of science. These, I fancy, have been replaced quite recently? " The scientist shot a keen glance at his guest. " Indeed, yes ! " he replied quickly. " Some of them are very frail." He turned away, and both Americans thought that he was annoyed and wondered at it. But in an instant, he was once more dilat- ing eagerly upon the perfection of his laboratory equipment. Phil, who felt that the Italian had already extended the exhibition of his scientific paraphernalia beyond the limits of good taste, watched him closely. There was an unusual COUNT DI GOMITO 139 alertness about him, visible only to the close ob- server. Recalling the strange smile that had piqued him earlier in the evening and later the curious fire in the Italian's eyes and his sudden outbreak of enthusiasm in the chapel, he men- tally added the scientist's annoyance of a min- ute ago, and now his watchful vigilance, decid- ing that the malignant look he had surprised in the nobleman's eyes earlier in the week was not the only inexplicable thing about him. Count Teodoro's elaborate discourse was brought to an abrupt close by the appearance of Giacomo. " Dinner is served, sir ! " he announced very distinctly, and Phil, secretly alert with undefined distrust, caught the queer glance that flashed between master and man, and made a mental note of it. The room in which the three men dined had once been the castle's banquet hall. The great board about which the Count's ancestors had been accustomed to gather in the old days, how- ever, had been replaced by a highly polished rococo bit of furniture, magnificently aglitter with showy appointments. To Kirke, silently admiring the older furnishings of the great hall, the carved and inlaid chairs of walnut, the som- bre rafters above his head and the Italian damask with which the walls were hung, this modern desecration of his host's was repellent. 140 TRAUMEBEI The dinner was excellent. Whatever the Ital- ian's artistic limitations might be, he had re- vealed the taste of an epicure in the selection of his wine and cigars. Over his coffee, black and fragrant, Count Teodoro waxed suavely talk- ative, presently dismissing Giacomo with a wave of his hand. " It is a matter of great mystery to me," he began, settling back in his chair in post-prandial informality, " why the American Signori should have chosen our obscure little valley in which to rusticate." He puffed luxuriously at his cigar, adding carelessly, " Few, if any, Americans have ever honoured us with a visit." " Beritola was recommended to us as an ideal place in which to rest," lied Phil promptly. " I have sometimes wondered how you content your- self with the solitude." " The valley has its attractions," replied the Italian pointedly, " and the very solitude is an advantage to a man of science such as my- self." " Assuredly ! " agreed Phil. He flicked the ash from his cigar and added maliciously, " The charms of the valley which hold you, we, too, have found irresistible! " " Ah, I see ! " The Italian looked sharply at his guest, but found no suggestion of insinuation in the bland face of the young gentleman who had spoken. " The recommendation came, I IT IS A MATTER OF GREAT MYSTERY TO ME WHY THE AMERICAN Signori SHOULD HAVE CHOSEN OUR OBSCURE LITTLE VALLEY IN WHICH TO RUSTICATE." COUNT DI GOMITO 141 presume, from some friend who knew of the great natural beauty of the valley? " Phil's eyes twinkled oddly. Kirke, a little annoyed by Count Teodoro's persistent curi- osity, glanced across at his chum and grinned inwardly, quite content to resign the Italian to his friend's resourceful tongue. " Yes," assented Phil confidentially, in re- sponse to his host's query, " he was a famous au- thor. In fact, he wrote one of his books while he was staying at Manuel Ciapelletto's cot- tage." " Great Heavens ! " reflected Kirke in genuine alarm, " I don't believe Phil even knows his name ! " His guess was quite correct. Mr. Ainsworth, rapidly inventing a score of plausible excuses for a delinquent memory in event of any further inquiry, accepted another cigar, calmly sipped his cordial and awaited developments. To the relief of both, the Italian himself saved the day. " Ah ! " he exclaimed in surprise, " you know Signore Philip Lane Andrews?" Phil laughed quietly as if the idea were amus- ing, as indeed it was! " Know him ! " he declared good-humouredly, " why, my dear Count, he's my cousin. As you can see for yourself, I was named after him ! " "Indeed!" Phil deliberately ignored a warning pressure 142 T R A U M E R E I of his chum's foot intended to intimate that he had gone quite far enough. " My esteemed aunt," he explained, expanding genially, " married an Englishman and Phil Andrews is their son. Signore Bentley and I were travelling in England searching for some quiet place in which he might regain his health and Cousin Philip suggested Beritola. Signore Bentley came on ahead and I followed later as perhaps you know, though, perhaps, I should not have allowed him to travel alone in his broken- down condition." "Signore Bentley was ill?" Count Teodoro glanced searchingly across the table. Kirke nodded carelessly, recognising the fu- tility of stemming the play of his friend's im- agination. " Alas, yes ! " deplored Phil, sipping his cor- dial. "A general nervous break-down," he added sadly, " from overwork. Signore Bentley is an artist of exceptional ability." The biographer omitted to add that his pros- trated artist, whose ability was indeed excep- tional, had not touched brush to canvas since the days he had spent with the great Salvatore, am- bitiously planning a life's work that had since been curiously perverted. " When he finished his last picture," contin- ued this American Munchausen imperturbably, polishing his literary narrative into invincible 143 t perfection, " the doctors said he must give up work immediately and live for an indefinite period in a quiet place. There, my dear Count, you have the cause of our invasion ! " " Ananias," reflected Kirke, " never fully realised the possibilities of his art. Ben trovato! " " And Signore Bentley is feeling better? " Count Teodoro turned solicitously to his guest. " Decidedly ! " affirmed Signore Bentley, smil- ing. Count Teodoro pushed back his chair and rose. Phil's eyes, wandering carelessly over the heavy body of the Italian, rested at length upon a horn-shaped bit of coral depending from his watch-chain. " Evidently Count Teodoro is superstitious," he mused thoughtfully. " Those coral things are a protection against the evil eye, jettatore, I think they call it." The bit of coral attracted his attention again as they made their adieus in the castle hall. " Have you any haunted chambers in the castle, Count Teodoro? " he inquired, smiling. "Any ghosts that rattle chains and groan at midnight? " " None ! " shrugged the Italian. " The Su- pernatural flees from the Searchlight of Science." In spite of his easy words, however, it was 144 TKAUMEREI evident from Count Teodoro's manner that he had found the suggestion unpleasant. " Our host," confided Phil, looking back at the twinkling lights of the castle as they descended into the valley, " is, I suspect, very superstitious. That coral affair on his watch-chain is a protec- tion against the evil eye." " He displayed particular discretion in wear- ing it to-night ! " replied Kirke pointedly. " That romance about your cousin, Phil An- drews, whom you were named after " " Perfectly true ! " affirmed Phil with a grin. " I've read somewhere that the gifted cousin whom I so generously adopted to-night has passed the half-century mark. Naturally enough, I was named after him a number of years after ! " In silence they climbed the trail to the Villa Spa Gett. Phil was busily sorting over the pieces of a very incomplete puzzle. Count Teo- doro's fleeting annoyance in the laboratory certainly the careless indication of the new utensils had not warranted it ! Giacomo's timely announcement of dinner, and the strange glance that had passed between master and man, the undercurrent of excitement that had revealed, itself in the chapel and later in the laboratory; were they all pieces of the same puzzle? Would its solution involve the strange look the Ital- COUNT DI GOMITO 145 ian had cast at Kirke, and the flickering amuse- ment about his mouth in the castle hall? Or after all, were they perhaps trifling occur- rences elevated to importance by his own dislike and hostility? Certainly not the latter, promptly decided Mr. Ainsworth. CHAPTER XI NICCOLO'S VISITOR \fTHHE dawn had come in a heavy grey mist * which shrouded the valley and warned the waking earth of the heat to follow. A wonder- ful glow of rose and gold suddenly illumined the east and as the growing radiance flashed shafts of iridescence through the fog, the God- dess of the Dawn daintily discarded her mantle of mist and stood revealed in the splendour of the sunrise. The delicate mother-of-pearl that had been the sky's harbinger of the rising sun became a brilliant flush of colour, and the cold mauve that had tipped the hills warmed into glorious sapphire./ In the Villa Spa Gett the Americans were aroused by a curiously familiar sound beneath their windows. It gradually resolved itself into a pair of voices fiercely berating each other. Phil rose and peered from the window, summon- ing Kirke in an amused undertone. Marietta, in an excess of zeal, was following Niccolo step by step as he retreated to his eyrie hut on the sum- mit of the mountain. The cause was evident. Niccolo had collected a bundle of twigs so enormous that his feminine 146 NICCOLO'S VISITOR 147 rival was powerless to duplicate it by reason of a sheer physical inability to bear the weight. The little brown woman had worked herself up to a wild pitch of excitement in resenting his victory, and, loathe to leave the unchivalrous twig-gatherer to the enjoyment of his success, had steadily followed him up the trail to the Villa Spa Gett, an occurrence as unprecedented as the cause. " Niccolo," she taunted fiercely, " I shall come in the night and stick a pin in that accursed bagpipe of yours. Each night its godless noise disturbs me ! " "Corpo!" ejaculated the pecorajo philosoph- ically, " much good may it do you. I kill me another sheep. I have a quantity of excellent mutton for some time and a new bagpipe, and until it becomes improved by age, its sounds will be most terrible ! " " Epictetus ! " murmured Kirke with a grin. " 'Tis already most terrible!" cried Marietta, angered by his persistent coolness. " The Devil himself could do no worse." She suddenly laid down her own bundle of twigs and, wriggling her fingers about an imaginary bagpipe, danced wildly about, distorting her face and making strange, hideous noises in unflattering imitation of her musical rival. " 'Tis so it sounds," she declared flatly. Mccolo laughed heartily. His ridicule 148 TEAUMEREI spurred her on, and in furious tones she added, " The bagpipe is an unchristian instrument. It was made to torture us like a pest ! " " Mache!" averred Niccolo with cool sarcasm, " it is safer than a violin, and it gets one in no trouble so that he must needs run away ! " " Pietro did not run away. Niccolo, you lie!" Kirke leaned forward, intent upon the argu- ment which had turned again to the subject of such vital interest to himself. " He went in the night ! " declared Niccolo. " He said good-bye to no one ! " " The padrone at the villa does not think of him as you do." " The padrone/' asserted Niccolo loftily, " thinks each man as good as himself. 'Tis im- possible ! " " Nevertheless," suddenly burst out Marietta, feeling that she was being worsted, and with true feminine instinct returning to the subject that was most likely to annoy her antagonist, " the bagpipe is an accursed pest and the player a robber who robs the valley of the quiet that comes with the twilight ! " "Your matchless Pietro was wont to play upon the hills in the twilight ! " " That's different. Pietro had the music of the gods. You have but the squeal of accursed pigs." NICCOLO'S VISITOK 149 Stung out of his philosophical calm by the taunting reference to an accomplishment in which he took secret pride, Niccolo burst into sudden anger. " Squealing of pigs, mayhap, but it brings no stranger of the law to Beritola in search of me!" " 'Tis but a matter of time," scoffed Marietta, "before the law will come and forbid the god- less noises we nightly hear ! " and then in sud- den comprehension of the veiled scorn in her rival's voice she added angrily, " nor did any stranger of the law come in search of Pietro. Your accursed lies will hang you yet, Nic- colo." " The hangman's rope will close my ears to the sound of your voice ! " averred the shepherd angrily, " and 'twould perhaps be worth it. You say the law did not reach out its arm for Pietro? You know not. Two, three nights after the American Signore came to Beritola, a stranger came late at night to my hut. ' Niccolo,' he said and Body of Bacchus! I know not how he knew my name ! ' you will tell me for this gold piece where Pietro Masetto is reported to have gone.' It is not my way to point out the hunted animal to the sniffing dogs, but I looked at the gold piece and well knowing that it is a long arm that reaches across the ocean, I said, ' 'Tis reported that he is in America.' ( I had 150 thought so,' said the stranger ; ' 'twould be worth another gold piece if I knew for sure.' l You may know for sure,' I +old him, ' for Marietta's Lauretta has a letter from him stamped with the word America across the face.' He paid me two gold pieces and departed in the darkness whence he had come, not, however, before he had cau- tioned me to keep silence, and you, Marietta, with your accursed tongue have led me to be- tray it after a silence of weeks ! " " You know not that it was a sbirro! " flashed Marietta suddenly. " The law knows everything and it has much gold. The stranger knew my name, though I had never seen him before, and his pockets were lined with gold. Mache! he is the law! Mind you, Marietta, if you repeat what I have said in my anger, I will play upon the bagpipe all night beneath your window ! " With a parting imprecation of disgust at his own loss of temper, Niccolo strode on up the mountain, and Marietta, her brown face wrin- kling up into a fiendish grin of delight at his ap- parent disturbance, suddenly burst into song. " Addio, mio caro amore" she sang in tanta- lising derision as she descended the mountain be- neath her bundle of twigs " Un amplesso, e poscia addio, Non tfha pena non v'ha dolore " NICCOLO'S VISITOR 151 The voice died away. Kirke looked gravely at his companion. " So," he said quietly, " a stranger has been inquiring for Pietro Masetto since my arrival in Beritola. What do you make of that? " " Certainly not the law, as Niccolo asserts ! " declared Phil decidedly. " Any inquiry of that sort, it seems to me, would have been made im- mediately after the disappearance of Pietro eight months ago." Kirke sighed. " I wish," he said, " that I knew the identity of Niccolo's stranger and whence he came ! " Fresh from their morning plunge in the lake, the Americans strode briskly up the valley, plan- ning a long walk before breakfast. I They climbed to the ridge of a mountain at the north and, far above the gabled village, watched the sunlit val- ley awake to the activity of day. The early morning was murmurous with the chirp of forest birds and the rustling of leaves. Kirke, alive to the music of the bird-chatter about him)v caught the sound of crackling underbrush, and turn- ing, confronted the smiling face of Beatrice Lam- berti. " I watched you climbing," she said gaily, " and planned to invite you both to breakfast. But you look entirely too hungry ! " " Alas for the duplicity of the human coun- 152 TRAUMEREI tenance ! " bemoaned Phil. " I am as delicately desirous of food as a canary bird." " Then you may come to breakfast," she granted with mock graciousness, " and you, Sig- nore Bentley? " " Both truthful and hungry ! " avowed Signore Bentley gravely. " I thought," she observed demurely, " that you were peculiarly immune to the pangs of hunger ! " " Only at twilight! " she was instantly assured, and Phil, looking from one to the other, was a little mystified by their laughing raillery. " The Dawn is very capricious these summer mornings," the girl said whimsically, as they fol- lowed the mountain pathway down to the val- ley. " She stole down from the hills this morn- ing in the guise of a monk, cloaked and hooded in deepest grey, a devout penitent telling her beads in drops of dew, but when at last she threw aside the cloak in which she had been masquerad- ing, she stood revealed in the very splendour of a Daughter of Fire." It was but one of the little fancies which she so often voiced, and Kirke, watching her as she talked, thought that she too was a daughter of the fire as daintily capricious as the Dawn it- self and as full of moods as an April shower! She flashed at times from indolence to energy and from mockery to impulsive sympathy, alive NICCOLO'S VISITOR 153 with delicate fire one instant and a dangerous humility the next. Her quaint fancies fasci- nated Kirke; they had (revealed a depth of im- agination and a nature worship which sounded an answering note in himself, f " Full of passion arid poetry," Phil had once described her. The phrase was an apt expression of the dominant forces within her, peculiarly concise, as Mr. Ainsworth's pointed remarks usually were. The little breakfast-room at the villa was cheerily alight with morning sunshine. It sparkled upon the old silver and shattered, where the glass caught its slanting rays, into a rain- bow iridescence. S ignore Lamberti sat by the table, dreamily watching the landscape outside the window. The deep wine-red of a velvet morning-coat contrasted strikingly with his dark eyes and snowy hair. He roused at the sight of the Americans and greeted them warmly. " I am indeed glad to see you both ! " he said simply, and there was a hint in his deep voice of the pleasure their growing friendship had given him. " Attention ! " exclaimed Phil suddenly in the midst of breakfast, "the Princess Emilia has decreed that we visit the Blue Grotto to- day." " Signore Philip himself suggested it!" pro- tested the old lady with a smile. 154 T R A U M E K E I "And the details of this conspiracy?" ques- tioned Signore Lamberti good-humouredly. The old sister's eyes flashed. " Delightful, Dioneo ! " she exclaimed. " A ride over the hills in Signore Philip's car to the Tyrrhenian Sea, where two boatmen, selected by Tony, will be waiting to row us to the Grotto." " And a lunch at Capri! " supplemented Phil. " I should like it ! " exclaimed Signore Lam- berti abruptly, and Kirke, watching the sudden animation in the Italian's face as he turned to Phil with an eager question, thought again of the Stradivarius hidden away in his trunk at the Villa Spa Gett, and frowned. In spite of their growing intimacy with the Lambertis, the American had felt a curious reti- cence on the subject of the old violin. At first he had attributed it to his brief feeling of con- straint in accepting the musician's hospitality as "Signore Ainsworth's friend!" But as the friendship grew, cemented by a letter from Benedetto Abbato to his cousin, in which the en- thusiastic little man lauded Philip Ainsworth > Sr., to the skies and spoke of the Bentleys as " one of the first families of America, my dear Dioneo," the warmth of the old Italian's hos- pitality had speedily banished the shadow. Still, for some reason Kirke himself could not understand, the reticence remained, and the NICCOLO'S VISITOR 155 subject of the violin was studiously avoided. Once in vague alarm he had even warned Phil, fearful lest his friend might disclose the story of his purchase to the old Signorina. To-day the thought of the Stradivarius made him vaguely uncomfortable and dissatisfied. Despite his keen desire to know the circum- stances of its original disposal, the days had glided by one by one leaving him none the wiser. Now a stranger who had paid for knowledge of Pietro Masetto had appeared entangled in the silver thread to which the American had fanci- fully likened his quest, and his presence seemed to knot it into bewildering complexity. And as they rose from the breakfast table, Kirke mentally repeated the words he had ut- tered to Phil earlier in the morning. " I wish," he sighed, " that I knew the identity of Niccolo's stranger and whence he came ! " ON THE CLIFFS RILEY received the news of the proposed ex- cursion with a howl of delight, rejoicing in his temporary emancipation from the kitchen. It was answered at the bottom of the trail by another yell which appeared to evolve itself from a clatter of loose boards as Tony, recog- nising the voice of the Irishman whom he re- garded as a kindred spirit, dashed up the moun- tain road, rattling indiscriminately over stones and rocks with scant respect for his decrepit cart. He alighted with a spring which set the feather in his hat to bobbing drunkenly spread out his scarlet tie in deference to the honour of his reception by the two Americans instead of the solemn Englishman with the watch-chain, and presented the mail and papers with a pro- found bow, flashing his handsome teeth in a broad grin. In response to Kirke's inquiry, it speedily de- veloped that Tony himself, for a consideration which he would leave entirely to the generous discrimination of his employer, would row EC- cellenza, to the Blue Grotto and bring with him another boatman whose qualifications as a 156 ON THE CLIFFS 157 mariner were second only to his own. As for himself, well, the navigation of the Tyrrhenian Sea demanded a peculiar genius, and Tony, with his usual frank versatility, was the one man in all Italy who possessed that genius in a high degree. In this, however, as in all other branches of business involving the accumulation of the golden medium of commerce, he was a much persecuted man owing to that little . con- spiracy, which he had already mentioned to EC- cellenza, among the government heads to pre- vent him from acquiring even the smallest coin unless a generous foreigner took compassion upon him. Indeed he had been assured more than once by those who knew that the maritime authorities would long ago have made use of his remarkable scientific knowledge of navigation as the captain of the largest and swiftest Ital- ian liner in the country but for the insidious pressure of those accursed conspirators ! A suitable inn in Capri for luncheon? It was a strange and notable fact that Eccellenza invariably questioned him upon subjects of which with all modesty he might claim a bet- ter knowledge than any other man in Italy. Should he ever overcome the unreasonable prej- udice against him at court, and a commission should be appointed to explain the general con- dition of inns throughout Italy in general and Capri in particular, Tony would undoubtedly be 158 T R A U M E R E I the head of that commission owing to his ex- traordinary powers of observation, inherited from his mother, and the reliable quality inti- mated in the cognomen, Truthful Tony in- herited from no one, he proudly explained. It was a direct and logical result of an over-con- scientious nature. Kirke with difficulty controlled his face as the irresponsible Italian described his unusual apti- tude. At the conclusion he gravely suggested that he had deemed the trip to the Grotto rather strenuous for a man who had decided to be very careful of his strength during the summer months, whereupon the Italian informed him, with a dare-devil grin on his handsome face, that he had just finished a bottle of medicine of such extraordinary excellence that but for his obligation to furnish Eccellensa each morning with his papers and mail, he would long ago have taken advantage of its tonic results to be- come a prize-fighter, well knowing that he could speedily rise to the top of his profession ! Phil, delighted with the magnificent scale of Tony's mental machinations, would have encour- aged him indefinitely, but Kirke, well knowing the difficulty of stemming the tide when it set in in this fashion, peremptorily brought the ar- rangements to a definite conclusion. Si! Tony would meet Eccellenza's party at eleven o'clock, a mile and a half up the coast from ON THE CLIFFS 159 the Beritola road where he had once discovered a spot peculiarly fitted for embarkation. Si! he would bring with him that human reflection of his own greatness and two excellent boats. " And mind you, Tony," advised Kirke sternly, " see that the boats are in a different class from that cart! There will be ladies with us." The Italian received the information with an impudent wink and a nod of his head, intimat- ing that he had already suspected the identity of Eccellenza's choice. He added gravely that Eccellenza need have no fear of the boats for and this was in the nature of a veiled reproach although the cart was an excellent one and any- one who had any knowledge of the subject equal to his own could see that for himself, it was plainly built for the vicissitudes of land and its naval counterpart would no doubt be a trifle leaky. " Undoubtedly ! " agreed Kirke with the ut- most gravity, and the Italian proceeded to add that if any leaks should develop, owing to the malicious tampering of his official enemies who were most perniciously ingenious, Eccellenza need feel no alarm whatever, for in the mending of leaks, as in all other things, Tony himself was an adept, etc., etc. But Kirke peremptorily checked the exposi- tion of the driver's new accomplishment with a 160 TRAUMEREI stern command to have the boats perfect or for- feit his fee, and Tony, nodding a frantic assent, drove wildly off, increasing his usual speed that he might punctually keep his appointment with Eccellenza, and making such a terrific racket with his cart that Kirke felt a growing distrust in the Neapolitan's chances of reaching his native city alive. At ten -thirty Kiley drove up to the Lamberti villa, bearing on his watch-chain a decorative concession to the festal nature of the day in the form of Giacomo's brass button. It was consist- ently fastened by a knot of grocer's cord in the Italian colours. The old Signorina was in a state of excitement and delight which the others soon found con- tagious. Kiley, turning to assure himself that the little party was safely seated, found her ap- preciation of his beloved Panhard irresistible, and with a magnificent indifference to Italian speed limits proceeded to demonstrate its merits. The big car whirred and hummed, the great lamps catching the sun in blinding flashes. The breeze ruffled the old Signorina's hair into a mist about her face; it lashed the wrinkled cheeks into a soft coral and sent the folds of her black gown flapping wildly about her. She sighed regretfully when Riley, after a record- breaking trip, halted the car a mile and a half above the Beritolian road where Tony and his ON THE CLIFFS gifted comrade were already rocking in their boats, their faces wreathed in companion smiles of welcome. Riley, who immediately shot off in the direction of Naples, had been offered unre- stricted freedom until four o'clock. " Pasquale," said Tony significantly to his companion, whose grinning face was quite as satanic in its suggestion of truth and honesty as Tony's own, " I myself shall row Eccellenza Bentley's boat." Pasquale assented with a comprehensive broadening of his bronze face into a grin, an art in which he seemed particularly adept. The Americans noticed with considerable amusement that he too was decked out in a dissolute feather, bobbing in a flapping hat, and a scarlet tie in careful imitation of Truthful Tony. That ebullient admirer of the truth was dancing wildly about and winking surreptitiously at Eccellenza Bentley, who did not arrive at a complete understanding of the Italian's facial contortions until they pushed off from the shore when Tony, insolently dropping one lid over a bold, black eye in the direction of Beatrice Lam- berti, covertly intimated that Eccellenza could thank him for the fact that the pretty Signorina and himself were together. It speedily became evident that Tony regarded himself in the light of their patron saint. He bent over his oars with knowing glances and in- 162 TKAUMEREI termittent chuckles whose meaning was unmis- takable. Kirke, growing momentarily more un- comfortable, frowned severely at the romantic boatman who, meeting his eyes with a simian grin, deliberately ignored the warning and bent to the oars with sudden daring. " Eccellenza," he said in an undertone, per- fectly audible to the girl who had turned away with twinkling eyes, " I shall row you to the Grotto in half the time of the other boat" he winked impudently " and you shall be quite alone in the cave of blue with the pretty Signorina. You will not mind me, for I have a perfect understanding of all these things ! " Beatrice coloured a little but her eyes were dancing. Tony was in his most ir- resistible mood. Kirke, struggling with a min- gled feeling of annoyance and amusement, strove to voice a reply that would suppress the Ital- ian, but contented himself instead with a threat- ening gesture. " Pasquale," went on Tony in extreme self- satisfaction by reason of the widening distance between himself and the grinning object of his remark, " has an excellent arm, but it is not like this, Ecceltensa " he dropped his oar and proudly displayed a strong brown arm " that is the best arm in all Italy. Pasquale," he added, bending to his oars with redoubled vigour ON THE CLIFFS 163 to justify his modest claim, " is a relative of mine ! " Kirke smiled appreciatively. Tony had de- veloped a surprising number of relatives since the arrival of the Americans in Beritola, The hotel clerk who had recommended the antique cart, the newsdealer who supplied his reading matter, the furniture dealer who had furnished the Villa Spa Gett, the driver of the van, the canoe dealer to whom he had entrusted a recent commission, and now Pasquale, the second great- est man in all Italy; they had all been avowed relatives of the dare-devil Italian. Tony's claims of kinsmanship, however, like most of his other extravagant assertions, were typical ex- pressions of his ingrained truthfulness. The American had scarcely finished his mental resume of the worthy Neapolitan's kinsmen when Tony airily added still another to the grow- ing list. " The innkeeper at Capri," he suddenly as- serted, " where you will find by far the best food in all Italy, is my uncle ; " then, catching a twinkle of humour in Kirke's eyes, the irre- sponsible Italian suddenly burst into an immod- erate fit of laughter. " Eccellenza is no fool ! " he exclaimed, and with a sudden change of tone he added reproach- fully, "and Eccellenza knows well that I speak nothing but the truth. My uncle at Capri keeps 164 TRAUMEREI the best inn in Italy and prepares food for the gods ! " Beatrice listened to the boatman's extravagant remarks with secret amusement. She was quite unconscious, however, of the frantic by-play that went on when she looked away. Tony in- stantly took advantage of such opportunities to burst into a pantomime indicative of his ap- proval of Eccellensa's choice, and Kirke angrily signalled him to be quiet. Occasionally the Neapolitan varied the monotony of his gesticu- lations by bending forward and whispering con- fidentially. " Eccellenza," he breathed in Kirke's ear on one occasion, " I have told Pasquale to talk much of a great rivalry between him and me in rowing that Signore Lamberti may think that is why I out-distance him ! " His face revealed a Satanic subtlety and plainly indicated that for once he had allowed his interest in Eccellenza's welfare to interfere with his inherent love of the truth. " You will wait for Signore Lamberti ! " com- manded the American sternly, " as I have told you several times before," and with a smile of complete understanding Tony lay back upon his oars, his bold, black eyes plainly intimating that he would wait long enough to allay the Sig- norina's suspicions and clearly prove to Signore Lamberti that it was not Eccellenza Bentley's ON THE CLIFFS 165 fault if they remained ahead. Eccellema need not fear, however, but what he would row on be- fore there was any chance whatever of being overtaken. In spite of the American's stern commands, however, and much to Tony's satisfaction, Pas- quale's boat was but a dancing speck on the waves when they at last reached their destina- tion. Kirke turned to his boatman. " Tony," he said peremptorily, " you've chat- tered enough. If you speak once after we enter the Grotto, I shall unhesitatingly throw you overboard." Tony settled into complacent silence. Inter- fere with Eccellenza's wooing? Not he! It might affect the eventual size of the buono mano in the discharge of which Eccellenza had here- tofore been consistently generous. The boat glided silently through the entrance at the base of the bluff. As they shot into the wonder-cave, Kirke was conscious of the electric effect the beauty of the Grotto had had upon the girl at his side. It had found an answering thrill in his own veins. Each was silently thinking that the famous Grotto had never be- fore possessed quite the beauty it had to-day. The shadows that lay athwart the water were 'deeply sapphire. f A blue gloom hung in the great furrows overhead, deepening sombrely at the rear Avhere the cavern shelved down to the 166 sea. The daylight crept through the tiny en- trance in a shining path and rimmed the arch- way overhead. The ceaseless drip of water alone broke the silence. ' " The Goddess of the Blue Grotto has broken her necklace of Sapphires," whispered Beatrice. " Do you hear them dropping, dropping, drop- ping? That is why the water is so blue. It is a pool of molten sapphire fashioned of the jewels the Goddess has dropped for centuries. It was a penalty imposed upon her," she added whim- sically, " for stealing the blue fire of the South- ern sky to mould them ! " J The American felt the magnetism of the girl Sweep over him in an intoxicating flood. He was strangely attuned to her mood and met the glance of her deep eyes with silent appreciation. Once more he was conscious of the look he had seen in them through the doorway as he played the Traumerei, a sympathetic recognition, irre- spective of sex or age, I of the same emotional forces in another which burned so passionately within herself. I Pasquale's boat presently glided with a musical dip of oars into the pathway of light which lay across the waters of the Grotto from the entrance like a luminous finger of the sea, proudly pointing to the silent retreat, and Aunt Emilia caught her breath with a little gasp, find- ing the memory of many years inferior to the ON THE CLIFFS 167 reality. Signore Lamoerti, however, leaned for- ward in silence, his eyes mystically alight with a fire which Kirke rightly interpreted. It was in- tense pride in his beloved Italy, of which this cave of sapphire was but one of the many ex- pressions of her wondrous beauty. "Italia adorata!" he breathed softly, as the two boatmen once more bent to their oars after a rapt silence of many minutes that to Tony at least had been interminable. As they shot out from beneath the great bluff into the radiance of the summer day, the Neapolitan turned to Pasquale with a broad grin still intent upon Eccellenza Bentley's welfare. " Pasquale," he announced, with a meaning look at Kirke, " as I said, I have won, rowing to the Cave of Blue in but half the time ! " Pasquale assented with one of the series of smiles with which he had cheerfully punctuated the trip. " It would seem," remarked Signore Lamberti pleasantly, " that we have had a rowing contest. Pasquale has talked of nothing else," and Tony, covertly winking his approbation at his grinning accomplice, shot a significant look at Kirke which said as plainly as words, " Eccellensa can see for himself how well I have managed. Sig- nore Lamberti does not in the least suspect." In a few words whose severity was unmistak- able and plainly threatened to diminish the num- 168 TRAUMEREI ber of gold pieces, Kirke forbade any further ex- hibitions of oarsmanship, and with one or two reproachful glances, Tony kept his boat at the side of his comrade until they reached Capri. The innkeeper, with whom Tony was straight- way obliged out of respect to family ties to have a private interview, appeared to have had as much of the divine essence of truth instilled into his veins as flowed in those of his illustrious rel- ative. With the exception of one instance when he referred to his dare-devil nephew as " my cousin from Naples," and at a warning look from the individual in question tapped his fore- head sadly and bemoaned a curious affliction which twisted his tongue so that it failed to say the thing he thought, his remarks consistently corroborated Tony's extravagant praise of his uncle's inn and its culinary excellence. Of his commendation of the latter, he was entirely justified. The general structure of the inn, how- ever, was similar to that of Tony's cart. They lunched amid a profusion of obsequious bows from the innkeeper, who personally at- tended them, and later, still bobbing about in frantic obeisance, followed them down to the boats, where he engaged in another mysterious discussion with his nephew, an affectionate weld- ing, no doubt, of the consanguineous tie between them, and sent that individual away in rare good-humour. ON THE CLIFFS 169 The last they saw of Tony's bland and bob- bing uncle, he was still bowing, a substantial figure on the receding shore striving to intimate to Eccellenza's party, by a series of intricate physical contortions, his deep-rooted conviction of their magnanimity and unusual prestige. Of his opinion of his handsome nephew from Naples, the less said the better! He had paid a hand- some price for his brief relationship with the worthy Neapolitan who had threatened incon- tinently to direct Eccellenza to his despised rival across the way if a commission in recogni- tion of his generous advertisment of the inn were not immediately forthcoming. Across the water lay the steep cliffs of Sor- rento. At a word from Kirke, Tony rowed to- ward the shore where the house of the great Tasso stood, perched dizzily upon the heights overlooking the sea. Beatrice looked up at the immortal poet's old home with a fluttering col- our in her cheeks. " It is Tasso's house," she said, a deep rever- ence in her dark eyes. " Signore Bentley, it is holy ground in spite of the desecration that comes with time ! " " Yes," agreed Kirke. It seemed singularly fitting, he reflected, that this girl who felt so strongly the poetry of nature, should worship at the shrine of the dead man whose genius has been immortalised in the Gerusallemma. 170 TEAUMEREI " I have seen the original manuscript of the Gerusallemma at Ferrara," went on Beatrice, her eyes alight. " I was there, Signore Bent- ley, when you first came to Beritola. It even bears the corrections in Tasso's handwriting. There is also," she added, " some of the Furioso in Ariosto's handwriting, and what to me seems a beautiful appreciation, it bears the marks of another poet's tribute written in the words, 'Vittorio Alfieri beheld and ven- erated!'" She repeated the words reverently and turn- ing added, " You too have perhaps seen them, Signore Bentley? It was foolish of me, perhaps, but I went to Ferrara with my cousin for that alone ! " " Yes," assented Kirke quietly " I too have seen them ! " " I am glad ! " she admitted impulsively. She little realised the effect her words had had upon the American. The simple confession of her visit to Ferrara had recalled her reticence the night Count Teodoro had been so rudely in- sistent. Then she had withheld what she had of her own accord spoken of to-day! Had she perhaps recoiled from revealing the inner sanc- tuary of her reverence to the scientist? With a sudden bounding of his heart Kirke felt that she had to-day confessed her pilgrimage of rev- erence to the shrine of Tasso and Ariosto be- ON THE CLIFFS 171 cause she had felt that he would understand the spirit in which she had gone. They skirted the shore on the homeward trip. I At the north the coast grew wild and lonely, banked by steep cliffs against which the sea broke in a line of froth. The peaks of the mountain range which leads from Beritola to the sea loomed presently into sight! and a man appeared walking slowly along the cliffs. He turned at the sound of their oars and started vio- lently. " II Signore Conte! " announced Tony, with a queer glance at Kirke and a sly grin of amuse- ment. Eccellenza's game was indeed compli- cated ! Kirke fancied that the Italian upon the cliffs was annoyed by the chance meeting. Count Teodoro, however, returned their greeting with a wave of his arm and smiled down upon them im- perturbably. " I should not mind Count Teodoro," advised Tony in a friendly undertone as the boats glided on, "he is much too fat to be loved. Besides," he cast a sly look at Beatrice, "the pretty Signorina may know the wisdom of jealousy." Was there no limit to the Neapolitan's au- dacity? Kirke, acutely conscious of the girl's heightened colour, frowned savagely at the Ital- ian matchmaker. It had no effect whatever. 172 T R A U M E R E I Tony bent to his oars with a flourish and a grin, adding quite calmly: " 'Tis always well, Eccellenza, to play one against the other. Well do I know! On occa- sion I parade past Peronella's house with Maria Sazzano on my arm. Corpo! she has freckles and weighs as much as a man " Tony shrugged his disgust " but the sight of her with me is a good one for Peronella. It teaches her that I am not to be trifled with ! " He feathered his oars with conspicuous airiness, adding with a deep chuckle, " Eccellenza is wise that he selects a Signorina whose mother is no more. Peronella has a mother with but few teeth, a godless old creature who objects to the rattling of my cart." Kirke speedily forgot the man upon the cliffs. Phil, however, turned and watched the figure of the nobleman silhouetted against the sky. For an instant Count Teodoro calmly watched the re- treating boats ; then with an odd gesture could it have been anger? he flung his cigar into the sea. Phil turned to answer a laughing question of Aunt Emilia's and, when he looked back, to his intense astonishment, Count Teodoro was gone! The American stared incredulously at the re- treating cliffs. Barely an instant had his eyes left the spot. In that brief period, however, all trace of Count Teodoro had vanished. Had the Italian availed himself of that fleeting instant to ON THE CLIFFS 173 hide? Impossible! decided the American. The barren line of cliffs offered no such opportunity unless one descended a series of rude projections to the sea and swam into one of the many caves that honeycombed the coast. A hoarse honk! honk! presently resounded from the north where Riley waited with the Pan- hard. It presaged the end of a pleasant day. Reflecting that Count Teodoro's puzzling disap- pearance was but one of many inexplicable things about him, Phil, in spite of a certain startled in- terest, dismissed the subject with a shrug and sent a sharp halloo ringing across the water to Kiley. CHAPTER XIII THE STORY OP A VIOLIN KIEKE had found Signore Lambert! an in- teresting study, a man full of pride in his ancestors and pride in his native land Italia adorata, as he reverently called it the favour- ite of art and of nature, and the chosen amphi- theatre of history! The old villa abounded in evidences of Italy's creative greatness. Framed copies of its famous paintings, adaptations of sculptured forms and a cherished hoard of photographs which reproduced the best work of many cen- turies, attested a patriotism that was in reality an artistic form of Chauvinism. Pride in country and ancestors, however, pow- erful forces though they were, were as nothing to the old Italian's passionate love of music. He spent hours at the old piano, dreamily play- ing over the melodies within him that sought ex- pression, quite content, when the first reserve had worn away, that Kirke should listen. In the Italian's more impassioned moods, Kirke, watch- ing the deft play of the long, slim fingers, fancied that the player instilled into the harmony that crept out from the old instrument something 174 175 of the fire that burned in his eyes. At such times the American found himself fascinated by the resemblance between the man at the piano and Camillo Lamberti, whose blazing eyes looked down over his violin from the painting upon the wall. There was a touch of the Southern melan- choly in the musician's face at times which van- ished instantly when his interest was aroused. Always then the spark of enthusiasm kindled the fire of youth in his eyes and smoothed away the lines of age about his mouth with a smile whose radiance was irresistible. ' A nature full of fire and passion and tenderness,t shrouded in the dignity of reserve with which pride, tradi- tion, and a long seclusion from the world, had armoured a man who was perhaps too prone to live within himself, content with the solitary ex- altation of his own dreams. His powerful mag- netism won and held first Kirke's friendship and later the deepest respect and affection of his ardent nature. It would have surprised the American not a little had he known that the older man with the experience of his years had been touched by his veneration and, looking be- neath the superficial expression, had found its well spring in a pride and reserve equal to his own, tempered a little, perhaps, by the widely different habits of a life-time. And in their growing intimacy, the opportu- 176 TKAUMEREI nity which Kirke had so anxiously awaited and recoiled from seeking, to learn the story of the Stradivarius, came of its own accord ! Kirke had joined the Italian in the old rose- garden behind the villa and had found him in an unusually thoughtful mood -4- a dreamer in a wilderness of roses. The wind, rustling the bushes, had flaked the grass with drifting col- our, weaving a vivid mosaic of emerald and rose about his feet. The quiet of the warm Sab- bath was broken only by the chapel bell and the chirping of the birds in the orange groves. f Kirke felt the languor of the heat filtering through his veins. Lulled into content by the drowsy calm of the day, he watched the peas- ants trooping by on their way to the lakeside chapel. The peasant women, gaily clad in bright bodices and bits of coral jewellery, gave to the landscape a sensuous appeal of life and colour. To the fancy of the American, strongly caught to-day by the lure of the South, the pic- ture needed but this tranquil rose-garden with its flood of colour and the white-haired Ital- ian in its midst, lying back in his chair and dreamily matching his finger tips, to make it perfect. Impulsively Kirke voiced his hearty apprecia- tion of the charm of the Southern day and the old musician listened with the fire of pride kindling in his eyes. It swiftly faded out, how- H$90j$? ^aBBpteitfsSte^f ,A ^J?) STORY OF A VIOLIN 177 ever, and left him quite as thoughtful as before. Kirke, finding it impossible to rouse him from his reverie, Velapsed again into silence, a priv- ilege born of their sympathy and understanding./ The sound of the chapel organ and the voices of the peasants chanting in worship floated faintly to them with a sudden breeze, and the Italian shifted restlessly and closed his eyes. " There is no music," he said abruptly, " like the strains one can bring from a violin of the old master's making! Signore Bentley, you as a player are interested in violins! Would you like to hear about a very wonderful instrument, an heirloom of my own family? " " I would, indeed ! " The warmth of interest in the American's tone plainly pleased him. He smiled and lay back in his chair, falling presently into a reverie which to Kirke, afire with curiosity, seemed never ending. " You have heard me speak of Camillo Lam- berti, Signore Bentley? " he began at length. " Yes, of course ! He was a musician of the eighteenth century. His picture hangs on the wall behind the piano, painted by his unfortunate brother Niccolo. Tradition says that he had a genius in expressing his emotions on the violin that has never been equalled since ! " What I am about to tell you occurred at the 178 TRAUMEREI zenith of his unique career. He was a tall man, Signore Bentley, with the true Lamberti stamp, the black eyes and brows and the snowy hair which comes to each Lamberti when he passes the half-century mark. It is our way of grow- ing old. So much of life's frost falls upon our hair that there is none left for the eyebrows be- neath. He was very eccentric, this ancestor of mine, with the title of Count inherited from his father. This he ignored entirely, calling him- self by the untitled name of Camillo Lamberti. He spent his life in travelling about from city to city giving violin concerts at which he played nothing but his own compositions. Of the enor- mous proceeds resulting, he gave every soldo to the poor of the city in which the concert had been held, personally supervising the disburse- ment." The Italian paused and coloured faintly. "In those days, my boy," he added with quiet dignity, " the Lambertis had no need to think of money! Camillo travelled the length and breadth of Italy and his name was loved by every Italian. Wherever he went there was relief for the poor and pleasure for the thousands of music lovers who flocked to hear his original melodies. These he published from time to time, founding with the proceeds a school of music in Milan, in which genius could be de- veloped without the aid of money. The institu- tion has long since died out. There have been STORY OF A VIOLIN 179 no more Camillo Lambertis to offer their gen- erous assistance. " He was intensely patriotic, this ancestor of mine, flatly refusing to play before the crowned heads of Europe because they were not Ital- ians! On the other hand, tradition has it that he would stop on his way to a concert to play for any crowd of ragged youngsters who begged for music, often keeping his fashionable audi- ences waiting indefinitely. They were Italians, Signore Bentley, and he would not have dreamt of refusing them. " The painting behind the piano was the cause of a great tragedy in his life which, strangely enough, gave a passionate impetus to his gift. His brother Niccolo, a lad so many years younger than himself that Camillo's deep affec- tion for him bore in it something of the pater- nal, developed as he grew older an unusual tal- ent in art. The brothers met in Florence at the conclusion of the artist's student days. Fired by the picturesque charm of the violinist, Nic- colo painted his picture. He was but twenty- two at the time and the painting was the first, and alas ! the last expression of a gift which was as great in its way as that of his older brother. " The artist proudly exhibited this painting of his brother to a girl who had never seen the original, a girl to whom he had secretly given the best of his life, little foreseeing the tragic 180 TRAUMEREI result. A curious infatuation seized her as she looked upon the vivid contrasts of the painting and in the end she travelled many miles for one glimpse of the man whose burning eyes had looked forth at her from the canvas. The orig- inal she found more than equal to his portrait. Nay, more, the very strains of his violin en- thralled her and a great passion welled up within her for the musician whose melodies thrilled and agitated her. She followed him from town to town until it is not a pretty story, Signore Bentley ! Niccolo Lamberti, with the un- bridled passion of the Italian, shot both her and himself, filling his brother's soul with horror and remorse, although as the artist well knew, he was in no way responsible for the girl's con- duct or the horrible tragedy that had followed. " So the violinist toured about seeking to for- get the boy whose life had gone out in a mad burst of passion, playing here, playing there, wherever fancy led him, sending thrills of ec- stasy through his hearers as his bow struck the strings in a flood of wailing melody, often tell- ing, some said, the story of the dead boy he had so loved and as often passionately rebelling against the fate that had so entangled the threads of three lives. Always he left with the blessings of the town's poor upon his head. So in time, with the grief still fresh in his heart, he arrived in the little town of Cremona where STORY OF A VIOLIN 181 dwelt the master of violin-makers, Antonius Stradivarius. You, of course, have heard of him, Signore Bentley? The whole world knows him! " Whether the tragedy of his life overcame him, I know not, but certainly it is said, no mortal man ever before evoked such music as wailed its way to the hearts of his hearers that night in Cremona. It was a powerful outpour- ing of fire and tenderness that was followed first by a mighty hush and later by the thunderous applause of a multitude rising to their feet with one accord in a passion of excitement. Women sobbed aloud and then, in the very midst of the tumult, a tall, thin man with a fringe of silver hair protruding from beneath a black cap was seen making his way to the front. He was deeply agitated and fiercely brushed away the tears that coursed slowly down his thin cheeks. He approached the violinist and wrung his hand in a grasp of iron. " ' Man, man alive,' he cried in trembling tones, ' it is a wonderful gift God has given you. I am going to make you a violin, a wonderful violin, so wonderful that even you will marvel at its tones.' He turned to the breathless au- dience, ' Wait, wait,' he cried, ' until the world hears the magic music of the violin that An- tonius Stradivarius makes for Camillo Lam- berti.' 182 TRAUMEREI " And again a roar of applause burst from the excited throng. " Two deep red spots glowed upon his thin cheeks; he was in a fever of enthusiasm and hur- ried the violinist away to his shop where they talked far into the night. And so the arrange- ments were made! " In those days, Signore Bentley, the Lam- bertis lived in castles. Camillo lived in the castle overlooking the valley of Beritola, my own home in my earlier years, the castle in which at present dwells Count Teodoro di Gomito." Kirke looked at the Italian in astonishment. " Yes," resumed the musician, quietly meeting his look, " that was my home. To his castle then journeyed Camillo Lamberti and that great master of violin-makers, Antonius Stradivarius, where with his own hands the master gathered wood from the forests behind the castle, gath- ered sycamore for the back and sides, and the finest of pine for the belly and sound-bar, ap- proving the whim of the violinist that his new instrument should be made from the wood of his own forests. It is said that the two men found the dead artist's initials carved on a sycamore tree and that at the sight of it Camillo's face went white. It was the wood of this tree that was used to make the violin. " Back in Cremona, Camillo Lamberti sat every day in the master's workshop, watching the STORY OF A VIOLIN 183 progress of his violin, even fashioning some of the minor parts with his own hands. Eccentric in this, as in everything else, he had a certain plan for the structure of the instrument which the master faithfully executed. The two curves in the centre of the sides were made into panels which opened upon silver hinges by the pressure of a spring. On the inside of one the master in- scribed the name of the owner and the date; on the other his own name and the date of com- pletion, an ingenious contrivance that Stradi- varius alone could have fashioned without inter- fering in any way with the sound. The violin is the Dolphin type and critics have since de- clared that it is by all odds the finest specimen the master ever made. I doubt if there is an- other instrument in the world with such pow- erful singing tones. " Into the varnish, tradition says, the master dropped twenty-two drops of a liquid gold, one for each year of the dead boy's life, and with a sudden whim that the violin was a singing me- morial of his brother's tragic death, fashioned as it was from the tree upon which the boy had carved his initials, Camillo Lamberti dropped as many drops of his own life's blood in the var- nish to mingle with the gold. I have fancied at times that I have caught the glint of each in the curious colour that resulted. " Stradivarius refused to accept any remuner- 184 TRAUMEREI ation. He demanded, instead, the promise that the musician would never touch another violin. The promise was willingly given and kept. As the master finished the instrument, he im- pulsively tore off the white leather apron in which he had worked and wrote his name across it in letters of gold. " ' There ! ' he cried, ' it has known but the touch of the best instrument Antonius Stradi- varius will ever make and it shall know no other ! ' " I have to-day the old soiled apron of white leather and the pint measure with which he gauged the cubic contents. You have doubtless heard that the old Cremona violins were built to contain a certain quantity of wheat or whatever medium the maker chose to use. " Tradition has it that at the death of the great Oamillo his soul was imprisoned in the wonderful instrument he had loved so well and that to-day whoever possesses it, no ill luck can harm him. Nay, more, it is said to bring bless- ings to the lucky owner and inevitable misfor- tune to the loser. And verily, Signore Bentley, there would seem to be some truth in it, for it has come down through the centuries blessing many of my ancestors. It was willed to me at the death of my uncle ten years ago. I I loved it even as the great Camillo himself loved it" STORY OP A VIOLIN 185 "And now?" prompted Kirke slowly. The Italian rose and laid a trembling hand upon the other's shoulder. " Stolen, my boy," he said brokenly, fiercely shaking his white hair back from his forehead, " eight months ago by God knows whom, and God have mercy on the thief ! " The American, fearing the effect of his own story upon the high-strung old fellow who had sank back in his chair and closed his eyes, slipped noiselessly away. It was quite enough, he told himself impetuously, to know that the instru- ment had been stolen and that now it lay secure in his own trunk. True, there were knots in the silver thread that he could not yet unravel, but indifferently he shrugged them all away, his resolve to restore the instrument to Signore Lamberti at once un- shaken. The strange old instrument he had purchased in America had plaintively voiced a brother's mourning; it had been fashioned in fitting me- morial to the boy whose genius had, in a meas- ure, led to his violent death! Yes, there had been something of Niccolo's wild nature in the vivid contrasts of his single painting and Kirke found his story inexpressibly pathetic. The red and gold he had so often caught in the varnish? It had found its explanation in the story of the 186 TEAUMEREI two brothers whose genius had swiftly entangled them in the web of tragedy. Now after a lapse of two centuries an Ameri- can was to add another chapter to the history of the Stradivarius ! Breathlessly Kirke climbed the trail to the Villa Spa Gett bounded up to his room and unlocked his trunk, thrilling at the contact of his fingers with the case that pro- tected Camillo Lamberti's precious violin. Im- patiently he flung the lid back and the case dropped from his hand with a heavy crash. He saw only the worn red satin of the lining. The wonderful Stradivarius was gone! fc H O < O