UC-NRLF 
 
 B 3 BSD E53 
 
 THE 
 
 LAST 
 
 REFUGE 
 
 HENRY B. FULLER 
 
- 
 
{)enrp 33. f tiller 
 
 FROM THE OTHER SIDE. Stories of Trans 
 atlantic Travel. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 THE LAST REFUGE. Crown 8vo, $ 1.50. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 
THE LAST REFUGE 
 
THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 91 Sicilian Romance 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY B. FULLER 
 
 O Semprerinascente, o fiore di tutte le stirpi, 
 Aroma di tutta la terra, 
 
 Italia ! Italia ! 
 
 D Annunzio. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HODGHTON, MIFFLLN AND COMPANY 
 
 1900 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY HENRY B. FULLER. 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE Two ROMES 1 
 
 PART IL 
 LN PURSUIT 36 
 
 PART ni. 
 STILL SOUTHWARD 81 
 
 PART IV. 
 THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 117 
 
 PART V. 
 APPLES OF DISCORD 163 
 
 PART VI. 
 MANCEUVRINGS 204 
 
 PART VII. 
 THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 240 
 
 583755 
 
THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 PART L THE TWO ROMES 
 
 " So, then," said the Freiherr, half gravely, half 
 whimsically, " we understand each other. From 
 this day forth my dependence shall be wholly on 
 you." 
 
 He raised his hand from the travertine balus 
 trade and placed it, with a kind of fond appeal, 
 upon young Bruno s shoulder. " Yes, your eyes 
 shall be my eyes ; your senses shall be my senses. 
 I shall see things as you see them, and feel them 
 as you feel them ; and the world that was so 
 beautiful in my youth shall become beautiful once 
 again." 
 
 Bruno turned his dark eyes upon his new found 
 friend in a glance that was full of good-will, and 
 as full of sympathy as his years would allow. 
 
 " I will do my best for you. But the world is 
 beautiful already, and nowhere more beautiful 
 than here." The young man s glance reverted 
 once more to the panorama spread out beneath 
 them and around them : the winding valley of the 
 
2 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 Tiber, whose encircling hills held aloft the pines 
 and cypresses of many a storied villa; the wide 
 huddle of red-tiled roofs which sheltered the ut 
 most that poor man may do with pen and pencil 
 and chisel ; the noble and graceful sweep of more 
 mountain-chains than one, felt if not indeed actu 
 ally seen ; and the numberless domes that rose 
 everywhere to swell in unison with the expansive 
 masses of cumuli that heaped themselves up in 
 the heavens to catch the last light of the disap 
 pearing sun. 
 
 "Beautiful? I felt it so, too once," said the 
 Freiherr, with a pathetic little moan. "What 
 would I give to feel it so once more ! " 
 
 Rome lay before them the two Romes, rather : 
 the Rome of youth, and the Rome of the immi 
 nent middle years ; and the two pairs of eyes that 
 scanned this impressive volume from the parapet 
 of the Pincian read it in two different lights and 
 toward two different ends. To young Bruno de 
 Brunelli it was a book of novelties and wonders 
 a book that others indeed had read before him, 
 but that still, by some magic process of rejuvena 
 tion, held its pristine freshness all unimpaired. 
 To the Freiherr of Kaltenau it had come to be a 
 volume dingy and dismal and disappointing be 
 yond all others ; dog-eared, thumb-marked by much 
 unworthy handling ; stale, empty, and unprofitable 
 utterly. And as each of them saw Rome, so each 
 of them saw the world. Yet who shall blame you, 
 Rome, if you are one thing when seen for the first 
 
THE TWO ROMES 3 
 
 time at twenty, and another when seen for the 
 second time at forty ? If we may blame you, we 
 may blame the whole wide world as well. The Frei- 
 herr, despite multiplied dissatisfactions and disen- 
 chantments, was not yet ready to blame the world. 
 " It is old, and worn, and very shabby, true," he 
 would say, "but it is not beyond the animating 
 and revivifying influences of youth. The new gen 
 eration comes rolling up in its multitudinous waves 
 against the rocky shelvings of Things as They Are, 
 and flings its tonic spray into our poor parchment- 
 dry faces as we stand peering out disconsolate into 
 vague nothingness upon an unanswering shore. 
 And for me, who shall be forty within a month, 
 what last resort remains? The last of all, as it 
 should seem, must be in youth." 
 
 II 
 
 Theodor Egmont, Freiherr of Kaltenau, for the 
 first time in eighteen years, and for the second 
 time in his life, had left his ancestral seat in the 
 Yorarlberg to descend into Italy. But the years 
 had wrought their difference : the second coming 
 was not like the first. The frank and facile enthu 
 siasms of a youth celebrating his majority were far 
 beyond the reach of a man who was upon the point 
 of completing his fourth decade. Como told him 
 so, and Cremona, and Verona, and Venice, and 
 Florence ; and Koine had made it the plainest of 
 all. No longer did his heart leap up to meet the 
 
4 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 mountains round about Bellagio ; no longer could 
 the rapid swirls of Adige sweep him on in a trans 
 port to other scenes brighter and fairer still. Ven 
 ice was the seamy side of a stage curtain ; Florence 
 was a dusty rug dimmed by the careless tramplings 
 of thousands of ignoble feet. The Freiherr felt all 
 this with a dull and puzzled pain. Something was 
 slipping away from him, and he had no power to 
 reach out and call it back. Something, indeed, 
 had slipped away from him, but back it should 
 and must be brought. The Freiherr gallantly 
 held despair at arm s-length ; "I will make my 
 final stand at Rome," he said. 
 
 This resolution he uttered as he paced, with firm- 
 set jaw and contracted brows, one of the more re 
 mote of those shady and solitary alleys that burrow 
 their alluring way through the greenery of the 
 Cascine at Florence. But the yellow Arno, just 
 beyond, had no message for him ; nor could Monte 
 Morello, looming up vaguely blue through the 
 beeches and lindens, evoke a responsive note. 
 Nature delighted him not, nor man, nor the works 
 of man ; he thought of the churches and galleries 
 with indignation and dread. " What has happened 
 to me?" he asked himself. "I am like a violin 
 string that from mere slackness gives forth no 
 sound. I am like a photographic plate that from 
 exposure has lost its capacity for receiving impres 
 sions." His thoughts went back ruefully to those 
 Venetian photographers who follow old-fashioned 
 methods within the vestibule of St. Mark s, and 
 
THE TWO ROMES 5 
 
 who, on dull days, must needs make an exposure 
 of half an hour to get any result at all. " Per 
 haps, when all s said," he thought, hopefully, 
 " time may be the necessary element. But I have 
 not so many half hours remaining as I once had ; 
 nor am I come to Italy to plant myself for an 
 indefinite period upon one spot. Far better to take 
 my poor dulled self at once to some competent 
 practitioner and be resensitized ! " 
 
 His thoughts roamed back over the past eighteen 
 years, and he could not but acknowledge, at the 
 close of his retrospect, that the life of the Freiherr 
 of Kaltenau had been indeed too free ; too free 
 from ties, from duties, from obligations, from re 
 straints ; too free from guidance, too free from the 
 kindly pressure of any ordering hand. He felt 
 himself to be too like a fluent stream for which no 
 watchful guardian had reared the banks needed to 
 give direction, effect, serviceableness to its course ; 
 on the contrary, he had spread himself out wide, 
 thin, ineffective, in many directions. So far from 
 performing the task of a respectable and self- 
 respecting canal, he was but in too great danger 
 of becoming a mere succession of shallow and stag 
 nant pools. " If I stand still for a single half 
 hour too long," he thought, " the slime will begin 
 to collect upon me. And that " firmly " must 
 not be." 
 
 He felt himself at once too old and too young, 
 too experienced and too inexperienced. He knew 
 some things that he should be only too glad to 
 
6 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 forget, and felt himself too innocent in certain 
 matters that every man of his age should have 
 familiarized himself with. Life had offered him 
 a fair place at her banquet board, but he had 
 ignored the orderly progress of her courses and 
 had tousled her table with an impatient and con 
 scienceless hand. The book of life had been 
 opened wide before him, but he had declined to 
 make the usual advance that leads straight on from 
 chapter to chapter ; the rather had he fluttered the 
 leaves carelessly, glanced at the end before reach 
 ing the middle, and thoroughly thwarted the aims 
 and intentions of the great Author. 
 
 His thought reverted to the city a city of 
 mute Madonnas, and of vacuous altar-screens, and 
 of cypressed hilltops all echoless. " No, there is 
 nothing for me here. I shall go to Rome to-morrow 
 and there make my final stand." 
 
 Ill 
 
 And Rome had betrayed him. A single short 
 week had served to make this cruelly plain. The 
 city that had once rung in resonant unison with 
 his whole being now gave out but the dull and 
 shadowy sound of muted strings. The mighty 
 capital that had been so reverberant in the days 
 of his youth had naught but flatness and hollow- 
 ness for his middle years. The mosaics said, " We 
 have nothing to give to you ; " the fountains said, 
 " We have nothing to sing to you." The obelisks 
 
THE TWO HOMES 7 
 
 pointed rigidly aloft toward empty space ; the 
 catacombs failed even to suggest reflections that 
 might console one for the coming of the inevitable 
 end. " 4 The Scipio s tomb " he began to mur 
 mur one day ; " oh, even ashes were better than 
 absolute nothingness ! " The new Forum puzzled 
 him ; the despoiled villas enraged him ; the carefully 
 edited ruins of the Palatine how far away those 
 blessed Sunday afternoons upon the Septizonium ! 
 filled him with an aching regret. The great 
 Borghese Titian, which had once struck out so full 
 and majestic an orchestral chord, seemed now no 
 more than a simple, commonplace duet between 
 French horns ; while as for the Raphaels of the 
 Farnesina but he had not trusted himself to go 
 and see them. He dragged his feet wearily through 
 street and square and garden ; but ennui yawned 
 at him beneath the Mattel pines, and disappoint 
 ment looked out at him with piteous apology from 
 the eyes of prophets and sibyls. If by any chance 
 he came to the point of actual enjoyment he would 
 be made to feel all too plainly that his enjoyment 
 was merely retrospective. " If this pleases me 
 now," he would say, as he strolled through the 
 Corsini gallery or lingered in the Medici garden, 
 "that is only because it has pleased me before. 
 Enjoyment of enjoyment past ! I am living among 
 shadows, and it is all too soon for that ! " 
 
 Then heartache would peer at him grievously 
 from the twilight dusk gathering under ilex trees, 
 and disgust would cast her clammy mantle across 
 
8 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 his protesting shoulders, and desperation would 
 follow close behind him as he returned rapidly 
 through the darkening streets to his cheerless and 
 solitary lodgings. " Another day gone ; another 
 defeat endured," he would sigh. 
 
 " It is a rout," he finally declared. " I must 
 rally my forces for a final stand. I will fall back 
 upon the citadel itself. If the Pincian cannot save 
 me, I am beyond the reach of aid." 
 
 Upon this promenade, so beautiful, so accessible, 
 so inexhaustible (if used aright), so endeared by 
 association, he planted his standard. The recol 
 lections of a long, full, happy winter, many years 
 before, came flocking to reinforce him. There had 
 been days for galleries and days for churches and 
 days for ruins and days for the Campagna, but 
 every day had been a day for the Pincian. There 
 had been hours for vespers and hours for the 
 bank and hours for social duties, but every hour 
 had been an hour for the Pincian. The band 
 might play or not ; the carriages might circulate 
 or not ; the dawdling crowd might lounge or not ; 
 the robust and magnificent Roman nurses might 
 bring hither their charges or not ; the pallid, bare 
 legged little boys of the fortunati might sail their 
 boats in the great fountain-basin or not ; the spec 
 tacled students of the Collegium Germanicum 
 might carry their red gowns past in solemn pro 
 cession or not ; some pudgy little compatriot, with 
 her plan spread out upon the balustrade of the 
 great terrace s central projection, might be 
 
THE TWO HOMES 9 
 
 thwarted by the approach of nightfall in her so 
 lution of some deep topographical puzzle or not; 
 still the lovely garden, so open, so serene, so sim- 
 pie, so dowered with spacious vistas, was always 
 there, and always radiant with a gracious welcome. 
 
 There was some choice in the matter of ap 
 proach, too, and these opportunities for variation 
 he had elaborated with painstaking care. To-day 
 he would climb the face of the hill from the foun 
 tain in the piazza at its foot mounting aloft, ter 
 race after terrace, past niche and parapet all nobly 
 set with sculptured groups and trophied columns, 
 through steep plantations of cypress and carob 
 and laurel and many other growths whose name- 
 lessness (for him) was more than made good by 
 their grace and fragrance. And the great cupola 
 beyond Tiber would rise as he rose, disentangling 
 itself from meaner monuments as readily as from 
 the simple shrubs that hedged his pathway ; and 
 in the end the city would lie there map-like at his 
 feet, while he and the One Dome were free to lord 
 it jointly over all. 
 
 To-morrow he would gain the garden level at 
 the beginning, and start from the head of the 
 scalone that led up to the two-towered church, and 
 would tread an airy half mile above the housetops. 
 Here, too, there was variety and choice. When 
 the acacia walk gave out, the ilex walk began ; and 
 rampe, terrace, and esplanade ever prompted the 
 contriving of new modes of advance that might 
 tax his ingenuity and satisfy his aesthetic sense. 
 
10 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 Here he had the Dome from the start. Its buoy 
 ancy responded to his ; its dignity answered back 
 his seriousness. Its presence both expanded and 
 ennobled him, and he felt, across the red reach of 
 inexpressive roofs that filled in the valley between 
 them, a high exchange of mutual understanding 
 and respect. On these grave occasions, and on 
 most others, he had been quite alone. Things 
 were often more to him than men, and places 
 more than personalities. He had been capable of 
 almost any height of disinterestedness, of almost 
 any aberration of abstractedness. He had lived in 
 his own little world of ideas, in a fine non-human 
 fashion ; he had seldom felt the need of another s 
 sympathetic participation in his moods, and would 
 have made such a demand with some reluctance 
 and with grave doubt of any satisfactory issue. 
 But now, to-day? A mood had come that should, 
 perhaps, have come before. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Freiherr stood at bay on his Acropolis. 
 His gods and temples were about him, and the 
 enemy were in the full fury of their assault. Al 
 ready he felt his own defeat. Even his divinities 
 seemed to have deserted him. The Dome was 
 turning upon him a leaden, lack-lustre look bereft 
 of all sympathy and understanding ; and the Gar 
 den ah, surely the Garden was as a stranger ! 
 Nothing about it was right; everything about it 
 
THE TWO ROMES 11 
 
 was wrong. Where was its tone, its harmony, its 
 atmosphere ? The band was playing its music 
 was vulgar ; the water-clock was working its 
 activity was trivial ; the children s swings were in 
 movement within a certain secluded inclosure 
 such play was plebeian. The dwarf palms per 
 formed their office but stumpily, and the broken- 
 nosed busts were more broken-nosed than ever. 
 And the holiday throng he saw, at last, in the 
 clear cold light of fact; whether on foot or on 
 wheels, they were the deteriorating inhabitants 
 of a deteriorating capital. In the old days 
 every dowdy dowager in her landau had easily 
 been a duchess, and every dandy lounging against 
 the panel of her carriage door had been an at 
 tache ; his facile fancy had brought together the 
 whole world of diplomacy and aristocracy and had 
 made them hold high revels on that broad graveled 
 eminence. 
 
 And to-day ? To-day any possibility of illusion 
 was past. He knew them all for what they were, 
 and where he did not know he doubted and sus 
 pected and scorned and condemned. He turned 
 his back upon those congested carriages and 
 walked toward the edge of the terrace. This, 
 then, was Rome. The city of his idealizing youth 
 had vanished ; the modern town, with all its draw 
 backs, difficulties, problems, disfigurements, sins 
 of omission and commission, spread gray before 
 him. The goblin of municipal folly rose on one 
 side, and the spectre of parliamentary rascality on 
 
12 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 the other. Sanctity, at the Vatican away, now, 
 with toe kissings and peacock fans and Easter 
 blessings ! had descended into the grimy arena 
 of present-day politics and was heading the rising 
 hosts of an industrial democracy. Majesty, at the 
 Quirinal alas for the gallant day outside Porta 
 Pia ! was smiling and bowing its propitiatory 
 way through bazaars and hospitals from very fear 
 of ceasing to be majesty at all. Gone was the 
 dignity and the poetry of a great day. Gone for 
 him was all hope of joy ; gone the capacity for 
 enjoyment along with his early years. He had 
 made his last stand ; he was defeated, routed. He 
 must give up every idea of pushing further south 
 he was beyond the reach of human help. 
 
 Lamenting over the city, over the bygone years, 
 over the loss of his own susceptibilities and en 
 thusiasms, Theodor von Kaltenau repeated inter 
 nally, with a deep bell-like intonation that seemed 
 to sound the utmost luxury of woe, his final phrase, 
 " Beyond all human help." The observation had 
 cadence, pathos, intensity, and seemed an admir 
 able instrument with which to plumb the abyss of 
 self-pity on whose brink he was luxuriating. But 
 with the third or fourth repetition he became con 
 scious of a flaw. Human help, in fact, was the 
 help, the one help, the only help, that he had not, 
 thus far, invoked at all. He was too honest with 
 himself to gloze this over ; he felt, at once, that a 
 last resort untried, yet fairly promising still 
 remained. 
 
THE TWO ROMES 13 
 
 " I see my way at last," he said. " Human 
 help is exactly the kind of help I need, but a 
 very particular and especial variety of human help. 
 I must bestir myself to find it." 
 
 " It is quite plain," he reflected, as he passed 
 down the face of the hill, " that my own youth is 
 gone, and gone beyond recall. But youth still 
 survives in others and must be made to lend it 
 self to my necessities. I must search for the 
 young heart, for the fresh eye, for the un jaded 
 mind ; for hope, for momentum ; for nerves yet 
 unblunted, for imagination yet untarnished. My 
 search shall begin to-morrow. And if it fails, I 
 return to Kaltenau forthwith. For Sicily were 
 vain." 
 
 Straightway began the Freiherr s quest for the 
 youth who was to repair the ravages of the flying 
 years and work him his redemption. He coursed 
 the town, just as the transported amateur ferrets 
 out the darkest haunts of dealers in curios and 
 antiquities. The theatres knew him, and the fox 
 hunts ; the hotel-keepers and the bankers ; the 
 Forum and every public promenade. Many were 
 called. He considered the tone of this instrument 
 and the timbre of that ; touch, quality, volume, 
 responsiveness all these had to be borne in 
 mind. And finally one was chosen. 
 
 But not until the Freiherr had encountered 
 
14 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 many trials and disappointments. One promising 
 candidate went through the paces satisfactorily 
 enough only to be rejected finally upon the Campi- 
 doglio : he refused to climb the tower of the 
 Capitol. This was decisive for the Freiherr, who, 
 inordinately fond of general views and prospects, 
 insisted that his associate should fully share his 
 taste. " How is Jeremiah to lament over the 
 city," he asked his young companion, " unless he 
 attains a point from which to overlook it? " for 
 he designed his lamentation to be thoroughly 
 comprehensive, and to embrace the ancient city as 
 well as the modern. To this the youth returned a 
 look of uncomprehending inquiry. " He will not 
 do," decided the Freiherr; "he needs to have 
 things explained. His wits are as sluggish as his 
 legs." And the search went on. 
 
 Another candidate the Freiherr first met him 
 at his banker s seemed possessed of a singularly 
 alert and vivacious mind and of a tense-strung 
 nervous organization to which physical fatigue was 
 almost a stranger. But this young man came to 
 grief in the gardens of the Villa Mattei, one of 
 the Freiherr s own sanctuaries : he tweaked the 
 nose of a statue and passed a jest upon it. The 
 Freiherr was inexpressibly outraged. He could 
 endure the whimsical, but could not tolerate the 
 facetious, and he had no mercy for the wrong 
 thing done in the wrong place. True, the statue 
 was of no artistic value, and the offender himself 
 came from a distant land where no statues are ; 
 
THE TWO ROMES 15 
 
 but the offense remained. " Could I endure to 
 journey with an irreverent jester, with an uncivil 
 ized clown ? " the Freiherr demanded within him 
 self. " No." And the search went on. 
 
 A third candidate, one of the Freiherr s own com 
 patriots, was admirable in the galleries ; he had a 
 great fondness for pictures and statues, and was 
 a marvel in the sympathetic and enlightened com 
 ments he passed upon them. But there was one 
 great drawback : he insisted upon an exact observ 
 ance of the luncheon and dinner hour an observ 
 ance that was almost automatic. " This is quite 
 wrong," sighed the Freiherr ; " at his age I never 
 cared when I ate or where I ate or whether I ate 
 at all. What kind of enthusiasm is it that keeps 
 an eye on the clock and a hand on the stomach ? 
 What sort of a companion would this young fellow 
 be on the Campagna or among the Abruzzi ? I 
 dare not commit myself to him." 
 
 Still another youth, a singularly wholesome and 
 ingenuous one, he encountered on the Campagna 
 itself, one morning when the foxhounds met un 
 der the arches of the Aqua Claudia. " Ha ! " 
 said the Freiherr, eternally hopefid, " here is one 
 who has a frank brow and the eyes of innocence 
 indeed! He will have the responsive ring of a 
 fine coin newly minted." But this promising 
 youth, it developed, had brought his own land 
 along with him, and his own land s atmosphere 
 an atmosphere that was a non-conductor of new 
 ideas and an impediment to the passage of fresh 
 
16 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 sensations. " He cannot serve me," said the Frei- 
 herr, with a true regret. 
 
 Many others did the Freiherr pass in review, 
 like an absorbed amateur in the shop of a violin- 
 maker. The instruments flew to his hand, for he 
 was singularly successful in his addresses to 
 younger men. He was gracious ; he could still 
 project himself frankly and unaffectedly ; he 
 could say in effect, or at least convey the impres 
 sion by his manner : " You are almost as old as 
 I ; " and, again : " I am almost as young as you." 
 Then he would weave the two declarations into one 
 and wield them as an irresistible unity by which 
 the disparity of years and experience was almost 
 obliterated. 
 
 The concours went on, but without result. One 
 candidate was bored by the opera. " Heavens ! 
 how could I have so misjudged ! " exclaimed the 
 Freiherr, and dropped the unfortunate at once. 
 Another turned out to be an untamable sportsman. 
 " What ! " cried von Kaltenau, " must I endure 
 the constant popping of the rifle all over Calabria, 
 and have my trail through Sicily marked by the 
 bloody little bodies of larks and hares ? " A third 
 soon declared himself for an inordinate pursuer of 
 pretty faces. "A disturbing element, indeed," 
 pronounced the Freiherr. "I hope, of course, 
 that I can make due allowance for young blood ; " 
 but young blood dropped serious engagements 
 at the rustle of skirts, and was but too like to im 
 peril many a high emprise at the behest of beauty. 
 
THE TWO HOMES 17 
 
 Into this poetical form the Freiherr cast his de 
 cision and dropped the boy forthwith. 
 
 The quest had gone on for nearly a fortnight. 
 " I shall be forty in little more than a week," he 
 moaned. " The case is becoming serious. Where, 
 where shall I turn to grasp a rescuing hand ? One 
 last resort remains : I will go into Society." 
 
 VI 
 
 That evening he went to a ball given at a 
 haughty, high-shouldered old palace in the Corso. 
 A friend at court, a complaisant hostess, and a 
 burnous loaned by an obliging painter all combined 
 to make the move easy. The Freiherr was espe 
 cially pleased with his costume. It seemed of it 
 self to constitute one long step in his advance 
 upon Arabian Sicily. Already his imagination 
 began to play about Saracenic portals and panel- 
 ings and to traffic with the great Frederick at 
 Favara, earliest of cosmopolites. 
 
 The androne rang with sharp hoofs and rever 
 berated with the clatter of pressing carriages. 
 Guests in varied attire climbed the forked arms of 
 the vast staircase. The Freiherr climbed with the 
 rest and found the fete in full swing under the 
 frescoed and stuccoed ceilings of half a dozen great 
 saloons. 
 
 It was a fete like other fetes, he found. He 
 took up his discontented post behind a huge 
 column of giallo antico and meditated upon the 
 
18 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 hollowness of formal social pleasures. It was a 
 company like other companies, he saw. There 
 was the usual number of shy people in striking 
 costumes, and the usual number of serious people 
 in comic ones ; there were just so many ineffectives 
 who could not keep within their parts, and just so 
 many recalcitrants who would not persons, these, 
 who had objected to assuming the costume of any 
 part whatever. There were those who kept up a 
 brave pretense of novelty and of enjoyment, and 
 there were those who had abjectly fallen into frank 
 boredom. To but too many others, as well as to 
 von Kaltenau, all this was plainly a twice-told tale. 
 
 " I shall leave early," he muttered. 
 
 At that very moment a new and striking figure 
 came moving through the crowd. It was that of 
 a young man who pushed his agile way between 
 a Doge and an Egyptian priestess and advanced 
 buoyantly in the costume of Bacchus. A panther 
 skin hung over his shoulder ; a crown of ivy and 
 of grape leaves was set lightly on his dark locks. 
 His sandaled feet carried him over the mosaic pave 
 ment with an elastic grace, and the sweep of his 
 garlanded thyrsus confidently commanded the room 
 that his movements required. There was a care 
 less smile on his lips, a sparkle of frank and enthu 
 siastic enjoyment in his black eyes, an utter yet 
 patrician abandon in his every step and gesture. 
 
 " I must know that boy before this hour to-mor 
 row," the Freiherr declared to himself. 
 
 He heard a sigh at his elbow. An elderly man 
 
THE TWO ROMES 19 
 
 gowned in black stood there beside him and looked 
 at him with a rueful smile. 
 
 " Such audacities are not for us," murmured 
 the dark shade, as his glance followed the pass 
 ing wine-god. " Only the young can work these 
 wonders." 
 
 Von Kaltenau was nettled ; this stranger was 
 ten years his senior, if a day. Was his own dread 
 of the middle years but a mere attitude ? He 
 looked a second time at the indiscreet speaker. 
 
 A grave, gray-haired person with a sad face. 
 Besides his long black gown, he wore a black cap 
 of a formal legal cut. He bore a large wine-stain 
 upon his cheek, and this, with the rest, declared 
 him to be Dottore Balanzoni, of the Venetian 
 comedy of masks. But never were mien and 
 manner less the mien and manner of the come 
 dian. 
 
 The Freiherr felt too much pity to feel offense. 
 " Yes, only the young can work such wonders," 
 he conceded. " Youth is the great magician and 
 should be given full scope to perform its miracles. 
 More, it should be provided with miracles to per 
 form. Ay, and it shall be ! " he added with a 
 touch of passion. 
 
 Young Bacchus went lightly on his way. The 
 eyes of the old lightened, and the eyes of the 
 young flamed save those that drooped before 
 such daring. 
 
 Dottore Balanzoni sighed once more a little 
 breath that was not without its touch of pathos. 
 
20 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " You are unhappy," said von Kaltenati. " You 
 are carrying that within you which were better 
 given vent. Speak out." 
 
 The Freiherr smiled encouragingly upon his 
 elderly companion. In some matters he was at 
 the mercy of his own whims, and he could now 
 and tnen feign such a sympathetic interest in the 
 concerns of others as almost to deceive himself. 
 
 " You ask for the the story of my life ? " 
 questioned the other, guardedly. It was apparent 
 that any reserves existing might easily be re 
 moved. 
 
 " I am not entitled to ask so much," rejoined 
 the Freiherr, quickly. He glanced out past his 
 column and saw over the heads of the motley 
 throng the thyrsus brandished beneath the lustre 
 of the next saloon. " Nor could I wait to hear so 
 much," he added to himself. 
 
 " You would be asking very little," returned 
 the other. " The story of my life is a short one. 
 For I have never lived no, I have never lived 
 at all." 
 
 The speaker paused after the enunciation of 
 this sombre fact to note the effect it produced. 
 
 The Freiherr was indeed surprised. " And yet," 
 he began, perplexedly, pushing back from his tem 
 ples the camel s-hair cords that bound his haik, 
 " you are you are " 
 
 " I am what you see me. I am a professor at 
 home, and I am a professor abroad. I hold a chair 
 in one of the great universities of the North, and 
 
THE TWO HOMES 21 
 
 I bring my poor trade, as you see," his hand 
 brushed his gown as he spoke " even into the 
 halls of pleasure. I was a student from the be 
 ginning, and I have never been anything else." 
 
 The Freiherr bowed gravely. The bacchic pine- 
 cone had vanished, but a shepherdess crook, gilded 
 and beribboned and held aloft over the heads of the 
 crowd, was advancing from the other apartment. 
 Presently the bearer passed a shepherdess ma 
 ture and experienced, but still a shepherdess. 
 
 "You mean " began the Freiherr, looking at 
 the diamond necklace that drooped upon the am 
 ple bosom of this figure a la Watteau, " You 
 mean that " 
 
 " I mean that I am paying the price of pride 
 a pride all too stubborn, ill-judged, and confident. 
 My pride took this form : I resolved early to con 
 duct my life along a plane purely intellectual. 
 My natural disposition made this easy a dis 
 position to find interest in ideas rather than in 
 individuals. I ignored the personal element, and 
 saw life as a mere set of cold abstractions. I 
 thought that I was administering my natural 
 forces, when, in truth, I was curbing them, thwart 
 ing them, numbing them, crushing them. This 
 was a grave error, and I am hoping that I may 
 yet rectify it. That is the purpose of my travels." 
 
 " You are from the North, you say ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and I am journeying toward the South 
 the South, where life had its birth and has reached 
 its best developments. For, as I have told you, I 
 
22 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 have never yet lived. I haughtily suppressed the 
 just desires and the just demands of the physical 
 man ; I fear that I even ignored my natural indebt 
 edness to my own parents." 
 
 " I have lived," murmured the Freiherr, " ir 
 regularly. I was given a good seat at the feast of 
 life, but I was impatient of order and restraint. 
 I snatched here, I nibbled there ; I disordered the 
 table and came away unsatisfied." 
 
 " And I," said the other, " have sat at a bare 
 board all my days." 
 
 " Yes, I have lived," repeated von Kaltenau, 
 looking down at the mosaic garland upon which 
 his red morocco toe was beating. " The book of 
 life opened itself wide before me; but I rum 
 maged it and rumpled it and took it in discon 
 nected snatches " 
 
 " While I," interrupted the other, " have merely 
 looked at its covers." 
 
 " What are you meaning to do ? " 
 
 " I will tell you. I am " 
 
 Young Bacchus came returning through the 
 room. But not alone. His steps were attending 
 those of a tall young girl in white, who moved on 
 with a stately grace, clad in a white peplum bor 
 dered with gold and violet. A Junonian coronet 
 of brilliants sparkled on her black hair, but her 
 face was turned away. The face of the young 
 man, however, was in the fullest view. It had 
 lost the possible shade of haughtiness that it had 
 worn before, and as he eagerly bent forward in 
 
THE TWO HOMES 23 
 
 step with his companion it expressed only bound 
 less admiration and the desire to please a smil 
 ing desire, but a very earnest one. 
 
 " I will tell you," repeated the Doctor out of 
 Goldoni ; and von Kaltenau felt constrained to 
 bring back his wandering attention. 
 
 " There is a city," began Dottore Balanzoni, 
 with some solemnity, " that sits beside the sea. 
 The way is south, then westward over the water. 
 It is the city of the senses. It is girdled by a 
 sweep of rich fields, the green and golden fields 
 of oranges and myrtles. There is a bay bright 
 in the sunlight and nobly tapestried round about 
 with many blue mountains. And every height 
 bears, I am told, some relic whether of temple, 
 church, or castle commemorating those who, in 
 past ages, have sought happiness near this favored 
 spot. And above the last of these mountain 
 heights there should rise one greater than all, a 
 peak crowned at once with snow and with fire. 
 This is the city where wrongs are made right, 
 where errors are condoned and corrected, where 
 omissions and shortcomings are made good, where 
 satisfactions and felicities await the stout-hearted 
 and the determined perhaps even the timid and 
 the piteous will be accorded welcome. This is the 
 city I seek if such there be ; these are the ob 
 jects I would attain if such may there be 
 reached. I have wandered far, and have little 
 time to wander farther. I have endured many 
 disappointments, and could scarcely endure an- 
 
24 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 other. There, if anywhere, fate must be kind; 
 there, if anywhere " 
 
 He paused, with a tremor in his voice and a 
 tear-drop in his eye. The two young Olympians 
 had passed from sight, and the Freiherr again 
 fixed his abashed and perturbed look upon the 
 mosaic garland. 
 
 "Do I see my own future here?" he asked 
 himself. " Never, never, by my life ! Some 
 one, some one, shall save me from such an end ! " 
 
 " There," resumed the other, " there, upon that 
 city, my hopes are centred. For me" he fixed 
 the Freiherr with a tristful glance "it is the 
 Last Refuge." 
 
 The Freiherr mused : " A mountain of snow 
 and of fire, you say ? But may not one find it a 
 mountain of snow and of smoke ? " 
 
 " Smoke ? " repeated the other. " Such may be 
 the case," he acknowledged gravely. " But all 
 that," he added with an uncertain smile, as he 
 lapsed into the dog-Latin proper to his part, "is 
 on the knees of the gods." 
 
 VII 
 
 The guests had begun to leave. Doges more 
 than one had gathered up their trains and sena 
 tors more than one their togas ; the Watteau 
 shepherdess stepped majestically down the great 
 stairway ; and over the topmost balustrade young 
 Bacchus leaned to set the aureole of his adieu 
 
THE TWO ROMES 25 
 
 upon a descending head whose midnight hair was 
 already crowned with stars. 
 
 " The hour is late for an aging person like me," 
 observed the Freiherr; " I will go, too." And he 
 gathered up the folds of his white woolen burnous 
 and took his leave. 
 
 Within the space of time that he had set he met 
 the ivied young divinity of the Palazzo Astrofiain- 
 mante, and had begun to apply his various touch 
 stones to this newest candidate, with the highest 
 hopes for final success. 
 
 Bruno de Brunelli such was the young man s 
 name was a native of Illyrian Zara, and had but 
 lately left his province for the first time. His 
 father had been the cadet of a collateral line of an 
 ancient Italian house whose seat was in the far 
 south, and his mother was the daughter of a Slavic 
 chieftain who, in earlier days, had ruled his little 
 clan settled in one of the valleys under Mount 
 Dormitor, the mighty mass that throws its great 
 shadow alike over the boundaries of Montenegro 
 and of Herzegovina. He had lived the most of 
 his twenty-three years in the old gothic palace at 
 Zara, and now had issued thence to cross the 
 Adriatic and to see the world. 
 
 Youthful, alert, generous, gallant, enthusiastic, 
 whole-hearted, he came into the Freiherr s hands as 
 might have come a shining silver disk. Von Kal- 
 tenau received the offering with a due regard for 
 its value, and propped it on three fingers, and 
 strained a critical ear as he struck its edge again 
 
26 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 and again with the knuckles of his closed hand. 
 The disk rang melodiously and always true. To 
 this young Illyrian everything was new, fresh, 
 vital ; everything was a target for the impetuous 
 rush of his eager senses. Rome shook off its dust, 
 rose from its ashes. The world was reborn or 
 seemed about to be. 
 
 The Freiherr applied all his little tests ; Bruno 
 stood every one of them. Other young men had 
 been indolent, or irreverent, or self-indulgent, or 
 narrow and stolid, or selfishly cruel, or over-sus 
 ceptible. Bruno, thus far, seemed to be none of 
 these. As for the range of his sympathies, that 
 was soon seen to be boundless. He liked ruins 
 a happy day at Ostia showed this. He liked 
 idyllic landscape an enchanting afternoon at 
 Nemi manifested that. He rose buoyantly to 
 Guide s Aurora, making that time-dimmed and all 
 too familiar masterpiece once more resplendent in 
 the Freiherr s eyes ; and he paid such ardent hom 
 age to the Barberini Juno of the Sala Rotonda 
 that neither he nor his companion had eye or 
 thought for the bacchic Antinous in the opposite 
 niche. He liked mediaeval frescoes in underground 
 churches, and carried a willing candle with the rest 
 on one of the open days at San Clemente ; he liked 
 catacombs, and almost vivified the dry bones of 
 S. Agnese Fuori by the poignancy of his interest. 
 He reveled in gardens nothing pleased him 
 more than to lie at ease under the stone pines of 
 the Villa Borghese, or to pat the mossy balustrades 
 
THE TWO ROMES 27 
 
 of the Villa Panfili. This last touch gave the 
 Freiherr immense pleasure. " He does it just as 
 I myself once did it. This is more much more 
 than I have any right to ask ! " 
 
 One point remained unsettled : the young man s 
 religion. The Freiherr took him to high mass at 
 the Lateran. Bruno carried himself with such 
 discretion and participated in the function with 
 such a practised precision that the question was 
 answered. Von Kaltenau, himself palely Lutheran, 
 would have liked from his companion the profes 
 sion of a religion still more rich and alien and 
 exotic. In his private thoughts he united Bruno 
 to the Greek faith, and in his mind s eye he saw 
 the young man at his devotions before a richly 
 gilded Byzantine screen, adoring icons on bended 
 knee and touching a humble forehead to the 
 ground. But he waived the point the picture 
 faded. " I must not expect everything," he ac 
 knowledged ; " I have more now than I could have 
 dared to dream of." 
 
 One final test remained, and the Freiherr, after 
 a few days delay, ventured to apply it. He took 
 Bruno to see an operetta. " If he only behaves 
 as he should " 
 
 Bruno was perfect. He applauded the soprano 
 no more than he applauded the tenor. He en 
 couraged the young women of the chorus in no 
 greater degree than he encouraged the middle-aged 
 men of the orchestra. 
 
 " My last apprehension is laid," declared the 
 
28 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 gratified Freiherr; "no matter of the heart is 
 likely to interfere. Yes, he shall go with me to 
 Sicily." 
 
 VIII 
 
 Von Kaltenau was flooded by a deep sense of 
 gratitude. To this young prodigy, who was brush 
 ing away his cobwebs, airing his musty chambers, 
 and polishing his dingy panes, he felt he owed 
 some act of formal homage. He ransacked the 
 whole Balkan peninsula in his effort to confer 
 upon Bruno some suitable style and title. With 
 the chieftain of the early years of the century in 
 mind, he hailed his latest descendant as voivode, 
 starshina hospodar, titles whose precise value 
 he knew none too well. Possessed of the name 
 of the district over which the stern old chief had 
 held sway, he hailed young Bruno as Glavar of 
 Tzermitna and mentally made prostrations before 
 him. 
 
 Bruno showed neither pleasure nor displeasure 
 at these ascriptions. He took each one of them 
 with a simple seriousness that perplexed the Frei 
 herr and finally nettled him. " What ! " he ex 
 claimed ; " have I found a flaw, after all ? Is the 
 boy vain ? Can he be influenced by mere crude 
 flattery ? Is he not simple enough to bear the 
 pride of lineage with an easier grace? When 
 all s said, can his rank be higher than my own ? " 
 
 Despite this dissatisfaction, he pressed the Sici 
 lian journey. But the point needed no pressing ; 
 
THE TWO ROMES 29 
 
 Bruno s face was already set unmistakably toward 
 the south. " Surely, if we are both going, we 
 should go together," said von Kaltenau to him 
 one day. "Subjects of a common sovereign, to 
 whom we owe a like allegiance, what is fitter than 
 that we should bear each other company ? " 
 
 Though the Freiherr made this advance in his 
 most gracious manner, young Bruno gave him but 
 a doubtful look in response. " Ha ! " thought the 
 Freiherr. " The bond that holds our heterogeneous 
 empire together is none too strong, truly; but I 
 had not looked to find lukewarmness here, least of 
 all disloyalty." And he asked Bruno what he was 
 to understand. 
 
 Bruno gave him a straightforward and unaf 
 fected answer. He did not know where his al 
 legiance was rightly due. He was an Austrian 
 to-day, but he might be an Italian to-morrow. 
 Humors of a Sicilian dukedom in need of an heir 
 had lately reached the Illyrian coast, and to his, 
 the remotest branch of the great house, had come 
 letters of inquiry after a fruitless search in every 
 other quarter. " The succession may have failed," 
 he said ; " or there may be none to fail. It may 
 be a dukedom or it may be less. I may be the 
 heir, or there may be no heir at all. I go south 
 ward to learn what I may." 
 
 His rehabilitation in the Freiherr s eyes was 
 complete, and his personality ten times more inter 
 esting than before. 
 
 " There will be a dukedom for you," cried von 
 
30 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 Kaltenau, " or we will make you one 1 " A pro 
 mise kept to the letter almost. 
 
 As they stood there together in the big central 
 recess of the mid-Pincian s front, young Bruno 
 looked the flower of nobility indeed, and the Frei- 
 herr, close by his side, could not but wish himself 
 a shade less stout and a shade more carefully 
 dressed. The boy s slender elegance was wrapped 
 up in a black frock-coat, the masterpiece of some 
 tailor triumphant ; every gesture was full of an 
 easy, unstudied grace ; and when he saluted some 
 passing carriage his fine dark hair, whose growth 
 was smooth and straight in its beginnings, but 
 rather curly and flaunting at the finish, showed 
 at the back and above the ears the print of his 
 hat as if a fillet (from the antique) had just 
 been removed. But there were few to whom he 
 bowed. " Good," said the Freiherr ; " the fewer 
 he knows, the better." 
 
 All was now agreed upon, and nothing remained 
 but to ratify the pact. " You promise me, then ? " 
 demanded the Freiherr. " Your eyes shall be my 
 eyes ; your senses shall be my senses. And as you 
 have given me a new Eome, so you will give me a 
 new world. You promise?" 
 
 " I promise," replied Bruno. And they struck 
 hands upon it. 
 
 IX 
 
 An instant later, the young man, glancing over 
 his shoulder, had withdrawn his hand, lifted his 
 
THETWOROMES 31 
 
 hat, and made an involuntary start, as if to leave 
 the Freiherr and to cross the fifty-foot stretch of 
 smooth gravel that lay between them and a car 
 riage halted in the shade of an ilex-tree. The 
 Freiherr, looking after Bruno, saw three persons 
 get into the carriage and resume their drive round 
 the ring. Two of them were elderly, and one of 
 them was young. The two elders appeared to be 
 rather severe and difficult ; the male member of 
 the pair, who was carried away with his back 
 toward the coachman and his face toward our two 
 friends, gave Bruno a look of the most sour and 
 discouraging character. Their young companion, 
 a girl beautiful to the most careless eye, looked 
 straight ahead, though her position on the near 
 side of the carriage would have made a salutation 
 easy, and might have been held (even by a youth 
 less eager than Bruno) to make it almost inevitable. 
 
 " Ah ! there she is ! there she is ! " he cried, 
 with a second start, as if the carriage were a prac 
 ticable object of pursuit. 
 
 " Who ? " asked von Kaltenau, severely. 
 
 " Ah ! there is Donna Violante, there is Donna 
 Violante ! " proceeded Bruno, intent rather upon 
 expressing himself than upon replying to his com 
 panion s inquiry. He put his hand stiffly behind 
 his back, as if to make the waving of it impossible. 
 " She saw me, she saw me ! And she will see me 
 when she passes by again ! " He took up a new 
 position, as if in anticipation of the carriage on its 
 next round. " She is one of the Astrofiammanti," 
 
32 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 he went on, in more definite response to the Frei- 
 herr s question ; " a distant cousin one of the re 
 mote Sicilian branch. She is here for a month with 
 her parents curse them ! " he concluded darkly. 
 
 But his frown soon passed. " Tell me, is n t 
 she the most beautiful, the most exquisite creature 
 you ever saw ? " 
 
 " She seemed very pretty and pleasant and 
 tastefully dressed, as nearly as I might judge 
 from a mere glance and a distant one, at that." 
 The Freiherr felt he had said all that civility 
 required, or that appreciation his appreciation 
 
 could justify. 
 
 " Ha ! " cried Bruno, with a vibrant note of 
 indignation. " Can you say no more than that ? 
 Let me tell you, then : she is not pretty ; she is 
 not pleasant unless she wants to be ; she is not 
 tastefully dressed, nor was she ever nor will she 
 ever be save when dressed for what she is, a god 
 dess. Come ! " He caught the Freiherr by the 
 arm, dragging him away from the parapet, and 
 pointing toward the row of stone stumps that set 
 definite bounds to the course for carriages ; " come ; 
 stand with me there, and look again when next she 
 passes. You ask for my eyes ? Take them ! " 
 with a gesture as if to pluck them from his face 
 
 " and let them serve to show you how her lips 
 may smile. My ears ? Take them, and listen 
 should good luck but befriend you to the music 
 of her voice. You shall have my very heart 
 strings, at need, before such a paragon shall go 
 
THE TWO ROMES 33 
 
 unappreciated. You saw her eyes, her profile, her 
 walk, and yet you " 
 
 The Freiherr stopped him. " Oh, this," he 
 moaned to himself, " why, this is worse than my 
 worst imaginings ! " Then, 
 
 "Where did you meet her?" he asked. 
 
 " At the Astrofiammante ball. I first saw her 
 as she was coming up the stairway. Had you but 
 noticed her there ! She had the beauty of a god 
 dess, and the dress, and the carriage, too ! " 
 
 " The dress ? " 
 
 " She wore a Greek peplum ; her black hair was 
 knotted at the nape of her neck ; on her forehead 
 shone a coronet of stars " 
 
 " I remember," said the Freiherr faintly. " I 
 I saw her." 
 
 " You saw her ! And yet you " 
 
 " I saw her back, I mean. And later on I saw 
 the top of her head," the Freiherr acknowledged 
 spiritlessly. 
 
 " Then come ; stand here. And you shall pre 
 sently see her face to face. Look ; there is the 
 carriage now. In a moment more it will make 
 that turn, and " 
 
 The carriage made its turn, but it was a turn in 
 the opposite direction. There was a distant glit 
 ter of spokes and panels, and Donna Violante s 
 parents rolled off the grounds and carried their 
 daughter with them. 
 
34 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " I have his promise," reflected the Freiherr, 
 pondering over the twist affairs had taken ; " but 
 can I expect him to keep it? Will he leave Rome 
 while she is here ? Can I press my interests if his 
 own become as engrossing as they threaten to? 
 And yet must I be disappointed in the end, and 
 reconcile myself to see the labors of a busy month 
 result in nothing ? Pray heaven some further turn 
 of the wheel may come to favor me ! " 
 
 He was under a new dispensation indeed. 
 Bruno, whom he had been seeing every day, now 
 appeared but twice or thrice in the week. The 
 galleries and museums knew him no more ; engage 
 ments that led toward Tivoli or Frascati were 
 broken without compunction. Instead, Bruno 
 haunted the Pincian at the most likely hours ; 
 and strolled up and down the Corso, lounging 
 slowly past the shop-fronts; and often went far 
 out of his way to walk through the Longara, be 
 yond Tiber, where Donna Violante and her par 
 ents were lodged in a dismal old palace. He 
 came to know the quarterings on many carriages, 
 and the favorite shops of the ladies of the aristo 
 cracy, and the physiognomy of the old palace be 
 yond Tiber, down to the last grille and pediment. 
 But his suit made little progress. Frowns doubled, 
 for the mother s were added to the father s, and 
 Donna Violante seemed to have withdrawn or 
 
THE TWO ROMES 35 
 
 to have been withdrawn into complete inacces 
 sibility. But he persisted. One day he passed 
 their carriage in the Corso. The double frown 
 was blacker than ever, but Donna Yiolante con 
 trived to convey a secret signal of encouragement. 
 That night found him beneath her window. He 
 spoke ; she listened and responded. All at once 
 she was pulled away from the window, her light 
 was extinguished, and her blinds were closed. 
 Debarred here, he still persisted elsewhere, and 
 finally his persistence brought its punishment. 
 
 After an absence of three days, he burst, one 
 afternoon, into the Freiherr s apartment. 
 
 " They have carried her off to Naples ! " he 
 cried. 
 
 " Ah ! " thought the Freiherr, " my turn in the 
 wheel has come ! " 
 
 Then he smiled upon the flushed and panting 
 Bruno. " We will leave for Naples to-morrow 
 morning," he said. 
 
PAET II. -IN PURSUIT 
 
 THE hills shifted by, rapidly, regularly, and the 
 hill towns with them. Bruno thrust forth his 
 head to count off the flag-men who came forward, 
 each from his little house, at the completion of 
 every kilometre ; and the Freiherr, throwing back 
 longing glances at Palestrina and Anagni and 
 Ferentino and Frosinone, began to wonder if he 
 had anticipated the full torment of traveling with 
 a young man deep in love. 
 
 He had designed this passage through the valley 
 of Sacco to be an experience as precious as ample 
 leisure and sympathetic interpretation could make 
 it. A trusty vetturino should guide them slowly 
 from town to town, and the illuminative commen 
 taries of Bruno de Brunelli should confirm to 
 him all that his own delays and the lapse of years 
 had jeoparded. Who better could guide him 
 through savage Palestrina, a town founded upon 
 the ruins of a Roman temple, than he whose boy 
 hood had been passed in part at Illyrian Spalato, 
 a town built within the ruins of a Roman palace ? 
 What better commentary upon the immemorial 
 walls of Segni and of Ferentino than that to be 
 
IN PURSUIT 37 
 
 furnished by the fresh eye and avid mind of enthu 
 siastic youth? What better complement to the 
 rugged mountains of the Hernici than the ever- 
 present image of the suave shores of the Adriatic ? 
 Vain hopes! The guide so carefully chosen, so 
 fully depended upon, was propelled by love, 
 straight and swift as from a catapult, toward Par- 
 thenope. Bruno had made it plain that delay 
 could not be heard of, nor let or hindrance en 
 dured. Yet delay came, after all, and hindrance 
 had to be endured with such good grace as he 
 could command. 
 
 At Borgo San Cipriano, about the middle of the 
 afternoon, there was a delay. The delay length 
 ened, and presently the reason for it transpired 
 in the leisurely Italian fashion : the Giglio, under 
 the impetus of heavy rains among the Apennines, 
 had risen between its banks and wrought all havoc 
 possible for so mild-mannered a stream. The 
 bridge just ahead had been weakened to such an 
 extent that the labor of several hours would be 
 required before a crossing could be made in safety. 
 And as for the bridge over the highway, a few 
 hundred yards above, that had been carried away 
 completely ; a half -demolished stone pier stood in 
 mid-stream, and debris crushed impartially the 
 alder bushes of both banks for many a rood. 
 
 Bruno fretted, fumed, raged. But the Freiherr 
 said to himself, " We shall have one delay, at 
 least ! " and he suggested that they get out, put 
 their luggage into safe-keeping and see the town. 
 
38 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 It was evident from the start that Borgo San 
 Cipriano was far removed to-day from its normal 
 state of complete placidity. " And who can won 
 der ? " asked Bruno, energetically ; " with both its 
 bridges down and its people shut off from all the 
 world ! " 
 
 " From half the world," the Freiherr amended 
 mildly. 
 
 " From all the world," repeated Bruno, with a 
 brusque insistency ; " at least so far as I am con 
 cerned." 
 
 But Borgo San Cipriano took its shattered 
 bridges very calmly ; something more important 
 than this double catastrophe was filling the mind 
 of the town. What this something was they first 
 learned from a placard displayed on the front of 
 the town-hall (and subsequently met with at many 
 other points), announcing the performance, on that 
 very evening " Oh ! bless the broken bridge ! " 
 ejaculated the Freiherr the performance, on that 
 very evening, at the new Teatro Comunale, of the 
 great masterpiece of the illustrious maestro the 
 immortal Verdi, entitled, I DUE FOSCARI ! ! 
 
 The pink sheet fluttered in the wind before the 
 Freiherr s dancing eyes, and the big black letters, 
 as they went down the sheet line by line, seemed 
 to grow bigger and blacker and richer in promise. 
 " New scenery, especially painted ; " "a prima 
 donna expressly from Naples ; " " debut of our 
 own new local tenor ; " "a chorus of " an al 
 most fabulous number of voices, from the point of 
 
IN PURSUIT 39 
 
 view of the impassioned impresario ; " an orches 
 tra composed of twenty-two eminent professors " 
 " They are always professors ! " exclaimed the 
 Freiherr, delightedly ; " and always eminent ! " 
 
 He placed his hand upon his young companion s 
 shoulder. " My dear Bruno, it is fate that has 
 guided us hither ; and here, until to-morrow, we 
 must remain. Your bridge will never be repaired 
 on time, and even if it were, I should not dare to 
 cross it in the dark. No, no ; don t frown ! Just 
 think ! I Due Foscari, the one masterpiece of 
 the immortal Verdi that I have never heard. 
 Neither have you, I venture to wager. Now have 
 you?" 
 
 " No," replied Bruno, reluctantly. 
 
 " And just pause to realize what this perform 
 ance means. The whole province is interested 
 it always is. The provincial nobility will come 
 flocking in from Sora and Ferentino and Arpino 
 why, it will be the sight of a lifetime ! " 
 
 " How will they get here ? " asked Bruno, con- 
 tentiously. " The bridges are down." 
 
 " What are bridges," cried the Freiherr, " when 
 an opera is involved ? There are other bridges ; 
 there are boats ; they will get here, somehow. 
 Come, now, my dear fellow ; I have hurried along 
 for you, and now you should linger a little for me. 
 What do you say?" 
 
 " You are right," returned Bruno, after a mo 
 ment s thought. " We will stay." 
 
 This magnanimity was irresistible. 
 
40 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " You are all I thought to find you," cried the 
 Freiherr, gratefully. " We shall not regret the 
 stoppage." 
 
 
 II 
 
 But even "I Due Foscari" and the Giglio s 
 havoc, they presently perceived, did not exhaust 
 the interests now agitating the town ; they soon 
 learned that the assistance of the provincial nobil 
 ity might be augmented by the presence of a con 
 spicuous figure from the great world outside. For, 
 as they continued their stroll through the town, 
 they came upon, in its principal street, a train of 
 coaches and a throng of attendants grouped before 
 the door of the principal inn. A crowd of curious 
 townspeople were collected round one coach larger 
 and more sumptuous than the others, and our two 
 young men, catching sight of a face through the 
 window, perceived at once that they were in the 
 presence of a grande dame upon her progress. 
 
 " Poor lady," said the Freiherr, with ready sym 
 pathy ; " she has been caught by one bridge just 
 as we have been caught by the other." 
 
 The consciousness of common misfortune quickly 
 brushes ceremony aside, and the further conscious 
 ness that one is not wholly unfamiliar with the 
 other s face leads swiftly to speech. 
 
 " Madam," said the Freiherr, pushing through 
 the crowd of gaping countrymen, " it is evident 
 that we are involved in a common catastrophe." 
 
 The lady bowed graciously through the open 
 
IN PURSUIT 41 
 
 window. She looked at him with much direct 
 ness and composure, and met his advances un 
 affectedly and with no loss of time. 
 
 " A catastrophe less serious, perhaps, for me, 
 sir, than for you. For I am now engaged in correct 
 ing the defects of my early training I am sys 
 tematically combating the idea of the importance 
 of time. There is another wagon bridge five 
 miles above, I learn ; but I shall be in no haste 
 to take it." 
 
 "You are traveling as I should have liked to 
 travel," sighed the Freiherr. 
 
 " You pass the night here, then ? " asked Bruno, 
 emboldened on his part, too, by a consciousness of 
 having seen the lady s face before. 
 
 " Yes. My courier and my maids are now in 
 side," she waved her hand backward toward 
 the opposite window and the inn door, " trying 
 to arrange accommodations for me." 
 
 " Your courier ? " repeated von Kaltenau, in 
 voluntarily. 
 
 " Yes. Despite the fact that we seem and 
 indeed, are a large party, I have the company 
 of no men save those whose services are paid for. 
 When I travel, I leave my male relatives at home 
 it is the custom of my country." 
 
 " Ah ! " murmured Bruno. 
 
 " I suppose," the lady went on, " that, in your 
 eyes, I may seem somewhat detached. Yet I am 
 not altogether without domestic ties : I have a 
 husband and three grown sons." 
 
42 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " And they," inquired the Freiherr, " they are 
 at" 
 
 " Yes, they are at home, following their respec 
 tive industries, while their wife and mother pur 
 sues her travels abroad, with the aim of a general 
 expanding and uplifting. Incidentally, I explain 
 the customs of my country and expatiate upon the 
 peculiarities of the national temperament." 
 
 " Most interesting, most unusual ! " murmured 
 Bruno. 
 
 " But you are standing. Pray sit on my car 
 riage-step one of you, at least. The other shall 
 have a chair. Pietro ! Cesare ! will nobody " 
 
 " Never mind, madam," said Bruno, motioning 
 von Kaltenau toward the step ; " I can stand with 
 perfect ease." 
 
 The lady scrutinized the two young men care 
 fully. " I am sure you do not understand me 
 even yet," she said. " But you shall. Drive 
 some of these annoying country-folk away, and 
 then, to beguile the tedium of the hours, I will 
 relate to you the story of my life." 
 
 " That will be charming indeed," declared the 
 Freiherr. 
 
 The crowd now thinned, and the occupant of 
 the coach, abating no jot in her majestic port, be 
 gan her recital. 
 
IN PURSUIT 43 
 
 ni 
 
 "I am a Lady of Quality. 
 
 " Though born in a remote and unimportant 
 quarter of the globe, I was conscious of my quality 
 almost from the start I enjoyed an intuitive 
 sense of it. 
 
 " The town where I first saw the light of day 
 was very new and very small, and not, from any 
 point of view, particularly choice. The popula 
 tion, almost exclusively male, had its peculiarities. 
 Most of the men wore their trousers in their boots 
 and carried their pistols in their trousers. Others 
 wore feathers in their hair, and others still wore 
 their hair itself in queues." 
 
 44 Delightful ! " interjected the Freiherr. 
 
 " I will waste no further words upon my native 
 town," pursued the Lady of Quality. 44 1 soon 
 came to feel it no place for such as I, and at 
 seventeen I left it never to return. 
 
 "I set my face eastward, and having traversed 
 an interval of many hundred miles, I reached a 
 town that represented the best I then knew, and 
 realized the highest ideals I had been able, thus 
 far, to form. But I soon exhausted the educa 
 tional and social possibilities of this frontier com 
 munity, it was really little more, and moved 
 on, still eastward, to a vast city built in a swamp 
 and composed of many towering steel cages. Here 
 I married ; here worldly prosperity first overtook 
 
44 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 me, and here I came to feel still more strongly the 
 stirring of ambition for better things, an ambi 
 tion that has ever been my propelling power, and 
 has, indeed, brought me where you meet me to 
 day. 
 
 " As I say, we prospered there ; we came to own 
 two or three of the steel cages, and own them yet. 
 But mere material success was not enough there 
 are other needs that one must meet and other am 
 bitions that one must gratify. Your seat is com 
 fortable ? " to the Freiherr. 
 
 " Perfectly," he responded. " Pray proceed." 
 
 "Kumors reached me of another city, larger 
 and grander still, that rose a thousand miles east 
 ward upon the borders of the sea, a city where 
 social eminence were worth its cost indeed! I 
 journeyed to that city and took my family with 
 me. They are there now." 
 
 " The husband ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And the three sons ? " 
 
 " Two of them. The third " 
 
 "The third?" 
 
 " He has gone back to my birthplace " 
 
 " Ah, filial devotion ! " 
 
 " which is now quite other than it was " 
 " C est dommage ! " 
 
 " and there he is sole owner of a mountain 
 of gold" 
 
 "Ah, ciel!" 
 
 " which will soon enable his wife to live as I 
 
IN PURSUIT 45 
 
 am living now. But let me move on with my 
 narrative. My eyes had been turned eastward 
 so long that I found it impossible to turn them in 
 any other direction. But, in truth, many of the 
 eyes in this city by the sea had the same slant. 
 We all looked eastward together. We looked 
 across the sea toward the capital of a great em 
 pire, where an aristocracy and a court were in full 
 operation, and where, as it was said, a warm wel 
 come awaited those from my quarter of the world. 
 It was but a matter of five days upon a very com 
 fortable ship, and I took the journey." 
 
 " Alone ? Without your family ? " 
 
 " Without my family. I was outgrowing them 
 and felt that a separation must come sooner or 
 later. It came just here. Do you know London ? " 
 
 " Alas, no," replied the Freiherr. 
 
 " You have lost less than you imagine. I found 
 the aristocracy in trade. Some of them sold wines ; 
 others of them made bonnets. Half of the boxes 
 at the opera were owned by Hebrew bankers and 
 Australian sheep-breeders, and South African dia 
 mond-miners, and wealthy compatriots of my own. 
 I was far from pleased. I saw that London would 
 not do." 
 
 " A most shocking situation," observed Bruno. 
 
 " I heard of Vienna, where a real and exclusive 
 aristocracy was said still to exist. I packed my 
 boxes and I am not wearying you ? " 
 
 " Please go on," begged the Freiherr ; " we have 
 all the time in the world." 
 
46 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " I found Vienna much better. Sixteen quar- 
 terings were none too many, and access to court 
 depended upon something more than the com 
 plaisance of a weak-kneed ambassador." 
 
 " Thank you," said the Freiherr von Kaltenau, 
 impressively. " Your observation is very just." 
 
 " I found the Viennese nobility," she went on 
 carefully, " exclusive enough in point of character, 
 but not remote enough in point of origin. When 
 they told me of Rome, with families going back to 
 the earliest Consuls, I felt that I must make one 
 more move. It is with society just as it is with 
 banks and beliefs and beverages the best is 
 none too good." 
 
 True." 
 
 " Rome received me, and satisfied me. I think 
 the most magnificent entertainment I ever attended 
 in my life " 
 
 " Madam ! " cried the two men together. 
 
 " Gentlemen ! " cried the lady in return. 
 
 " We saw you there ! " 
 
 " And I saw both of you ! " 
 
 " You wore a petticoat of quilted blue satin ! " 
 cried Bruno, glad to appease his heart-hunger by 
 reverting to the ball where he had first seen Donna 
 Violante. 
 
 " And carried a gilded crook tied with a blue 
 satin ribbon," contributed the Freiherr. 
 
 " And wore a diamond necklace of many strands 
 upon " 
 
 " You remember me, indeed. Yes, I appeared 
 
IN PURSUIT 47 
 
 as a mere shepherdess and pray why should not 
 the great be simple? What could be more simple, 
 more primitive, I might say, than my present mode 
 of travel ? What value has time ? What charm 
 has pomp ? I am resolved to reconquer leisure 
 and simplicity together." 
 
 " But Rome," the Freiherr reminded her. 
 
 " The rage for perfection came upon me ; the 
 momentum gathered by long-continued motion was 
 too strong to be withstood. Word came to me of 
 some Sicilian city where a strain older than that 
 of the oldest Roman blood yet lingered ; a city 
 whose palaces reflect the immemorial East upon 
 their fronts and even in their names ; a city that 
 mingles with the strain of the primeval and mys 
 terious Orient the blood of the Norman race that 
 has imposed itself as an aristocracy upon every 
 people with which it has come in contact. This 
 city is my goal. There I shall be satisfied at last. 
 Time is flying, the years are accumulating upon 
 me, the sea begins to set its limitations, the range 
 over which a lone woman may pursue her solitary 
 way with safety has been almost covered; and 
 within this city, if anywhere, my ambitions must 
 be appeased. For me," she ended, with a tone of 
 blended hope and fear, " it is the Last Refuge." 
 
 The two young men bowed gravely in response 
 to this gallant peroration, and the Freiherr recalled 
 the nebulous ideals and ambitions of the grave 
 doctor of laws whom he had encountered upon his 
 first and last incursion into Roman society. 
 
48 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " Ah, madam," he said, " your hopes, too, turn 
 upon the Sicilians. Then there is one here," he 
 continued, gathering Bruno s elbow into his curved 
 palm, " whom you must know better. For this 
 young man is going to meet the Sicilian aristo 
 cracy and to claim a dukedom among them." 
 
 The lady stared at Bruno and her lips moved, 
 but no word came. She rose from her seat, and 
 the Freiherr, guessing her wish to descend, moved 
 from his place. The lady got out and looked at 
 Bruno once more, but still in silence. Then she 
 murmured, "Oh, sir sir" but could go no 
 further. Then she caught her skirts up in both 
 hands and made him a stately courtesy in the dust 
 of the road. 
 
 IV 
 
 An acquaintance so formed could not but con 
 tinue ; in the evening the Lady of Quality accom 
 panied Bruno and the Freiherr to the opera. She 
 announced shyly, on the way to the theatre, that 
 she was expecting to meet in Sicily a niece who 
 had married there into the nobility or, no, not 
 a niece (though the girl had always called her 
 aunt), but, rather, the daughter of one of her 
 oldest friends. This established a still closer rap 
 prochement and did much to add to the general 
 good feeling all round. 
 
 The theatre was a compact little place, done in 
 blue and gold. It was opened to-night for the 
 first time and seemed just come, not so much from 
 
IN PURSUIT 49 
 
 the hands of the builders as from the brain of the 
 architect. Some fifty boxes were disposed in three 
 tiers ; and at the proper moment a lustre set with 
 hundreds of lighted candles was lowered from the 
 dome in the ceiling and made a sensation. The 
 provincial nobility had rallied in a body, attired 
 as seemed fitting in their eyes, and four or five 
 sub-officers, from some minor garrison town near 
 by, came to embellish the pit. 
 
 Our three amateurs secured a box (the last left) 
 in the middle tier, well round toward the stage, 
 and spent a spare five minutes in a survey of the 
 house and of the gathering orchestra. The " pro 
 fessors" included a bullet - headed little boy of 
 fourteen, who was presently to work wonders on 
 the cello ; and a young girl but little older, with 
 her brown hair hanging down her back, sat at the 
 same violin-desk with her grandfather, and moved 
 her bow in unison with his. 
 
 The chorus, when it came, presented equal points 
 of interest. A dozen lusty young fellows made 
 the place ring, with no apparent exertion, and the 
 ladies of the Venetian aristocracy were imperson 
 ated by nine stout, rosy-cheeked young country 
 wenches, who stood stolidly in one stiff, straight 
 row and sang in an unshaded fortissimo through 
 out. 
 
 The Lady of Quality, after a cursory survey of 
 the boxes, determined to subordinate the social 
 interest to the human. She seemed prepared to 
 meet the crudity of things half way, and to be 
 
50 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 willing to enjoy the performers as human beings, 
 if not as artists. 
 
 The tenor, a plump and gentlemanly man of 
 thirty, freshly shaved and pomaded, was the first 
 of the principals to ask the favor of the house. It 
 was easily seen that he had spent some hesitating 
 years in the ranks of the amateurs ; he felt his 
 way carefully through his number, and did neither 
 well nor ill. But a single false note near the end 
 gave his enemies their chance, and three or four 
 voices in different parts of the house mimicked it 
 at once. 
 
 Young Bruno was instantly angry. He had a 
 gallant sense of fair play, and was for springing 
 to his feet and letting the cowards know what he 
 thought of them. This impulsive act charmed the 
 Freiherr, who himself was far beyond all capacity 
 for indignation, and indeed considered that fact to 
 be the gravest symptom of his case. He restrained 
 the young fellow, reminding him that they were 
 now nearing the irrepressible South, where to feel 
 and to utter were one, and hoping, privately, that 
 this reason might be sufficient to excuse the 
 cruelty. 
 
 Bruno docilely accepted the Freiherr s philoso 
 phizing, and grew calm ; but he still kept a stern 
 eye upon a dark young man of twenty-eight or 
 thirty who lounged in the first row of the posti 
 distinti, and whose every action seemed to proclaim 
 him the disgruntled subscriber. He was addition 
 ally conspicuous from being the only man in the 
 
IN PURSUIT 51 
 
 house who wore evening dress, and his audible 
 observations had already begun to accompany the 
 performance like a kind of burden. His burden 
 changed and for the better upon the entrance 
 of the elder Foscari, and the threatened hostilities 
 were deferred. But he still scowled, now and then, 
 at the Freiherr s party, as if inflamed by some 
 special grievance and, indeed, von Kaltenau had 
 cut in and deprived him of the last available box. 
 
 The elder Foscari came on, of course, in the full 
 regalia of the doge. But neither his white beard 
 nor the voluminous garments of crimson velvet and 
 ermine ? yes, ermine, that draped his tall 
 figure, could disguise the fact that he was several 
 years younger than his son, though infinitely more 
 experienced on the stage ; and his heavy voice, too, 
 when he came to sing, was full of the raw fervor 
 of youth. But he found favor in the eyes of the 
 exacting amateur in the front row, who hummed 
 snatches of his air quite audibly a little freedom 
 that came to be rather general as the evening wore 
 on, and as the house entered more deeply into the 
 spirit of the occasion. 
 
 Bruno let him hum ; the truce remained un 
 broken. For the costume of the basso had sent 
 the young man s thoughts back to Rome. This 
 doge made him think of the other doges at that 
 ball, and the ball made him think of Donna Vio- 
 lante, and Donna Yiolante made him think of 
 Naples, and Naples recalled the broken bridge 
 and the delayed journey, and 
 
62 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 But the entrance of the soprano was a call to 
 arms ; Bruno was to break a lance in her behalf. 
 For the important patron in the front row lost all 
 self-control upon the appearance of the prima 
 donna. The rivalries and dissatisfactions and 
 heart-burnings of opposing factions came crop 
 ping out. The local Maecenas so our friends 
 called him, though he was by no means without 
 the metropolitan air twisted about in his place 
 and openly vented groans and even observations 
 more articulate. Bruno sprang to the front of his 
 box to protest and to reply, and the aria went on 
 during an animated colloquy between the two 
 champions on the propriety of the selection of 
 such an opera, on the quality of the execution, 
 and on the treatment due an artist and a woman. 
 The house in general sat passive ; such tilts were 
 to be taken as a matter of course. 
 
 But the soprano really needed no champion. 
 She was strong enough to stand alone a veri 
 table tower of strength. Ignoring all interrup 
 tions, she stood beside the prompter s box and 
 opened her big wide throat and threw out her big 
 coarse arms, and set her foot upon the house. She 
 ignored the prompter, too. With his hands flap 
 ping to either side of his shell, and his voice audi 
 ble to half the audience, he kept a full bar ahead 
 of the text, and was never once overtaken during 
 the evening. But the woman soon made it plain 
 that she, the "prima donna napoletana," she, and 
 none other, was the prop and mainstay of the per- 
 
IN PURSUIT 53 
 
 formance. She went through her part with the 
 remorseless and resistless competence of a buzz- 
 saw going through a log of wood, this was the 
 Freiherr s comparison, drawn from his Tyrolean 
 forests, and she carried the whole troupe with 
 her. Before the end of the first act she was an 
 enthroned favorite, and her chief antagonist was 
 silenced. She rallied the orchestra ; she steadied 
 the male chorus not the female, which stood like 
 the pillars at Pa3stum ; and it became apparent 
 that the " furore " all so ardently desired might 
 easily come to pass. 
 
 In the second act a new group of characters 
 was introduced. This consisted of a heavy table 
 of antique oak and two attendant gothic chairs. 
 They persisted through several scenes, indoor and 
 out ; they figured in the Ducal palace, and in the 
 square before it, and were finally removed from 
 the cast and the stage only by force majeure in 
 the persons of two self-conscious young fellows in 
 green plush knee-breeches and white cotton stock 
 ings. The scenery, too, had shown some uncer 
 tainty sylvan side scenes obtruding into gothic 
 interiors, and the like ; and it seemed merely a 
 question of time w^hen some faux pas greater than 
 any other should bring the action to the verge of 
 the ridiculous. 
 
 This happened at the end of the second act, 
 when the halls of the Foscari were just about to 
 witness the separation of the young husband and 
 wife, and poor Jacopo s going to prison. The 
 
54 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 furore was gathering headway ; the girl and her 
 grandfather were playing with the combined pas 
 sion of age and of youth ; the bullet-headed little 
 boy was shifting his fingers quickly up and down 
 the neck of his cello ; the twenty members of the 
 Venetian aristocracy were singing loudly against 
 each other in two opposing rows ; the soprano had 
 just retired up with the idea of falling into the 
 arms of a pair of ladies of honor two of the 
 stolid nine ; the tenor had just come down to the 
 footlights, with the idea of launching his last high 
 notes at the lustre beneath the dome ; and the fall 
 of the curtain was imminent and obligatory ; when 
 all at once a flimsy drop, rudely caricaturing a 
 well-known Venetian scene, came rustling down to 
 anticipate the separation. The young wife swooned 
 behind the scenes in the great hall of the 
 Palazzo Foscari; while the young husband, far 
 from being carried off to prison, found himself 
 free and more or less alone in the Piazzetta, " fra 
 Marco e Todaro." 
 
 The house might have laughed, but did not. 
 The furore must and should ensue. The pit rose, 
 the boxes acclaimed ; the round-headed little cel 
 list was seen to wipe his forehead, well pleased. 
 The artists appeared and disappeared, and amidst 
 the rising and falling of applause this question 
 began to dawn, Shall there be a repetition ? 
 Some said yes ; others said no ; for a powerful 
 disaffected minority, that had favored another 
 opera and other singers, still had much to forgive. 
 
IN PURSUIT 55 
 
 One faction cried, " Bis ! " Another cried 
 " Basta ! " Finally the solicitous impresario ap 
 peared to learn, if possible, the pleasure of the 
 house. The influential amateur of the front row 
 sprang to his feet and waved his arms and objur 
 gated the quality of the singing and ridiculed the 
 clumsiness of the stage management. Bruno de 
 Brunelli, no whit abashed, leaned far out of his 
 box, crying " Bravo ! " incessantly, with his reso 
 nant young voice, and rallying the boxes against 
 the opposite faction, whose stronghold seemed to 
 be on the lower floor. The sudden and cruel sepa 
 ration of those two young people had touched a 
 tender chord, and he was resolved that if separated 
 they must be, their separation should take place 
 once more, with the element of the ridiculous elim 
 inated. The Lady of Quality supported him 
 bravely. She shone forth in full human ness ; 
 mere gentility slipped from her as a garment. She 
 clapped her plump hands, and waved her plump 
 arms, and cried " Bravo ! " or " Brava ! " every 
 other second. The manager stood beside the 
 prompter s box, puzzled, undecided. . . . 
 
 " We shall meet again, I trust," said the Frei- 
 herr. 
 
 "I shall hope to overtake you," replied the 
 Lady of Quality, as the two handed her into her 
 coach, next morning. 
 
56 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " It was a gallant struggle ! " cried the Freiherr, 
 with an admiring glance at Bruno. 
 
 " It was indeed ! " acquiesced the lady, giving 
 Bruno a like look through the coach window. " If 
 ever I need a champion, young sir, may he be such 
 a one as you ! " 
 
 " That fellow ! " cried the young man tossing 
 his head, " with those shifty eyes and that of 
 fensive black tuft under his moustache ! I should 
 like to meet him again, somewhere ! " a desire 
 that was to be realized, and more than once. 
 
 Noon found our two friends at Naples, and the 
 quest that had been interrupted in the Corso was 
 resumed on the Chiaja. Blue Capri shimmered 
 mistily through the trees of the Villa Nazionale, 
 Vesuvius smoked away in its easy-going fashion, 
 hope shone again in young Bruno s eye, and the 
 abundant and irresponsible sunlight poured itself 
 over the alluring lineaments of the Mother of 
 Corruptions. 
 
 "Nothing in the world is more beautiful!" ex 
 claimed Bruno. The Freiherr knew why it seemed 
 so beautiful, and knew, too, why his young friend 
 had found it so easy to feel and to disclose the 
 beauty of Rome : she was here, as she had been 
 there. 
 
 They advanced to the drive along the sea wall. 
 The middle of the afternoon had come, and the 
 first of the afternoon s carriages had already ap 
 peared. 
 
 " We will take our stand here," said Bruno ; 
 
IN PURSUIT 57 
 
 " all Naples will be passing before us within the 
 hour. If I do not see her here, I shall find means 
 to see her elsewhere," he declared firmly. 
 
 A few feet from them, two men stood together, 
 and yet apart, listening to the slow slapping of 
 the waves against the front of the sea wall, and 
 idle but for that. In age they seemed to be mid 
 way between von Kaltenau and his companion, 
 and their aspect was that of two alien birds of 
 passage, pausing for a moment in the course of an 
 extended flight. 
 
 "I see," said the Freiherr, accosting them 
 without any affectation of formality, for under 
 Bruno s tutelage his interest in his kind was re 
 viving, " that you, like ourselves, are strangers 
 here and perhaps, like us, but just arrived." 
 
 " Precisely," replied the slighter of the two, 
 with a ready vivacity. He flipped his hand across 
 his yellow moustache with a carefully careless ges 
 ture, and made his blue eyes shine a willingness 
 for further conversational commerce. 
 
 " We come from Rome," said the Freiherr. 
 
 " And we," rejoined the other, " come from 
 much further north than Rome. Look at us and 
 think of the gulf of Bothnia." 
 
 " And you mean, perhaps," ventured Bruno, 
 addressing the fourth member of the group, " to 
 go much further south than Naples ? " 
 
 This person composed his uncouth features to 
 a look by no means unfriendly, but made no de 
 finite response. His large hands writhed together 
 
58 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 with some sense of mutual discomfort, and his 
 whole rugged presence conveyed indications of an 
 ethnological remoteness that spread almost to the 
 pole. Though one of the pair was sprightly and 
 the other heavy, though one was loquacious and 
 the other taciturn, there was that in each which 
 proclaimed that neither temperament was in the 
 present enjoyment of satisfaction. 
 
 " Further south ? " repeated the first of the pair. 
 " Precisely so. We are on the way to Sicily." 
 
 "Naples, then," hazarded the Freiherr, "does 
 not give you what you seek." 
 
 " Naples offers a great deal, but has not satis 
 fied our needs. We have heard of a city to the 
 south that is even more beautiful than this a 
 spot where nature is quite as gracious and man 
 not quite so vile. We seek the free expansion of 
 full meridional passion in its most favorable mani 
 festations." 
 
 "Explain yourself," said his companion, seri 
 ously. " We shall be misunderstood." 
 
 " I have no desire to do you any injustice," the 
 Freiherr hastened to say. 
 
 " Let me make plain to you the difficulties of 
 our situation," said he of the blue eyes and blonde 
 beard. His tone claimed a certain period to be 
 devoted to exposition, and his eye seemed to rove 
 about in search of a bench. 
 
 " Over there, by the palm-tree," suggested the 
 Freiherr. They led the way across the carriage- 
 drive, and the other two followed. 
 
IN PURSUIT 59 
 
 "My friend and I," the spokesman began, as 
 the party took places on the bench, " find our 
 bond of association in our very deficiencies, our 
 respective deficiencies, you understand. While we 
 are both artists " 
 
 Bruno looked at the fourth man in some sur 
 prise. " I need to be explained, I know," the un 
 couth creature acknowledged, with a gentle shyness. 
 
 " Yes, we are both artists," the other repeated ; 
 " each in his own way. One of us " he touched 
 his own breast " is an artist in actuality ; the 
 other," with a gesture toward his companion, 
 " only in desire. I am an artist in fact ; my 
 friend is one but in theory. I am a painter ; he 
 is a poet in all save the faculty of expression." 
 
 " A pitiable deficiency," commented the Frei- 
 herr. 
 
 " I have never felt it more than here," said the 
 shaggy person from the far North, as he embroiled 
 his hands with each other once more and sent his 
 helpless gaze roving over the beauties that encom 
 passed them. " In truth, I was born under an 
 evil star. I have never been able this is my 
 whole difficulty to get outside of myself." 
 
 " Ah, to be born with a soul full of thoughts," 
 his friend struck in quickly, as if with some a3s- 
 thetic relish for such a plight, " and yet to live 
 inarticulate ! Think what it means ! It is to be 
 a sharp sword caught tight in a rusty scabbard ! 
 It is to be a windmill whose arms have not been 
 unlocked to the play of the breeze ! It is to be 
 
60 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 caught living, breathing, sentient, in the vise of 
 paralysis, with the brain tirelessly active, but the 
 tongue thickened, the hand incapable of motion ! " 
 
 " But you, I am sure, were not born under the 
 ban of silence," said Bruno ; and indeed the arms 
 of the windmill seemed to have caught the breeze 
 most successfully. 
 
 "No," was the answer, with a fine impersonal 
 smile that showed a full appreciation of the sar 
 casm. " No ; but my plight is fully as deplorable 
 as my friend s, though just the opposite. He can 
 not get outside of himself ; I cannot get inside of 
 myself ! " The speaker paused, with a look that 
 seemed to ask, " What do you think of that, 
 now?" 
 
 " Explain yourself," said the Freiherr. 
 
 " Willingly. As I have said, I am an artist 
 one of some reputation, too. But everything I 
 have done has been quite objective always from 
 the outside. I begin to fear that my gift is a 
 purely physical one the quick eye, the sure 
 hand. For I have never got into myself, nor into 
 my subject. Objectivity, literalism, simple trans 
 cription. And is that enough ? No. We are in 
 a condition of mere detachment, my work and I 
 alike. I look upon myself from without, as upon 
 another being. I keep an impartial hand upon 
 an impersonal pulse. I view my own postures 
 of mind or of body as I might view those of 
 any one else whomsoever. Praise of me or blame 
 of me is no more to me than if bestowed else- 
 
IN PURSUIT 61 
 
 where. Even sarcasm " with a sidelong glance 
 at Bruno "is a matter of pleasure or the re 
 verse only in so far as it is launched with point 
 and effect or no." 
 
 " I am sure " began Bruno, in a tone of 
 apology. 
 
 " What results ? " the orator proceeded, rising 
 from the bench and taking up something of an 
 attitude before the remaining three. " I am in 
 danger of being pronounced second-rate. What 
 must I do ? I see it with perfect clearness ; I 
 must get within. The steam must be inside the 
 boiler, the gas inside the balloon. Does the beast 
 operate the treadmill by standing beside it ? Can 
 Samson bring down the house without getting be 
 neath it? Can the" 
 
 " What are your plans ? " asked the Freiherr, 
 gently but decisively. 
 
 " We are in search of a fuller and freer mani 
 festation of life. We have set our hopes upon the 
 abandon and momentum of the south. There is a 
 city by the Sicilian sea, a city that will mark, we 
 hope or else we must despair the utmost term 
 of our journey. We look there for such a revela 
 tion of beauty and such a dispensation of freedom 
 as shall correct all our temperamental shortcom 
 ings and free us from our respective limitations. 
 We are not too rich, either in time or in money ; 
 we have left our families and friends behind ; we 
 cannot hope for an indefinitely continued propul 
 sion toward our ideal. This city must satisfy us, 
 
62 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 if satisfaction there is to be. We approach it with 
 as much of dread as of hope, for if that fails all 
 fails. To us it is the Last Refuge." 
 
 " Yes," echoed the other, solemnly, " it is the 
 Last Kefuge." 
 
 VI 
 
 The poor fellow looked out with pathetic long 
 ing over the blue sea that was soon to bear him to 
 his ultimate goal and that yet might never receive 
 articulate expression of his delight and of his 
 gratitude. Bruno, no longer mindful of his com 
 panions, began to send a roving eye after the mul 
 tiplying carriages. The intangible predicament 
 of these two Hyperborean pilgrims was trifling in 
 deed when confronted by his own baffled desires. 
 How find her? Whither fly with her? While 
 he burned with thwarted passion they might thaw 
 at their leisure. 
 
 " Nothing, as you may imagine," he presently 
 heard the blue-eyed Northman saying to the Frei- 
 herr, "could have given us higher hopes, no 
 thing could have happened to make us surer that 
 we were upon the right course at last. She came 
 toward us rapidly, half walking, half running 
 we were standing not twenty yards from where you 
 first saw us. She was the most glorious young 
 woman though, in truth, she seemed little more 
 than a girl that I have ever seen. Her long 
 black hair was loosened and blew about in the 
 breeze. Her beautiful dark eyes burned with 
 
IN PURSUIT 63 
 
 what seemed like indignation, and her lips and 
 chin a chin most firmly and exquisitely modelled 
 quivered with a passionate grief. O, daughter 
 of the South ! I was about to cry but could 
 think of no suitable words to follow. Her car 
 riage, as she came hastening toward the water, I 
 have never seen surpassed. Agitated, impassioned, 
 frenzied as she was, she neither walked nor ran 
 whatever I may have said ; she glided the true 
 advance of a goddess. Behind her " 
 
 Bruno turned and fixed his eye upon the 
 speaker. Could there be two women who walked 
 like that? 
 
 " Behind her, at some little distance, lagged an 
 old crone, scuffling, panting, and crying as best 
 she might : 4 My child ! my child ! Stop, stop ! 
 What rash thing would you do ? Stop, if you 
 love me ! It was a rare and exquisite contrast. 
 The situation held all the elements of a perfectly 
 practicable picture. It was merely a question of 
 drawing these elements close enough together." 
 He collected the " elements " by an inward sweep 
 of his two supple hands, and fixed their mass and 
 outline upon an imaginary canvas. 
 
 " What was the girl the woman meaning to 
 do?" asked Bruno, disdaining any pause over a 
 technician s special point of view. 
 
 " She was meaning to cast herself into the sea. 
 She moved resolutely toward the edge of the quay 
 and stood there a moment with extended arms. 
 The background was perfect three shades of 
 
64 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 blue: the deep blue of the water the waves 
 were tossing just enough to give the right angle 
 of reflection ; the light blue of the sky a shade 
 or two lighter, in fact, than report had led us to 
 anticipate ; and the soft veiled blue of the Sorren- 
 tine mountains. The same blues, indeed, that you 
 may observe for yourselves for it all occurred 
 less than half an hour ago, and the sun has moved 
 but little since. The girl herself was dressed in 
 blue the deep, intense, passionate blue that is 
 almost black, the fathomless blue that holds in 
 finite depths in reserve, the blue that may give 
 itself, and give and give, and yet remain the same 
 blue to the end. It was a simple costume, but 
 worn with the most supreme distinction. The 
 poor child was evidently as high-placed as she was 
 unhappy." 
 
 Bruno started, but dared not trust himself to 
 speak. 
 
 "She gave a plaintive and passionate sob. 
 4 Farewell, Sicily ! she said." 
 
 " Sicily ! " gasped Bruno. 
 
 " Farewell, Eome ! " 
 
 " Rome ! " 
 
 " Farewell, Illyria! " 
 
 " Illyria ! " Bruno turned white as a ghost and 
 clutched the Freiherr s arm to hold himself erect. 
 
 " Meanwhile the old woman was scuffling into 
 the picture as fast as she might." The painter 
 hurried her in with one hand and secured his 
 horizon by wielding an imaginary maulstick with 
 
IN PURSUIT 65 
 
 the other. " ; My child ! she cried again ; * for 
 the love of heaven pause where you are ! Vio- 
 lante ! Donna Violante ! " 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed Bruno, with a great roar 
 of grief and rage, as he sprang forward and 
 gripped the other by the throat. " And you, you 
 coward, you futile wretch, you let her die before 
 your eyes ! " 
 
 The painter, half thrown off his feet by this 
 sudden onslaught, and with his throat still in the 
 barbaric grip of Bruno s hands, could express his 
 astonishment and anger only by a wild rolling of 
 the eyes. 
 
 "No," his friend answered for him, in a voice 
 whose sympathetic tremor was shared by all the 
 bulk of his body. " We saved her. We entered 
 the picture, too, and snatched her back in time." 
 
 " And where is she ? Where is my Violante ? " 
 cried Bruno. But the unready tongue was slow 
 in finding a possible answer to this impossible 
 question. " Where is she ? Get out of yourself 
 now, if you never did before ! Come ; speak, 
 speak ! " 
 
 No answer being forthcoming, Bruno, releas 
 ing the painter s throat, bounded forward and 
 threw his hungry fingers toward the poet s. But 
 the hands that had held back one desperate soul 
 were fully equal to holding down another. They 
 took a firm and instant grasp upon Bruno s slender, 
 sinewy wrists, and a pair of grave and comprehend 
 ing eyes looked out from a grotesque concatena- 
 
66 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 tion of features with a calm gaze of commiseration 
 and pardon. 
 
 " Forgive me ! " cried Bruno, with tears in his 
 eyes. " Forgive me ! " he repeated, turning to 
 ward the other, who was trying to settle his de 
 ranged collar and to compose his outraged dignity. 
 The young fellow made a rapid and eloquent re 
 cital of his experiences and his hopes, and the full 
 sympathy of the two artists quickly cancelled all 
 sense of amaze and indignation. 
 
 " She is with her friends," said the painter, giv 
 ing one more gulp. " We freed her knees from 
 the clasp of her duenna s arms and led her away 
 across the garden. She dropped her head upon 
 my shoulder and let me guide her steps. Her 
 hand, her exquisite hand, white, slender, supple, 
 rested in mine. She shook and sobbed and 
 shivered. Oh, Bernard, Bernard ! those were 
 the only words she said. Or was it Bertram ? 
 Or possibly Basil ? " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " cried the Freiherr ; " what she 
 said was : Oh, Bruno, Bruno ! 
 
 " Yes, yes," acquiesced the painter, after a sec 
 ond s thought. " What she said was Bruno, 
 to be sure." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " demanded Bruno, hotly. 
 
 " / am sure," said the poet. " She mentioned 
 the name of Bruno and none other." 
 
 " We found a carriage waiting," proceeded the 
 painter. " The footman opened the door and stood 
 ready to help her in. I will never go back to 
 
IN PURSUIT 67 
 
 them, she murmured over and over again. But 
 the footman and the duenna assisted her to enter, 
 and" 
 
 " Where did they drive her ? " demanded Bruno, 
 with the savage glitter returning to his eye. 
 
 " How can we know ? " 
 
 " / shall know before to-morrow ! " the youth 
 declared. 
 
 The painter gave his cravat a final adjustment. 
 " We are nearing the South, indeed," he mut 
 tered. 
 
 VII 
 
 Theodor von Kaltenau was strolling alone along 
 the Strada Nuova of Posilipo. Naples lay below 
 in the distance, and the familiar features of the 
 Bay, at once scaled down and drawn into a con 
 cordant entity by the loftiness of his point of view, 
 assumed a sympathetic aspect that qualified their 
 grandiose theatricality and made the absence of 
 the interpretive Bruno less hard to bear. 
 
 Bruno was still below in the labyrinthine city, 
 on the third day of his absorbing quest. The Frei- 
 herr, who had accompanied him through the first 
 two, had now withdrawn, considering the dues of 
 friendship fairly paid. Together they had roamed 
 the town : they had called upon all the bankers ; 
 they had visited all the hotels ; they had made 
 their requisition upon the Questura, where the 
 officials, whatever they may have known, gave out 
 no definite information. 
 
68 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 The Freiherr loitered along the winding high 
 way. On one hand, the divine hill of Posilipo rose 
 to still greater heights ; on the other, the grilled 
 gates of villa after villa opened to him glimpses of 
 rocky, shrub-draped gardens rushing precipitously 
 to the sea. 
 
 He felt Bruno s absence. Naples lay idealized, 
 indeed, by virtue of mere distance, but some 
 hearty young organism was still necessary for him 
 if he were to digest the many odious peculiarities 
 of the local life and the many shameful manifesta 
 tions of the local character : some young soul so 
 firmly grounded upon idealism as to regard things 
 ugly, coarse, and vicious not as the rule but as the 
 exception and exceptional still, however multi 
 tudinous. 
 
 He recalled their parting a few hours before. 
 He felt that Bruno, by reason of a certain toss of 
 the head and a certain trick in the slight corru 
 gation of the eyebrows, had shown a little too 
 plainly the arrogance and the querulousness of the 
 wilful and ungracious boy. "But the pace he has 
 chosen will soon enough make him older," thought 
 the Freiherr, indulgently. For the rest, the boy s 
 deportment had been perfect. Never once had he 
 treated the Freiherr with too little respect or 
 with too much. " He has never made me feel the 
 gravity of the middle years; nor, on the other 
 hand, has he facetiously treated me as an old 
 boy. And never once has he called me by my 
 Christian name. He is not fulfilling the function 
 
IN PURSUIT 69 
 
 I designed him to fulfil ; but his wanderings from 
 the course I had chosen are no wider than his 
 years and his temperament can justify." 
 
 Absorbed in his own reflections, the Freiherr 
 moved along, half conscious, or less, of his sur 
 roundings. The sea shimmered, but not for him, 
 and the embowered entrances to successive gar 
 dens shifted by unnoticed. At one stage he saw, 
 without seeing, a young face that looked out upon 
 him, over the tops of a laurel thicket, from a high 
 balcony festooned with full-flowered passion vines. 
 There was a plaintive sorrow on the lips and a 
 look of half recognition in the wide eyes ; and a 
 hand was impulsively thrust forth upon the bal 
 cony rail, as if a voice might instantly follow. But 
 the Freiherr saw all this vaguely, as in a waking 
 dream, and the girlish face disappeared and the 
 odorous silence remained unbroken. 
 
 VIII 
 
 At eleven o clock that same evening, Bruno 
 burst into von Kaltenau s apartment. 
 
 " I have found her I " he cried ; " I have seen 
 her ; I have spoken with her ! " 
 
 "Found her? Where?" 
 
 " In the Galleria Umberto. I had been on my 
 feet all day. I dropped into a chair before one of 
 the cafes from mere exhaustion. As I lifted my 
 vermouth I saw her at a table not three yards 
 away. And they were with her yes, they were 
 
70 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 with her ; I saw their backs enough. They are 
 always with her ; she is watched, shut in, never 
 allowed to take a step alone " 
 
 " Shut in ? The gallery is reasonably public. * 
 
 " At the villa, I mean. Yes, I looked over the 
 top of my glass and our eyes met. She started ; 
 she trembled ; she turned as white as a sheet. 
 They stared at her and looked round to learn the 
 cause; I turned away before they could see my 
 face. She recovered herself, but she seemed so 
 wretched, so pitiable ! Yet there was something 
 in her face that told me they were not to conquer 
 her. 
 
 " I followed them out. I had a word with her 
 unnoticed. I told her that I knew. She 
 trembled again and blushed divinely. I told her 
 that I myself had a will the equal of any other 
 two and that it was to prevail. I shall see her 
 again at the villa, to-morrow." 
 
 " Once more the villa. What villa ? " 
 
 " The Villa Speranza name of good omen ! 
 on Posilipo." 
 
 " On Posilipo," repeated the Freiherr, thought 
 fully. " The Villa Speranza, on Posilipo. Do you 
 know how to find it ? " 
 
 " I shall find it be sure of that." 
 
 " Let me tell you how you will know it." 
 
 " What ! " cried Bruno, sharply. 
 
 " There are two stone pines on either side of 
 the gateway ; there is a laurel-thicket just within ; 
 there is a balcony hung with passion-flowers" 
 
IN PURSUIT 71 
 
 " How do you know all this ? " demanded 
 Bruno. 
 
 " I passed the villa this afternoon. On the 
 balcony was Donna Violante herself, and " 
 
 " And this is friendship ! " cried Bruno, spring 
 ing to his feet and quivering with indignation. 
 " You knew just where she " 
 
 " Yes ; and tell you at the first opportunity." 
 
 " Oh. this is shameful, this is outrageous ! " de 
 clared Bruno in sharp and vibrant tone. " I am 
 being made ridiculous. Always forestalled ! Al 
 ways anticipated ! The lagging lover, always so 
 many hours or so many minutes behind ! One 
 man saves her life, another discovers her retreat ; 
 while I I who should rightfully " 
 
 " My boy, my boy ! " groaned the Freiherr ; 
 " this was to have been a voyage of pleasure ! " 
 Truly, truly the operetta at Rome had been all too 
 slight a test ! 
 
 IX 
 
 " Come," said the Freiherr, as the bells of the 
 town jangled an obstreperous midnight ; " go to 
 your room and get to bed." 
 
 " Do you think I can sleep ? " asked Bruno, 
 disdainfully. 
 
 " / could," ventured von Kaltenau, by way of 
 experiment, " What reply shall I get to that ? " 
 was his thought. " Will he reproach me with my 
 cooling blood, with my accumulating years ? Will 
 he be inconsiderate, impertinent, scornful, cruel ? " 
 
72 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 But Bruno contented himself with a look of 
 uncomprehending wonder, that was worse than all 
 the rest combined, and took himself away. 
 
 Yet not to sleep as well he had foreseen. 
 Scarcely had he closed his eyes before Donna 
 Violante appeared. She wore her peplum and 
 her coronet, and her sandalled feet passed in a slow 
 and stately fashion up the great staircase of the 
 Palazzo Astrofiammante just as when he saw her 
 for the first time. Her hair rippled over her fore 
 head, as at the ball $ or, as on the Pincian, it rolled 
 up voluminously, like that of some emperor s 
 daughter at the Capitol; and her well-cut nose 
 might have been attributed, save for a modern 
 tampering of classical severity, to the same lofty 
 source. She repeated her progress several times, 
 in varying manner: sometimes in the serene un 
 consciousness of ever-triumphant divinity; some 
 times in studious, condescending search of a 
 mere mortal, humble but deserving, who waited 
 behind the coupled columns of breccia at the top. 
 Sometimes her head was turned this way, some 
 times that ; if the latest of her modes seemed suc 
 cessful it was repeated. She slid her exquisite 
 hand over the lustrous surface of the balustrade ; 
 the marble, of delicate, blue -veined cipollino, 
 turned dingy upon the moment. The arm, steal 
 ing forth from her peplum s hem, showed a dim 
 ple in the elbow whose luminous shadow at once 
 lightened and darkened everything in sight. . . . 
 The stairway altered ; it became higher, broader, 
 
IN PURSUIT 73 
 
 more magnificent it was the stairway that filled 
 the heart of some vast and distant palace of ro 
 mance. Donna Violante climbed on, stepping, 
 stepping, yet never reaching the top, and one was 
 with her who walked by her side and made her 
 mistress of all the splendors round them and of 
 all the servants who lined the ascent on either 
 side. The servants were many, too many, they 
 were in the way. They vanished at a masterful 
 wave of the hand and left their betters with full 
 freedom to express their joy in each other and 
 their pleasure in such spacious solitude a deux. 
 
 Half past twelve sounded. Bruno shifted his 
 head to the other pillow. 
 
 The stairway seemed willing to persist ; but 
 Bruno imperiously imposed another alteration, 
 and it suddenly resolved itself into a series of 
 rampes, terraces, niches, and the two were climb 
 ing the face of the Pincian. A glorified vegeta 
 tion, like the accentuated efflorescences of some 
 wondrous botanical garden, clothed the front of 
 the hill ; and after they had reached the top what 
 lay before them was not Rome, but the whole 
 world, rather, with all its powers and principali 
 ties, all its promises and potentialities the world 
 glorified, transfigured, reborn. Donna Violante 
 placed her hand that same exquisite hand ; it 
 never changed upon the balustrade ; but it was 
 too much like a light that, held close before the 
 eyes, hinders rather than helps one s piercing of 
 the darkness. To provide the proper screen for 
 
74 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 his dazzled sight he laid his own brown hand 
 upon it. 
 
 He held it there while he told her what he had 
 come to tell and she had come to hear. He said 
 it in all possible fashions. He said it simply ; he 
 said it elaborately. He said it in this key and 
 that; he said it in the high light of downright 
 bold passion, and he said it in the lower tones of 
 tender, half -veiled insinuation ; he modelled his 
 words into slight and sportive figurines, and he 
 heaped his verbal clay up into the towering forms 
 of the heroic, the colossal. She listened flushed, 
 panting, smiling, tearful, proud, disdainful, yield 
 ing. . . . Then he lifted his hand from hers and 
 disclosed it covered with rings rings sparkling 
 with rubies and sapphires and amethysts. " Why 
 are you here ? " he protested. He snatched them 
 off and flung them over the edge of the hill, and 
 put a ring of his own in their place. Then the 
 plantations behind them suddenly became alive 
 with the friends of both, who trooped forth from 
 under every shrub and tree ; and others dashed 
 up in carriages and sprang out to offer their feli 
 citations. Even the bride s parents showed their 
 hateful parchment faces in the background, but 
 did not venture near enough to beg forgive 
 ness. . . . 
 
 One o clock one one one. " If they 
 would but ring all together and have done with 
 it ! " Bruno exclaimed. 
 
 Yes, Donna Violante was well wedded, but if she 
 
IN PURSUIT 75 
 
 had looked to married life to bring her freedom she 
 was doomed to disappointment. For she was now 
 back on her stairway again. She began in her 
 peplum, but soon discarded it for the half-barbaric 
 costume of the amazonian ancestresses of her hus 
 band. Her black and scarlet petticoat swished 
 against the Astrofiammante marbles, and her dark 
 hair, streaming down her back, was bound by the 
 jingling gold head-dress of the Servian highlands. 
 And on she walked for as long as her liege lord 
 willed and longer. 
 
 There was the cracking of a whip in a street 
 near by, and the loud, indignant bray of some be 
 lated beast. Bruno sprang up with an angry start. 
 " How shameful ! " he cried. " But I shall soon 
 take her away from this odious place." 
 
 He shook up his pillow and sank back upon it. 
 
 Donna Violante was still upon her stairway 
 she might as well have been upon a treadmill. 
 She stepped on and on, and suddenly she slipped 
 and fell fell into the sea. He sprang after her 
 and saved her, he alone ; let no uncouth North 
 man dare to press her head upon his shoulder or 
 feel the touch of that fair hand against his own ! 
 He saved her, and saved her again over and 
 over; and now dripping, now dry, he breathed 
 his devotion and she her gratitude until the bells 
 jangled out once more. Three ? Four ? No ; 
 only two. 
 
 Bruno clamped his hands upon his forehead ; he 
 felt his brain beating in strong pulsations through 
 
76 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 his temples. He sprang up and looked out of the 
 window. The moonlight flooded the silent street ; 
 the moon itself shone full and seemed set in its 
 place as if nailed there. " Move on whenever 
 you like if you can," said Bruno, and returned 
 to bed. 
 
 He now found himself before the entrance to a 
 villa. Two tall pines shaded it, and he adjusted 
 them and readjusted them to a laurel- thicket, and 
 a sudden rocky fall of luxuriant garden-growth to 
 the sea, and a high-set balcony blossoming with 
 the flowers of passion. The balcony appeared 
 now here, now there, under one aspect or another ; 
 and always from the window shone the same fair 
 beckoning hand not wearing a ring, but only 
 awaiting one. He climbed the balcony in some 
 fashion all indeterminate ; pointed again and again 
 to the sea, now shimmering in the sunshine, now 
 rippling in the moonlight ; told of the boat await 
 ing them by the lowest of the garden s rocky ter 
 races. . . . 
 
 Three o clock. Half past three. Four. Donna 
 Violante, clad in her peplum and crowned with 
 stars, was back again upon her stairway. Un 
 ceasingly, indefatigably, at the behest of her im 
 passioned and self-absorbed lover, did she walk all 
 night the great scalone of Palazzo Astrofiammante, 
 and only ceased when he, tired out from very sym 
 pathy, fell asleep just as daylight dawned and gave 
 her respite. 
 
IN PURSUIT 77 
 
 " I have seen her again ! " cried Bruno, bound 
 ing in upon the Freiherr, at twilight the next 
 afternoon. 
 
 44 And all is well ? " 
 
 " All except her parents. She loves me 
 utterly," he added, with great simplicity. 
 
 He had found the villa readily enough, and had 
 put the trees, the shrubs, and the balcony into de 
 finite relations ; and Violante herself had slipped 
 down to admit him and had led him to a shady 
 nook on one of the rocky ledges, where bay and 
 wistaria combined to exclude the suspicious eyes 
 of the house and the teasing twinkle from the 
 rippling face of the sea. 
 
 " And to think that that glorious creature is the 
 daughter of such such I refuse to believe it ! " 
 the young man cried. " She is a niece, a ward, a 
 changeling ; she was adopted ; or some good fairy 
 at her birth must have put forth all her powers to 
 cancel the curse of heredity ! I asked her why 
 her parents hated me, what they had to bring 
 against me . . ." 
 
 44 What, indeed ? " said the Freiherr. 44 1 my 
 self can think of nothing." 
 
 44 4 They don t know me, I said ; 4 they have 
 barely seen me am I a monster ? Why won t 
 they give me a chance to speak and tell them what 
 I am and what I have in mind ? 
 
78 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " 4 They have no more against you, she said, 
 than against another against every other, save 
 one. 
 
 " Save one ? What one ? 
 
 " One whom they mean me for. 
 
 " Tell me his name. 
 
 " He is Prince Malevento, of this city. 
 
 " You care for him ? 
 
 " I ? You should have seen her eyes ! 
 
 " He cares for you ? 
 
 " Hardly more than I for him. 
 
 " What is your father s motive ? 
 
 " The Prince is a grand seigneur, and a man 
 of wealth. His estates lie scattered from here 
 half way to Rome : past Aversa, Teano, as far 
 as Borgo San Cipriano. " 
 
 " San Cipriano ! " exclaimed the Freiherr. 
 
 " You may well cry, San Cipriano ! " returned 
 Bruno. " Listen. Is he in Naples now ? I asked. 
 
 " I do not know. He was when they brought 
 me here. She felt who would not? the 
 mortification, the disgrace. 
 
 " And did he see you in Rome ? 
 
 " No. He could make the first half of the 
 journey from Naples, but not the last half ; he 
 could not get beyond his estate at Borgo San Ci 
 priano. But I could be brought here. 
 
 " San Cipriano ! " exclaimed the Freiherr 
 again. 
 
 " Listen. 4 Describe him to me, I said. Is he 
 tall or short ? 
 
IN PURSUIT 79 
 
 " 4 He is none too tall. He has square shoul 
 ders. 
 
 " 4 And is he dark ? 
 
 " Dark, with a dark moustache, and a tuft be 
 neath his lower lip. I see you understand. Yes, 
 she described him perfectly that insolent fellow 
 in the front row at the opera. I disliked him the 
 moment I saw him I see plainly enough why, 
 now. He is a grand seigneur, is he, with great 
 estates ? But let us see if his estates are greater 
 than mine, or will serve him better in the end ! " 
 
 Bruno inflated a determined chest with the 
 vague hopes and expectations that were leading 
 him southward. Von Kaltenau smiled ; a man 
 who seemed to care so little could make but small 
 headway against one who cared so much. 
 
 XI 
 
 Bruno had slipped out through the gate of the 
 Villa Speranza as dexterously as he had slipped 
 in, but the eyes that could not detect him in the 
 wistaria bower caught him between the pines. All 
 ignorant of this, he returned to the city, and the 
 next day he proposed to the Freiherr, out of his 
 abounding happiness and out of a consciousness, 
 perhaps, that his friend had enjoyed of late but 
 little of his company, an excursion across the Bay. 
 They returned from Sorrento at sunset. As their 
 little vaporetto was approaching the port, a larger 
 steamer, pointed straight for the open sea, passed 
 
80 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 within less than a hundred yards. Bruno, idly 
 scanning the passengers that leaned over the rail 
 and looked down upon his own craft, suddenly 
 saw one face he knew. It was that of Donna Vio- 
 lante, fixed firmly and sadly on the receding city. 
 
 Bruno caught at a passing deck-hand. " What 
 steamer is that ? " 
 
 " The steamer for Messina, signore." 
 
 Bruno faced about and threw upon the Freiherr 
 a look of anger, exasperation, and rage. " We 
 follow to-morrow ! " he said. 
 
 The Freiherr sighed. He was becoming a mere 
 subordinate; his plans were as plans that had 
 never been. He bowed in silence. 
 
PART III. STILL SOUTHWARD 
 
 I 
 
 BRUNO left Naples next day for Messina, in 
 accordance with his declared intention. Yiolante 
 had looked back yesterday over the stern of the 
 steamer ; Bruno looked ahead to-day over the bow. 
 The Freiherr, standing at the end of the Imniaco- 
 latella, strained his eyes in vain for a farewell 
 glimpse of him. 
 
 Yon Kaltenau had declined to keep up any 
 longer the pace set by the rushing eagerness of 
 Bruno. His own objects were still before him in 
 the fullest definiteness ; but Donna Violante, with 
 whom he had never spoken, and whom he had 
 barely seen, did not yet possess a completely es 
 tablished identity in his mind. This was to come 
 later. 
 
 44 Go with me by land, and give me a few days 
 in Apulia, on the way," the Freiherr had said. 
 
 " What do you think I am made of? " demanded 
 Bruno, and steamed away forthwith, alone. They 
 agreed to meet again at Messina. 
 
 Von Kaltenau, having lost the Cyclopean anti 
 quities between Rome and Naples, was doubly 
 determined not to lose the Romanesque cathedrals 
 
82 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 lately resurrected in the far southeastern pro 
 vinces. It was in this forbidding district, truth to 
 tell, that he had designed putting Bruno to the 
 final test before they should leave the mainland 
 and take ship together for their ultimate goal. 
 " I should have tested his digestion at those 
 wretched inns," said the Freiherr, " and his stamina 
 in the chars-a-bancs that jolt over those fearful 
 roads, and his patience with the swarming beggars 
 that everywhere abound, and his appreciation of 
 architecture, as well as his ability to rouse my 
 own, before the churches of Trani and Troja and 
 Bitonto and Altamura. But now I must undergo 
 the experience alone and trust to my own unillu- 
 minative eye." 
 
 But before he ventured upon this exacting ex 
 pedition he paused to perform one very significant 
 office for his absent young friend. Though Bruno s 
 specific function was now in suspension, the Frei 
 herr was determined that it should be resumed, a 
 little later on, with more effect than ever. " What 
 I see and feel will depend upon what he sees and 
 feels. If I look for warmth I must feed the fur 
 nace. The warmth I look for will surely not come 
 from a balked love, nor from a mind inflamed by 
 disappointment. If he is disappointed in one di 
 rection he must be satisfied in another. If love fails 
 to quicken his nature so as to meet my require 
 ments, then something else shall : earthly grand 
 eurs, material splendors the pride of life, in short. 
 That dukedom, whether it exists or not, shall be." 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 83 
 
 Before leaving Naples he bethought himself of 
 a Sicilian friend, to whom he wrote explaining the 
 situation and its needs. The Marchese Capoaineno 
 was a man whom he had met during his first Ro 
 man sojourn, and who, gallantly braving the ter 
 rors of the Alpine passes some years later, had 
 spent a tonic August at Kaltenau. An irregular 
 correspondence one of many lapses and resump 
 tions had been carried on through the succeed 
 ing years, and now the Freiherr took it up once 
 more. " Filippo," he said, " will serve my turn 
 perfectly. Not only is he a man of wit, but 
 what is remarkable in the Latin a man of 
 humor, too. I shall put it all into his hands." 
 
 The Freiherr wrote a full statement of the situ 
 ation, nor did he spare emphasis on his own pecul 
 iar plight. " We expect," he wrote, " a dukedom 
 one of some magnitude, and with estates wide 
 enough to maintain the proper degree of pomp. 
 Palaces, villas, pleasances, spectacles, fetes, troops 
 of servitors nothing of that kind can come amiss. 
 Our own dukedom may be found to exist, or not 
 to exist ; it may meet our ideals, or it may not 
 a few weeks will perhaps tell us. But in the pro 
 visional dukedom I require for filling up the inter 
 val, there must be no flaw, no shortcoming. I 
 know your resources ; employ them." 
 
84: THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 II 
 
 The Freiherr now disappeared from human 
 cognizance he buried himself among his Apu- 
 lian cathedrals. Rose-windows occupied him, and 
 lion portals, and tombs, and anibones, and cande 
 labra, but roused him to no great enthusiasm. 
 He found that, shifting for himself, he fared but 
 indifferently : he might as well have repeated the 
 conventional northern tour Parma, Reggio, Mo- 
 dena, and the rest and have stopped at that. 
 Even the f a$ade of Altamura a physiognomy 
 almost human* in its sympathetic sweetness and its 
 irregular play of expression left him unwarmed, 
 while Bitonto no, nothing occurred at Bitonto 
 to raise his spirits. 
 
 Bitonto s church, like the others, has its rose- 
 window, and its ancient bronze doors flanked by 
 column-bearing lions ; and it has, moreover, its 
 own little flagged foreyard set off from the larger 
 piazza by a tiny balustrade, quaint, massy, and 
 altogether unexpected. The larger space flanking 
 the church has a towering column reared in honor 
 of the Madonna, and a range of marble seats after 
 the chaste and severe model of the best Greek 
 days. The Freiherr lounged upon one of these 
 seats, while the sacristan climbed a long ladder to 
 scour the Madonna and her attendant cherubs ; 
 and a bustling traffic in pottery jars and vases 
 whose forms showed the perdurable traditions of 
 Magna Gracia went on about him. 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 85 
 
 "While the Freiherr was seated thus upon his 
 white slab, a figure dressed in black issued from 
 the cathedral, crossed the inclosure before it, and 
 came picking a careful way through the litter of 
 earthenware that incumbered the paving-stones of 
 the square. The figure was that of a woman, and 
 she carried herself, despite the obstacles in her 
 way, with a certain accentuated distinction that 
 suggested the tragedy queen of other days. She 
 was unmistakably a stranger to the place the 
 only person of consideration that the Freiherr had 
 yet encountered there ; her aspect and carriage 
 alike indicated her intimate alliance with a larger 
 and wider world, a world all alien to the remote 
 provincial preoccupations of Apulia. 
 
 " I will accost her," the Freiherr decided ; he was 
 growing perceptibly human. " She has a speaking 
 eye, and she may possess a speaking tongue as well." 
 
 The woman advanced. Her age seemed to be 
 about his, and her expression was that of one long 
 accustomed to stand by her own strength, and to 
 meet the world on its own hard terms. Her black 
 hair threw a sombre shadow upon her temples, and 
 the look of grave intentness she cast upon the only 
 signorial person within her range of vision but 
 strengthened his determination to speak. 
 
 Madam," said the Freiherr, rising, "I am a 
 stranger here ; and you, I judge, are another. We 
 two, I venture to say, are the only strangers in the 
 entire district. That fact should suffice to place 
 us upon common ground." 
 
86 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 The lady showed no reluctance to reply. " You 
 are right," she said, in a voice like the tolling of a 
 deep-toned bell ; " I am a stranger here. More, 
 I am a stranger everywhere." 
 
 "Ha! " cried the Freiherr within himself ; " she 
 is willing to speak. And she has something to tell." 
 Already a feeling had come over him such as fol 
 lows when the footlights sink to the merest glim 
 mer and a great tragedienne takes the centre of 
 the stage to deliver her tirade. 
 
 " Not to be at home here," replied the Freiherr, 
 " is no great deprivation ; and I hope there is no 
 third stranger whose fondness for mediaeval monu 
 ments has plunged him into the discomforts that 
 Apulia requires us to endure. But to be a stran 
 ger everywhere " He paused interrogatively. 
 
 " I cannot claim to share your interest in medi 
 aeval monuments," the lady replied. " The inter 
 est that has brought me here is of a very different 
 nature." 
 
 " Ha ! " cried the Freiherr to himself once more ; 
 " she must speak ; she cannot but speak. Pre 
 sently she will tell me everything." 
 
 The sacristan went on rubbing his cherubs. The 
 pottery market continued its course about them, 
 with the shuffling of many feet, the babble of 
 many tongues, the jostling and crushing of the 
 rude wares upon the blue slabs of the pavement. 
 
 "May I venture to offer you the half of my 
 bench? "asked the Freiherr. "This piazza is a 
 salon, if we can but bring ourselves to view it so 
 and the only one available." 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 87 
 
 " I thank you for your courtesy," replied the 
 lady, with a carefully modulated inflection and a 
 sweeping gesture of an approved and familiar 
 type. She seated herself as does one who feels 
 conscious of the united gaze of many eyes. " A 
 courtesy as grateful as unexpected. Even civility, 
 I find, is no longer to be counted upon of a surety. 
 And yet there were times when I had more, much 
 more, as a mere matter of course." 
 
 " It pains me," said the Freiherr, " that civility 
 should come to any woman as a surprise." 
 
 " I fear you know the world less well than I. 
 For I have lived lived." She bent her beetling 
 brows upon the pavement, and clasped tensely the 
 hands lying in her lap. 
 
 The Freiherr passed over this belittling assump 
 tion. "You have lived, you say. Do you wish 
 to tell me the story of your life ? " he inquired 
 gravely, and sat all eyes and ears. He could not 
 hush the house, a crash and a scream of expostu 
 lation came from the other end of the market 
 place, but he could give his own best attention ; 
 the life experiences of others seemed to be almost 
 becoming his daily food. 
 
 " The story of my life ? You know it already. 
 Everybody knows it save the end." 
 
 " The end ? " repeated the Freiherr. " But that 
 has not been reached." 
 
 " Reached and overpassed. I have survived 
 myself." 
 
 " When did that happen ? " 
 
88 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " Six months ago. I made a grave mistake, 
 and ended my life then and there." 
 
 " The story of your life ! " cried the Freiherr. 
 " I beg ! I insist ! " 
 
 " You know it already, I tell you." She paused 
 impressively, then gave the yet regal look of an 
 abdicated queen. " I am Monna Clotilde," she 
 said. 
 
 But this illuminating declaration left the Frei 
 herr totally in the dark. His mental state was 
 too plain for disguise, and the lady stared at him 
 with a surprise at once mournful and indignant. 
 
 " And you do not remember me ? " she cried in 
 reproach. " Ah ! what, then, is fame ? I have 
 survived, it seems, not only myself but even my 
 memory ! " 
 
 "Madam," said the Freiherr, regretfully, "do 
 not gauge worldly fame by such a poor measure as 
 you find in me. But do not believe that, having 
 once seen you, I could forget." 
 
 " What am I to understand ? " she asked. " That 
 you have never heard of me at all ? Why, under 
 the name of Monna Clotilde I became famous to 
 the whole world ! " 
 
 " Ah," said the Freiherr, " I am one, I fear, 
 who has been in the world but little. I have my 
 snowy pastures, my chalets, my pine-trees ; and 
 among them I have spent too much time, perhaps, 
 heedless of greater concerns." 
 
 Monna Clotilde, as she called herself, became 
 somewhat appeased and looked him over with a 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 89 
 
 slow and critical eye. " You are, indeed, sadly 
 uninformed," she at last said ; " but I do not be 
 lieve you to be lacking in real discrimination. I 
 think I might perhaps trust you with my story." 
 
 The Freiherr, who was too fond, possibly, of 
 assuming a world-weary attitude, was rather piqued 
 that this woman, coolly and masterfully taking the 
 upper hand, should set him so quickly and so de 
 cidedly in the ranks of the inexperienced ; but he 
 hid his umbrage and replied : 
 
 " Give it to me, by all means. You are far from 
 the first to do so. I promise you my best atten 
 tion." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Monna Clotilde half rose from her bench and 
 then sank back again in a slightly different pose 
 a manoauvre that seemed necessary to mark the 
 formal entry into a new stage of her performance. 
 And in the first brief silence that overtook the 
 busy mart all round them, she entered with her 
 bell-like voice upon her recital. 
 
 " As I have already acknowledged," she began, 
 " I committed a grave error and I have paid for 
 it. The error I made was to take a revenge. But 
 not immediately upon the offense, nor, indeed, till 
 many years after. For opportunity failed during 
 more than one of my most vindictive moods ; pity 
 sometimes exercised its sway ; and now and then 
 there would return the hope that everything might 
 yet come to be as it had been before. But through 
 
90 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 these many years I could still say to myself, My 
 day will come ; meanwhile, there is always some 
 thing ahead something to look forward to ; in 
 terest in life will never fail so long as he lives and 
 so long as I may strike whenever it shall please 
 me.* This thought, this purpose, became, however 
 little I realized it, the very axis of my existence ; 
 it was this though I discovered it too late 
 that gave my life unity, object, direction. It drew 
 together the wretched remnants of my days, just 
 as the magnet lays loose bits of iron in order along 
 some central line." 
 
 " I can well understand your position," said the 
 Freiherr. 
 
 " At last, in a moment of wounded and infuriate 
 pride, I did what could be done but once : I let 
 him die I made him die I killed him, if you 
 like. No one knows that I did it ; no one knows 
 how I did it. For none could have guessed, and 
 none has ever been told." 
 
 " How did you do it ? " asked the Freiherr, 
 boldly. He saw the opportunity to gain the upper 
 band in turn he knew the woman spoke because 
 she must. 
 
 " I did it by a means he taught me, a means 
 that was suggested to me by one of his own dramas 
 my sole indebtedness to him. As for the rest, 
 he owed all to me a thousand times more than I 
 to him. I took his plays and gave them body and 
 substance ; yes, he was a dramatist, though a man 
 of great family and immense fortune. His talent 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 91 
 
 was wayward and fugitive, but I steadied it, I 
 expanded it, I administered both it and him. I 
 taught him stage-craft and strengthened his art. 
 I carried his plays abroad and made him triumph 
 in the great capitals of the world. As a boy he 
 was a prodigy of precocity, of innate pagan vicious- 
 ness, and he always remained a soul naked yet 
 unashamed more, incapable of shame. I was 
 cautioned ; I was warned. But I was no more 
 able to withstand his fascinations than others have 
 been able to since. He accompanied me every 
 where ; he was as much in public view as I myself ; 
 we triumphed together. I made his Monna Clo- 
 tilde a familiar name far and wide ; and yet and 
 yet The day came when he spoke the word of 
 parting ; it was sudden, it was brutal. He stood 
 in the public street and threw his old gloves away 
 and drew on a new pair. That was the end of my 
 career ; nothing reconciled me to the idea of living 
 longer but the thought of my revenge " 
 
 " How did you take it ? " asked von Kaltenau, 
 again. 
 
 " By a means he taught me," she repeated. 
 "One of his dramas showed a child whose life 
 was an embarrassment and a reproach. It stood 
 between a man and a woman, and gave no happi 
 ness to either. The child must die. The measures 
 taken were passive, not active ; for there are sins 
 of omission as well as of commission. There are 
 times when one may work one s will by simply 
 staying one s hand, and yet deny all guilt. The 
 
92 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 child was ill. It lay near an open window. The 
 weather changed with the changing hours. Close 
 the window, and the child lives ; leave it alone, 
 and the child dies." 
 
 " And you ? " asked the Freiherr, with the per 
 sistence of a confirmed reader. 
 
 " I shall not tell you what I did, or what I left 
 undone. Imagine me, if you like, as a feigned 
 nurse who withheld the draught. See him, if you 
 will, as a drowning man, struggling for the life 
 that I, with a cry, with a step, might have pre 
 served. Fancy him caught, if you choose, by the 
 accidental closing of some great barred door and 
 starving there because the only one who knew his 
 plight let well enough alone. Believe what you 
 please ; I shall not tell you more." 
 
 " I am glad to have heard as much. To lighten, 
 thus, by speech, the load of your remorse " 
 
 " Kemorse ? " she cried, lifting her tragic stare 
 from the paving-stones. " Regret, endless regret, 
 if you like, for my own precipitate folly ; but re 
 morse never ! Regret for the feeble means that 
 I employed, when others who should know them 
 all, if not I ? were at my hand : poison, the 
 dagger " 
 
 " What was his name ? " demanded the Freiherr. 
 
 Monna Clotilde looked at him long. The longer 
 she looked the further removed did he seem, to 
 both of them, from her world and her tragedy. 
 " I think I may tell you," she said at last. " He 
 was the Prince of Malevento." 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 93 
 
 IV 
 
 " What ! " cried the Freiherr. " The Prince 
 of Malevento ! " 
 
 " You know the name ? " cried Monna Clotilde 
 in turn. " You know the new Prince, his brother ? " 
 
 " I have seen him once. The world is small, 
 and I am nearer to it, after all, than either of us 
 fancied. Why are you here ? " he asked swiftly. 
 
 "Do not ask why. There is no longer any 
 * why in such an objectless existence as mine. 
 We are but ten miles from Bari, their family 
 seat," she added. 
 
 " What are you going to do here ? Take a 
 further vengeance ? " 
 
 "Willingly, if I might. But most of all I 
 have wandered south to find, if possible, a new 
 object in life, a new interest an interest that 
 will help me unify my remaining days." 
 
 "In other words," commented the Freiherr, with 
 a touch of gothic quaintness, "you are searching 
 for a new backbone." 
 
 "Express it in those terms, if you like. My 
 hope," she went on, " is this : To find some tender 
 young soul that I may guide through the thorny 
 paths of this world ; to open a pair of innocent 
 eyes upon the manifold iniquities of human life ; 
 to show some confiding heart the infidelity, even 
 the treachery of the beloved and trusted object ; 
 to see a beautiful nature disintegrate and degener- 
 
94 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 ate, not indeed through any fault of mine, but 
 from a perception of the inherent viciousness and 
 hatefulness of the world itself. On such lines as 
 these, my ruined life, I feel sure, would unify it 
 self once more." 
 
 " Woman, woman," cried the Freiherr, " you do 
 not mean what you say ! " 
 
 " With this object in view," went on Monna 
 Clotilde, relentlessly, "I have come southward, 
 where hearts are warmest, where hopes are high 
 est, where the blood courses most freely, where 
 the deed follows most quicky upon the thought. 
 I search day after day for some sweet young girl, 
 
 as I loiter on the promenade or linger within 
 the church-door ; and in such a nature, once found, 
 I find my own Last Kefuge." 
 
 " Woman, woman," cried the Freiherr again, 
 " you cannot realize what words you utter ! " 
 
 " And if by chance," pursued Monna Clotilde, 
 inexorably, " the girl should be an affianced bride, 
 
 if fate should favor me so far as to grant me 
 that she be the promised wife of young Male- 
 vento " 
 
 "Hush! hush!" 
 
 " who alone has profited by my rash deed, 
 and who may therefore justly stand the punishment 
 I pl an __ 
 
 " Stop, stop ! " 
 
 " then I shall be well content ! " Monna 
 Clotilde, with an air of tragic bravado, rose, drew 
 her black mantle about her, and strode away. 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 95 
 
 " Ah, well," thought the Freiherr, as he sat 
 there and reconsidered this scene and its presen 
 tation ; " her efforts may be checked or they 
 may be guided; let it be as the unfolding of 
 events shall require." 
 
 Meanwhile no news of Bruno reached von Kal- 
 tenau ; nor, considering the nature of the circum 
 stances, could anything of the kind be looked for. 
 The Freiherr must content himself with the final 
 picture of Bruno putting off from the Immacola- 
 tella and with the hurried words of uncertainty 
 and apprehension that accompanied his departure. 
 
 44 How am I to know who went with her ? Who 
 is to assure me that Malevento did not cross on 
 the same ship ? What is there to show that Mes 
 sina is their real destination ? And then the sea, 
 the sea itself ! if it can call to her from the 
 shore, may it not call to her still more loudly from 
 the steamer s deck?" 
 
 " Never mind the sea. You have only the word 
 of those two men complete strangers." 
 
 Bruno s look of protest quite abashed the Frei 
 herr ; he was made to feel that he had called into 
 question the true-heartedness of the beloved ob 
 ject, and her boundless capacity for rapturous 
 self-immolation. 
 
 44 You can hardly be sure, of course, that any 
 such action as they described ever took place," he 
 insisted, on the defensive. He made it plain that 
 
96 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 a delicate-minded lover would still leave some 
 margin of reserve. 
 
 Bruno flushed. " I I " he began. But 
 the last moment of possible delay was over, and 
 he pressed ahead with his f ellow- voyagers ; and 
 the Freiherr, left behind with his own thoughts, 
 could only surmise that the exchange of confi 
 dences within the wistaria bower had been without 
 any reserves whatever. 
 
 Not that he was able or disposed to con 
 jure up a vivid picture of the brief stolen meeting 
 in the villa grounds, with all its ingenuous ardor, 
 its unrestrained interchange of sentiments and 
 confessions. For Bruno s desultory courtship had 
 not even yet assumed in his mind the shape and 
 substance of a solid fact ; while Donna Violante, 
 the creature of two or three brief and hurried half- 
 glances and of a few bits of report and hearsay, 
 had hardly conquered for herself the distinct iden 
 tity of an actual personality. This was to come 
 later. 
 
 Donna Violante, in fact, had done more for him 
 than he for her. She had observed him on the 
 Pincian, however little she may have seemed to 
 see, and she had recognized him on Posilipo, 
 and had become enough interested to ask some 
 questions about him. 
 
 "He is a splendid man," said Bruno, in re 
 sponse. "Rather quiet and earnest and sedate, 
 perhaps, but still a " 
 
 " I like men of that type," she declared. " A 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 97 
 
 strong, steady man, who makes little stir and yet 
 gives you the feeling that he may be depended 
 upon, must be a great comfort." 
 
 " You do not like me, then ? " asked Bruno, 
 quickly piqued. " You would have me quiet and 
 sedate. You would have me moon and mope. 
 Very well, then ; give me twenty years." 
 
 " Forty would not be enough," replied Yiolante, 
 smiling. " Meanwhile, I ask for no change." 
 
 " And as far as being depended upon is con 
 cerned," Bruno rushed along, " let me tell you 
 that he has to depend as well as another, and that 
 his dependence is wholly on me ! " 
 
 " On you ? That seems improbable. Mine may 
 be on you, perhaps, but not his." 
 
 " You disparage me ! You ridicule me ! Yet 
 I have shown him a new world, all the same. But 
 if I could only reveal to him such a world as you 
 have revealed to me ! " he cried. 
 
 "/might doit." 
 
 "No," he cried again, catching her by her 
 wrists. " No, you shall not say that ! You shall 
 not think of such a thing ! " 
 
 " Foolish boy ! " murmured Violante, giving her 
 lips along with her wrists. 
 
 Meanwhile the Freiherr, with his interests and 
 sympathies minimized by distance, solitude, tem 
 perament, and the absence of any interpretive aids, 
 went on with his journey, finding little to his taste 
 in things, and little more in persons. 
 
THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 VI 
 
 Bari, even as the ancestral seat to adopt the 
 expression of the tragic woman at Bitonto the 
 ancestral seat of the Maleventi, had no interest 
 for the Freiherr ; it was only his point of depar 
 ture for Taranto. On the brief journey between 
 these two towns a flight from the Adriatic Sea 
 to the Ionian his sole companion was a young 
 man of expansive nature and voluble speech, who 
 began to talk at the start and talked indefatigably 
 till the finish. He was a writer this transpired 
 without loss of time and his principal concern 
 was the portrayal of his contemporaries in works 
 of fiction. 
 
 " I have succeeded," he said ; " I have estab 
 lished myself, and have position, recognition, a 
 following. But my position is only about so high ; 
 my recognition not completely general ; my follow 
 ing, to confess the truth, rather limited. I ask 
 myself why. I have almost found the answer. 
 My participation in life has been, after all, but 
 partial. I have always felt a slight reluctance 
 about committing myself a touch of dread about 
 letting myself go. I have lived, in fact, by the 
 seashore without ever venturing into the water. 
 Others have gone in before my eyes, and I have 
 recorded, to the best of my endeavor, the exhilara 
 tions they appeared to feel, the dangers they ap 
 peared to brave. But as soon as the waves have 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 99 
 
 stolen up to my own toes, I have always stepped 
 back upon the dry sands." 
 
 " There are other elements besides water," ob 
 served the Freiherr. " The sea hath its pearls, 
 true ; but no less has the land its diamonds. I 
 myself have not often ventured into the surf, at 
 least of late years, but all the same " 
 
 " All the same, you have found your diar 
 mond?" 
 
 The Freiherr returned no categorical answer. 
 " And there is fire burn your fingers with that. 
 And there is air. None of the elements can lead 
 one into more promising difficulties and into more 
 profitable dangers than air, as it slips through the 
 vocal chords of the human throat. A little whiff 
 of air, rightly directed, may compass all the weal 
 or woe that our poor flesh is capable of enduring." 
 
 "But my fancy," insisted the other, " has always 
 turned to the sea the sea we have just left at 
 Bari." 
 
 " And the sea that we shall presently regain at 
 Taranto." 
 
 " I have always wished that it might steal up to 
 me with its myriad fingers and drag me out, de 
 spite myself, to an exploration of its depths and 
 dangers. Time and again I have hoped it might 
 rush up the beach in one great wave, overwhelming 
 me, hurrying me out, tossing me, buffeting me, de 
 stroying me at need, this wonderful sea of life ! " 
 
 " I take the ordinary precautions," said the 
 Freiherr, dryly ; " the life line, the life preserver." 
 
100 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " And what I long for most of all," went on the 
 other, with increasing volubility, " is free partici 
 pation (as a subordinate, perhaps) in some heart- 
 drama warm with human passion. To be not a 
 looker-on, but an actual actor. To have my finger 
 on the pulse of intrigue, to feel the heart-beats of 
 hate and hope and despair. Then, I am sure, 
 would my work at last be all it should be, my 
 position the highest, my recognition universal, my 
 following like the sands of yes, like the sands 
 of the sea ! " 
 
 " That aim has brought you here ? " 
 
 " Yes, if I have wandered so far afield it is for 
 this very purpose to find a group of ardent, pas 
 sionate souls racked by doubts, disappointments, 
 rivalries, jealousies to look on, to participate 
 through sympathy, to record with exactness " 
 
 " Are you crossing over to Sicily ? " asked the 
 Freiherr. He thought of his young friends who 
 had already hastened thither and of the various 
 minds observing, inquiring, interpreting that 
 were moving in the same direction. The possible 
 anguish of the persons principally concerned in 
 these potential complications might be assuaged in 
 part by the general richness of the commentary. 
 
 " Yes. And Sicily will put a term to my 
 travels. There, if anywhere, my aspirations must 
 be satisfied. For me it is the dernier ressort, 
 the"- 
 
 "The Last Kefuge," von Kaltenau supplied 
 automatically. 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 101 
 
 " Yes, the Last Refuge. I hasten to the catas 
 trophe, hoped for but still uncertain, unknown. 
 At all costs I must be in at the death." 
 
 " You feel like that ? " asked the Freiherr. " I 
 should feel like an intruder." 
 
 " One must intrude. One must gather his data. 
 If I am to divine the inner labyrinth I must at 
 least have the outer indications ; if I am to portray 
 the workings of the inmost nature I must not be 
 denied the closest study of unrestricted play of 
 feature. The tribute due from nature and from 
 the modesty of nature must be exacted " 
 
 " I understand. The modesty of nature must 
 be ruthlessly overstepped if professional necessi 
 ties require it. But what I am thinking of is the 
 tribute of modesty due to nature, the universal 
 freemasonry that should cooperate to cloak chari 
 tably the nakedness of the poor creature taken 
 unaware. I myself try always to have but a dull 
 eye and a deaf ear for any one caught in the open 
 by a great emotional crisis such a crisis as sets 
 self-mastery beyond reach and puts concealment 
 quite out of the question. Even at the theatre I 
 often find myself wishing for the revival of the 
 Greek masks " 
 
 " You will never make a novelist in the world ! " 
 
 "I have always suspected that," observed the 
 Freiherr, dryly. 
 
102" TITfr LAST REFUGE 
 
 VII 
 
 Von Kaltenau had been drawn to Taranto by 
 the magic of the name and by the recollection 
 of a silvery steel engraving that had hung for 
 years beneath a pair of chamois horns in the great 
 hall at home. The place justified his expecta 
 tions ; he became almost enthusiastic, even without 
 aid, over the storied old town perched there, be 
 tween its two harbors and in its later guise of 
 massy castle and towered cathedral, upon the an 
 cient acropolis of Taras. The narrow streets, the 
 white houses with flat roofs, the Greek jargon of 
 the sailors in back lanes all these were like a 
 foretaste of the East. He looked in at the arsenal, 
 and sailed through the oyster beds of the inner 
 harbor, and visited one or two gardens of an 
 Oriental luxuriance on the mainland. 
 
 " I can rise to this," he said, " unaided." 
 
 As he strolled along past the balconied palaces 
 of the sea promenade relics of the Spanish vice 
 roys and surveyed the capes and islands that 
 shut in the greater harbor from the still greater 
 gulf without, and cast an anticipatory eye over 
 the Calabrian mountains past which to-morrow s 
 journey would lead him, an elderly person of slow 
 walk and lugubrious mien came toward him. 
 
 " He intends to accost me," thought the Frei- 
 herr. " Let me speak first and know the worst." 
 
 He stepped forward quickly. " Sir," he said, 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 103 
 
 "your mind is troubled. Speak out, and speak 
 freely. Tell me, if you choose, the story of your 
 life." 
 
 The other bowed gravely, in recognition of so 
 sympathetic an approach. " What is of concern 
 is not so much the story of my life," he began, 
 thus tracing the first line of another drawing in 
 the Freiherr s collection of Portraits of Travel, 
 44 as the condition under which my life has been 
 lived. I am a Just Man, but not a happy one." 
 
 44 That was my impression," said the Freiherr. 
 
 44 1 have spent the whole of my life actuated by 
 a feeling for exact justice. I have lived all my 
 days in the fullest rectitude. I have never taken 
 an unfair advantage of any one ; I have never 
 knowingly done any one an injury. Yet I have 
 never been happy myself, nor have I ever made 
 anybody else happy. No one cares for me ; no 
 one really likes me." 
 
 44 What of it ? " inquired the Freiherr. " There 
 is nothing greatly attractive in mere exact justice. 
 I myself have lived a fairly correct life, but I have 
 not always had the fortune to make myself well 
 liked." 
 
 44 But, on the other hand, I have met so many 
 rogues who could please without an effort, so many 
 fascinating rascals who receive a glad welcome 
 where my own studied conscientiousness has 
 gained no response whatever. What is the rea 
 son ? I have scoured the world to find it." 
 
 44 And have got no light ? " 
 
104 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " None whatever as yet." 
 
 " That is discouraging, is it not ? " 
 
 " I am not sure. I have often felt my situation 
 to resemble that of the Indian devotee who sits 
 meditating year after year upon one sole matter. 
 Time passes ; the years roll up ; the darkness of 
 doubt still encompasses all; and no appreciable 
 advance is to be observed. At last a certain point 
 is reached. Light comes, and it comes all at once 
 there is a plenary revelation. The darkness 
 flies, and in the flooding brightness the meaning 
 of all things is manifest and the comprehension of 
 all things is complete." 
 
 "Do not wait," said von Kaltenau. "I have 
 the light you look for and will share it with you. 
 If it displease you to have your question answered 
 by a man younger than you, then let me say this 
 same answer came to me yesterday from a man 
 still younger than I. The softened impact of two 
 successive stages may serve to " 
 
 " I am listening," said the other, with the do 
 cility of complete dejection. 
 
 " You are a recluse, I observe," the Freiherr 
 began ; " your bent back shows it, and your color 
 less face. You have never participated ; you have 
 never taken a hand. Am I right ? " 
 
 " Quite so." 
 
 " The principal point, I take it, is neither to be 
 just nor the reverse. The principal point is to be 
 a good human being, regardless of mere consid 
 erations of justice or even of morality. Let the 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 105 
 
 human sap flow ; let the blood course. Strive for 
 warmth, for unction, and much will be forgiven, 
 even the errors committed and the discomforts 
 inflicted by a rigid sense of mere justice. I speak 
 as a theorizer, upon hearsay : I am enough like 
 you to understand you." 
 
 " I thank you," replied the Just Man. " I shall 
 enter upon my Sicilian journey with a more con 
 tented mind." 
 
 " You are crossing over to Sicily ? " asked the 
 Freiherr, dubiously. 
 
 " Yes. And in that new field, with your kind 
 observations held to heart, I shall hope to work 
 the change that may make the world a happier 
 place to me and myself a happier man in it. I 
 must, indeed, or there is no further hope left. For 
 me this is the Last " 
 
 "I know, I know," interrupted the Freiherr, 
 hastily. " But too many are already travelling 
 the road you are about to take. At its end you 
 will find nothing that you cannot find here, or even 
 whence you set out. Turn back ; turn back. Learn 
 to smile before you travel at least before you 
 travel in Sicily." 
 
 VIII 
 
 Metapontum survives in a few fragmental tem 
 ples scattered widely over a half -tilled country-side, 
 in a few farmhouses rudely reared among the saf 
 fron-fields out of massive blocks pilfered from the 
 ancient walls, in rows of violated tombs, and in 
 
106 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 traces of a harbor long choked with sand. The 
 Freiherr, engaging a peasant and his horse, de 
 voted a lowering afternoon to the all but vanished 
 city of Pythagoras. 
 
 Seated amidst the most remote of all the ruins 
 was an old, old man. There was nobility in his 
 long white beard, and in the brooding eyes he 
 lifted from the temple pavement upon the sound 
 of approaching steps. 
 
 He rose, as if to welcome another stranger to 
 Metapontum s ruined and deserted fanes ; he 
 seemed to feel that some bond of sympathy must 
 exist between two men who could come so far to 
 see so little. " What will be the burden of this 
 new plaint, I wonder?" thought von Kaltenau. 
 "Whatever it is, I can bear it; for the farther 
 I go the older do people seem to become, and I 
 myself the younger and stronger by comparison ! " 
 
 The old man had come as far as many others, 
 and had seen as much by the way. His journey 
 had wearied him, and he was glad to rest the load 
 of his years and his disappointments upon younger 
 shoulders. The Freiherr felt, with emotions curi 
 ously contradictory, that he was looked upon as a 
 mere boy. 
 
 In fact, the old man mused aloud before him, 
 almost as if in the presence of some careless and 
 uncomprehending child. " I have seen many men 
 and many cities, but there is one more city that I 
 must see before I die. Genoa I have seen, Ge- 
 nova la Superba, as they call it. And Kome I 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 107 
 
 have seen, Roma la Santa, as all the world 
 names it. And other cities I have seen : la Ricca, 
 la Dotta, 1 Industriosa, and many more. But let 
 la Superba pass I am now too world-worn for 
 pride ; and la Santa as well since, old as I am, 
 I do not yearn for sanctity. Away, too, with la 
 Ricca riches are nothing to me. And away 
 with la Dotta learning is but a mockery, a bur 
 den. And away with 1 Industriosa, for the ener 
 gies of the workaday world I left behind me years 
 ago. But there is one thing I long for as hungrily 
 as ever." He looked up pathetically at the younger 
 man standing before him. " Let them all pass 
 la Ricca, la Dotta, la Santa, la Superba ; but vouch 
 safe me at least a glimpse of la Felice, the City of 
 Happiness." 
 
 " The Last Refuge," said the Freiherr, softly. 
 
 " The Last Refuge," softly repeated the other. 
 
 IX 
 
 The Freiherr, speeding along the Calabrian 
 coast, on his way toward Reggio and the straits 
 of Messina, devoted the long hours of a threaten 
 ing day to a consideration of the new cast that the 
 progress of events had put upon his journey. He 
 had begun with an exclusive interest in things ; 
 he was likely to end with an exclusive interest in 
 persons. The gospel that had been preached to 
 him by a younger man, the gospel that he himself 
 had preached to an older man, was one that he 
 
108 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 was coming to take with more seriousness than he 
 confessed even within himself, and to hug more 
 closely to heart than anybody, but shortly before, 
 could have made seem probable to him. The 
 proper study of mankind was becoming plain ; men 
 were fully as interesting as their works ; person 
 alities counted for as much as galleries, churches, 
 gardens. The dead temple of Metapontum was 
 of less worth than the living temple within it. He 
 passed in review the other living temples that had 
 come beneath his notice during the past fortnight : 
 the discontented Doctor at Rome, the noxious 
 nobleman at Borgo San Cipriano, the lugubrious 
 recluse at Taranto. " They are all moving my 
 way," he thought; "how many of them shall I 
 meet again ? " He recalled the pompous progress 
 of the Lady of Quality and the reckless confi 
 dences of the sometime queen of tragedy. Truly 
 the one was of more interest than the towns 
 through which she travelled, and the other of more 
 interest than the cathedral before which she sat. 
 Here was a field in which the aid of young Bruno, 
 however alert he might be, however feeling, could 
 have counted for but little. Donna Violante alone, 
 of all his new types, failed to solidify into a con 
 crete image. She was but a vague and distant 
 mirage, nor did he even remotely approach such 
 questions as these : Will she become more dis 
 tinct ? Who will reveal her to me ? And what 
 will result for me and for the performer of that 
 friendly office ? 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 109 
 
 Over the straits the contending powers of light 
 and of shadow were at play; the mountain peaks 
 on both the Calabrian and Sicilian sides were hid 
 den by the gray masses of lowering clouds ; slight 
 showers fell now and then, and the narrowing reach 
 of waters was lightened here and there by the long 
 lines of sunbeams that lived a precarious moment 
 by favor of the shifting heavens. From the quay 
 at Reggio the water-front of Messina showed gray 
 or white or golden as one condition or another pre 
 vailed above and behind. And to the northward, 
 against the deep blue curtain that rain and dis 
 tance drew between Scylla and Charybdis, a full- 
 rigged bark shone like a phantom refreshed under 
 a rainbow whose arch spanned the leaden reach of 
 waters from shore to shore. 
 
 The Freiherr, about to step aboard the steamer, 
 became conscious of an altercation in progress 
 close by upon the quay. It was a controversy of 
 a type perfectly familiar to every Mediterranean 
 seaport; the disputants were a sturdy facchino, 
 with the fluent command of his native dialect, and 
 a woman, past her first youth, who spoke a theo 
 retical Tuscan with the accent of a German and 
 the stiffness of a beginner. Though the woman 
 was by no means young and by no means beauti 
 ful, her detached position (she was apparently 
 quite alone) and her obvious inexperience (she 
 
110 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 was plainly abroad for the first time) moved the 
 Freiherr to compassion. He intervened. The 
 facchino tenaciously kept hold on a certain worn 
 and unwieldy portmanteau ; the woman tearfully 
 clutched a pathetically thin little purse. " He 
 shall not impose upon her," resolved the Freiherr. 
 " Let me assist you," he said, advancing, in Ger 
 man. 
 
 The woman she was some five years his junior 
 opened her brown eyes first with surprise and 
 then with a great relief. He turned to the man. 
 * Why do you refuse to let go this portmanteau ? " 
 
 " The signora refuses to pay me for the trunk." 
 
 " I have no trunk ! " cried the signora, as soon 
 as the meaning of this observation was made plain 
 to her. " The trunk belonged to somebody else. 
 I have only that portmanteau and this handbag." 
 
 " Well, then, my man," said the Freiherr, hand 
 ing him a coin, " take this and stop troubling us." 
 The Freiherr picked up the shabby, ill-packed port 
 manteau and stepped aboard. The lady humbly 
 followed, in an abject state of gratitude and admi 
 ration. 
 
 Von Kaltenau led his protegee to a favorable 
 place on deck, sheltered from the weather yet open 
 to the views, and his own facchini followed after. 
 " We shall be nearly an hour in crossing, and you 
 might as well take it comfortably." 
 
 He cautiously looked her over. She was a gen 
 tlewoman, assuredly, but one of a very unusual 
 type. The pinch of poverty was plain upon her 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 111 
 
 whole person, but the animating influence of a 
 high and disinterested enthusiasm was equally 
 plain in her face and bearing, as she followed the 
 Freiherr with a sprightly, springy step and threw 
 her head gallantly to right and left over the varied 
 prospect of land and sea. Her dress was travel- 
 worn (there might be another in the bulging port 
 manteau, or not), while her gloves and even her 
 crackled boots were miracles of painstaking needle 
 work stitched, darned, patched, what not. Her 
 brown eyes, though they kept on opening in a 
 button-like surprise at every slight attention from 
 the Freiherr, contrived to have a soft expression 
 of their own, a limpid, virginal, inexperienced 
 glance, as from the eyes of Innocence herself. She 
 set down her handbag, and teased the forefinger of 
 one of her time-worn gloves, and apologized with 
 a sincere, unaffected humility for the trouble she 
 had given. 
 
 " Only a few soldi, I know," she said. " But 
 every soldo counts. It shall. It must." 
 
 " You are quite right," said the Freiherr, " not 
 to allow yourself to be imposed upon." 
 
 Continuing in the habit he had lately formed, 
 he gave his new charge she was still such, for 
 he must see her through like troubles at Messina 
 abundant opportunity to account for herself ; 
 he even asked a few questions. But Mam zelle 
 Hedwig appeared to have no undue consciousness 
 of her own personality, and no particular dissatis 
 factions to air. Her remarks were of the most 
 
112 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 general nature, and the Freiherr was left at liberty 
 to construct her character and her environment for 
 himself. 
 
 This, during the passage, he did. He referred 
 Mam zelle Hedwig back, then, to the remotest and 
 bleakest of the German cantons of Switzerland, 
 where a large family lived under a small roof, 
 small, but historic and respectable, and received 
 visits from the pastor and the burgomaster of the 
 town hard by. She was not the only daughter, 
 nor the youngest, and she had lingered long be 
 fore detaching herself, even temporarily, from the 
 family tree. Thrift was the watchword of the 
 household, and every penny was accounted for. 
 He figured her as skimped and pinched a little, 
 browbeaten a good deal, and subordinated habitu 
 ally by impatient and tyrannical brothers, " else 
 why should small services call forth so much sur 
 prise and gratitude ? " A consuming desire for 
 travel in Italy had come upon her early this 
 was according to her own account and in corre 
 spondence with her every action. She had hoarded 
 her small savings for years, some kind relative had 
 perhaps good-naturedly increased her little store, 
 and here she was. All this the Freiherr surmised, 
 and in the main his surmises were correct. 
 
 " Ah, Sicily, Sicily ! " Mam zelle cried time and 
 again during the crossing. " At last I see it ! At 
 last! At last!" 
 
 She was in a state of exaltation and made no 
 effort to conceal it. The Freiherr wondered whe- 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 113 
 
 ther even young Bruno cle Brtmelli could dis 
 charge his enthusiasm with more elan. 
 
 "It will be the crown of my whole journey," 
 she cried. " It will repay me for everything ! " 
 
 " For disappointments, for disenchantments ? " 
 suggested the Freiherr. 
 
 " Disenchantments ? I have met none ! " 
 
 " Hardships, then." 
 
 " Hardships ? Even the hardships of travel are 
 pleasures ! " 
 
 "Then Sicily is not your Last Refuge?" 
 
 Mam zelle stared at him in frank wonder. 
 " Refuge ? Refuge from what, pray ? " 
 
 The abashed Freiherr murmured some unintelli 
 gible reply. 
 
 " Refuge ? " repeated Mam zelle Hedwig. " Re 
 fuge from unkindness ? But everybody has been 
 most considerate. Refuge from poverty? But 
 I am not poor I still have eight hundred and 
 seventy-three francs left, and fifteen centimes. 
 Refuge from the years? But I am only thirty- 
 five and a few weeks, and do not feel a day 
 older. Refuge from the beauties of this glorious 
 world ? Should I turn to Sicily for that ? Rejec 
 tion of the best of all good omens ? " she con 
 cluded, pointing to the rainbow arched above 
 them. " I m sure I hardly know what you may 
 mean." 
 
 The Freiherr was much impressed and much 
 pleased by these observations. He was much 
 benefited by them too; they had a tonic quality 
 
114 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 of which he stood much in need. The woman 
 now gathering up her meagre belongings to land at 
 Messina was vastly different from the woman who 
 had contended with the porter at Reggio; never 
 a metamorphosis more sudden, more complete. 
 Mam zelle s handbag had lost half its shabbiness ; 
 even her boots seemed much less incredible than 
 at first. 
 
 Messina drew near. The steamer came to its 
 moorings. Mam zelle prepared to sink into new 
 abysses of gratitude. But this time she was not to 
 have an undivided attention. On the wharf stood 
 Bruno ; and the Freiherr, catching a glimpse of 
 him, failed to read in his face any indication of 
 favorable news. 
 
 XI 
 
 Von Kaltenau put Mam zelle into a cab whose 
 driver could be trusted not to charge for a non 
 existent trunk and saw her set off for a hotel that 
 was well within her means. Mam zelle had no 
 false shame and no fastidiousness. She had de 
 termined to cut the largest possible coat out of the 
 meagre patch of cloth at her disposal, and had be 
 come a past mistress in all that relates to shifts 
 and economies. The Freiherr passed her later in 
 the day. She was roaming rapturously up and 
 down the Marina, assisting in the loading and un 
 loading of brigs and schooners from Syracuse or 
 Zante, ordering the departure of the different 
 ferry-boats, trafficking gingerly with the venders 
 
STILL SOUTHWARD 115 
 
 of anise-water and dried pumpkin seeds, and draw 
 ing beads upon the varying vistas that were 
 opened up by the straits and closed by the Cala- 
 brian mountains. 
 
 Bruno, after a fleeting glance of wonder at the 
 Freiherr s new familiar, reverted to his own pre 
 occupations. He followed von Kaltenau across 
 the wide quay to the hotel and gave him an ac 
 count of the developments of the past week from 
 a second story balcony that overlooked the busy 
 harbor below. 
 
 The inexorable parents of Donna Violante, it 
 transpired, had not been content with any half 
 measures. They had paused at Messina but a 
 day, and then had taken her home to the capital, 
 where they now were. 
 
 " And where they will remain," remarked the 
 Freiherr. " Solid ground for you at last. You 
 will follow immediately, of course." 
 
 " Follow immediately ? I left there only last 
 evening ! " 
 
 " Is Malevento with them ? " 
 
 " Not so far as I can learn." 
 
 " You have seen " 
 
 " I have seen her father. I forced my way to 
 him and braved him under his own roof. An in 
 fernally cross-grained, sour-tempered, obstinate old 
 villain ! " 
 
 " You speak freely." 
 
 " I spoke freely then, too. I told him what I 
 wanted, who I was, and in more guarded terms 
 
116 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 what I hoped to be. He laughed in my face in 
 just the fashion that a cross-grained, sour-tempered 
 man would. What was there for me to do ? Who 
 am I, after all, if one must know with full pre 
 cision ? " 
 
 " You have not seen the notaries and all the 
 rest?" 
 
 "Yes, yes," returned Bruno, beating the 
 balcony-rail impatiently with his fist ; " both here 
 and there. Difficulties, delays, exactions, post 
 ponements, documents, depositions. The whole 
 thing is still in the clouds." He sent his exas 
 perated glance ranging up and down the crowded 
 Marina and over the swarming harbor. 
 
 " H m, r replied the Freiherr, thoughtfully, as 
 he wondered what the letters awaiting him at his 
 banker s might contain. " But / have come, and 
 within three days at the outside we shall have 
 brought the whole thing down to earth." 
 
PART IV. THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 
 
 BELRIGUABDO lies high above the sea, sur 
 rounded by vineyards and by groves of orange- 
 trees and olives and almonds and mulberries. 
 Above it rise heights covered by the ilex and by 
 towering groups of stone pines heights that lead 
 to the crowning height of all, clothed with forests 
 of beech and of oak. Before it the ground slopes 
 easily, in limestone reaches abloom with the rock- 
 rose and the purple cytisus, down to the brows of 
 cliffs and promontories that make their sudden 
 descent to the scant shingle of the shore. From 
 Belriguardo s vast terrace one sees the goats brows 
 ing among the tamarisks and sumachs that fringe 
 the rocky headlands, and the sails of the sardine- 
 fishers moving busily over the wide expanse of 
 blue water ; and the long line of coast bold and 
 broken, yet suave withal shows here a church, 
 there a Saracen watch-tower, on one height the 
 ruins of a Xorman castle, on another the frag- 
 mental tombs and temples of some immemorial 
 city of the Greeks. 
 
 Belriguardo itself is a Sicily in miniature. Every 
 period of foreign domination has left its mark 
 
118 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 there ; no time throughout the long procession of 
 the changing years remains unrepresented in this 
 picturesque conglomerate. The great courtyard, 
 with its coupled columns and its ponderous round 
 arches done in billet and dog-tooth mouldings, is 
 Norman ; the well-curb set in the middle of it is 
 Byzantine. The long banquet-hall dates from the 
 days of the Spanish viceroys and is heavy with the 
 stately pomp of Aragon. The great terrace, with 
 its noble rampes and balustrades, marks a happy 
 moment in the period of the high Renaissance, 
 though the fountain-basins and fish-ponds below 
 it are wilfully, perversely baroque. The big tower 
 that dominates all claims a late Roman origin for 
 its foundation stones ; and a bit of terra-cotta dug 
 up one day near its base a bull-headed god with 
 eyes slyly aslant might easily pass for a relic of 
 Phoanician Carthage. The tiny oratory was once 
 a mosque. Its christianized walls still show here 
 and there the outlines of a Moorish arch, and in 
 more than one dusky corner a shred of honeycomb 
 work survives to give a slight impetus to the circu 
 lation of orthodox blood. The pleasance, whose 
 rose-thickets are peopled with the lichened statues 
 of marble divinities, is gayly and irresponsibly 
 rococo, while the long laurel-walks, festooned with 
 jasmin and eglantine, are joyously of to-day. Such 
 is the domain that the Freiherr has bespoken for 
 young Bruno, until something better shall be his, 
 such the stately and storied pile wherein the 
 new duke of Montegrifone has gallantly resolved 
 to keep open house for the ensuing fortnight. 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 119 
 
 Bruno, on his first view of Belriguardo, had not 
 been able to suppress a cry of delight. It lay 
 three or four miles away, over rolling uplands 
 sprinkled with holm-oaks and carobs, and was first 
 seen from an ancient Roman bridge whose arch 
 spanned a rugged ravine overgrown with lentisks 
 and arbutus. The tall tower that ruled his new 
 estate rose level with a group of cypresses just 
 behind, and the long front of the terrace, catching 
 the late afternoon sun, drew a broad foundation 
 line of white for the varied facade above. 
 
 As they paused on the bridge to view this en 
 chanting spectacle even more enchanting to the 
 landed proprietor than to the lover of nature 
 they heard the sound of hoofs and wheels, and pre 
 sently a train of coaches and lettigas came in sight 
 at a bend in the road, and halted just short of our 
 travelers. 
 
 These conveyances had the ornate and stately 
 character of the early years of the century they 
 were covered with carving and gilding ; and the 
 trappings of the mules and horses showed such an 
 utter abandon in the way of bell, braid, and tassel 
 as Sicily, and Sicily alone, is capable of. The 
 numerous persons who dismounted from coach or 
 saddle seemed to date from a period hardly less 
 distant, and to display a taste scarce less ornate. 
 They appeared to compose the household of a great 
 provincial magnate whose estates were too remote 
 to be influenced by mere passing fashions, and 
 whose mode of living was firmly grounded upon 
 
120 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 the ceremonial and the traditions of an ancient 
 and well-established procedure. These various per 
 sons advanced gravely in a body and performed 
 their deferential salutes before Bruno de Brunelli, 
 now the Duca di Montegrifone. 
 
 The Freiherr, rapidly passing them in review, 
 thought he distinguished a major-domo, a steward, 
 a head gardener, a master of the horse, the estab 
 lishment was apparently of a state and magnitude 
 to support such an official, and numerous valets 
 and grooms. There was also a dignified house 
 keeper, and close beside her was a sprightly young 
 thing in a red petticoat, who seemed at once very 
 demure and extraordinarily self-possessed. She 
 stole glances at Bruno in a humorous, yet critical 
 way, and when she had looked him over she looked 
 him over again. " A lady s-maid," said the Frei 
 herr to himself. " Has Filippo, with all his other 
 gifts, the gift of clairvoyance ? " 
 
 Bruno looked in turn at the young thing stand 
 ing there in her short petticoat and her laced bod 
 ice with a surprise that soon passed into admiration. 
 The Freiherr, studying the others meanwhile, no 
 ticed that one of them, the major-domo, in knee- 
 breeches, white silk stockings, and a hat and 
 waistcoat de fantaisie, was staring at him with 
 a significant fixity, and that the stare was now and 
 then reinforced by a slight lifting of the eyebrows. 
 Von Kaltenau looked at the fellow once again, and 
 was much surprised, and not a little disconcerted, 
 to find in him the Marchese Capoameno himself. 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 121 
 
 II 
 
 " My dear Filippo," the Freiherr found oppor 
 tunity to say to the Marchese as the caravan was 
 returning to Belriguardo, " you have quite outdone 
 yourself. I hardly dare ask you who all these 
 other people are." 
 
 The Marchese gave a frank laugh Bruno 
 being out of sight and hearing. " The head postil 
 lion is young Count Cervel-Balzano ; he has come 
 fifteen miles to share in this, and contributes one 
 of the coaches. The groom riding behind us on 
 the big black mare is the most promising of my 
 nephews." 
 
 " And the ladies ? " inquired the Freiherr, cau 
 tiously. " The the housekeeper, perhaps ? " 
 
 " Housekeeper ; quite right. That stately per 
 son is my aunt, and she has jumped into the part 
 in a very young and spirited fashion." 
 
 " And the the young lady in bodice and short 
 petticoat?" 
 
 " That is my irrepressible sister. She was for 
 coming, at first, as one of the kitchen-boys, in 
 white cap and apron ; I believe she even meditated 
 carrying along a spoon. But all that, of course, 
 I could n t quite permit, and to soften her disap 
 pointment I allowed her to join us as a lady s- 
 maid. You have seen the result of our compro 
 mise ; what do you think of it?" 
 
 " Most charming, but " 
 
122 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " But what ? Ah, I see : you mean that, there 
 being no ladies in your party " 
 
 " Ha ! " said the Freiherr, " if that is a deficiency 
 it is like enough to be made good. My * but was 
 a much more comprehensive one than that." 
 
 " Explain." 
 
 " My dear fellow," returned the Freiherr, ear 
 nestly, " you have done altogether too much for me. 
 Your fancy, your invention, your taste for histri 
 onics, your passion for representation well, I 
 can only hope that they won t involve you in too 
 extreme an embarrassment. This whim, this sud 
 den impulse I can but trust that we ourselves 
 may not be the means of punishing you for it. 
 For we, such as you see us, are, as I fear, but the 
 advance guard of a vast horde. We have jour 
 neyed south with them some of them. They all 
 seem to be moving toward one common objective 
 point, and you, my poor friend, are exactly in the 
 line of the storm. The hurricane will sweep over 
 you ; the swarm of locusts will darken your sun 
 and devour your substance. My dear Filippo, we 
 are now conspicuous ; we have become celebrated ; 
 we are close to the king s highway, and we are 
 likely to see some strange people." 
 
 Capoameno laughed again. " Let them come. 
 When may the first locust be looked for ? " 
 
 " To-morrow, or the day after. In fact, she is 
 the only one that we have distinctly invited the 
 rest will find us without an invitation." 
 
 " Ah, the first locust is a lady ? She is young 
 and charming, I hope." 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 123 
 
 " You may determine for yourself. As for her 
 age, it is a little less than yours or mine. As for 
 her charm, it lies altogether in a fresh and sensi 
 tive mind, in a highly poetical imagination, and in 
 a hardy determination to idealize everything and 
 everybody. I invite her here for her tonic quality ; 
 of all my recent acquaintances she is the only one 
 that has done me any good. She will come pre 
 pared to throw a roseate glamour over Belriguardo 
 and every one about it." 
 
 " Shall I be able to idealize her ? " 
 
 " I should think the better of you for trying." 
 
 "A compatriot?" 
 
 "Almost." 
 
 " A matron ? " 
 
 " N no." 
 
 " Oh, you of the North ! I shall never under 
 stand you ! But I will exchange roseate glamours 
 with this idealizing maid to the best of my ability. 
 Yet stay ; dare I look so high I, a mere ser 
 vant?" 
 
 The Freiherr laughed, a little constrainedly. 
 " My poor Filippo, you have put yourself in a 
 false position, and you will not be allowed to for 
 get it. Here is one slight check ; but there will 
 be a hundred more checks and embarrassments to 
 follow!" 
 
124 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 III 
 
 Bruno slipped smoothly into his new life, with 
 all its splendors, its promises of pleasure, and its 
 many manifestations of deference and obsequious 
 ness. He heard himself hailed daily, hourly, as 
 " Eccellenza," and easily came to take this lofty 
 appellation as a matter of course. The duties and 
 obligations of his new station were temporarily set 
 aside and properly enough, all things considered 
 for its enjoyments; and the grandson of the 
 mountain chieftain readily assumed the arrogant 
 tone of command, and stretched out an imperious 
 hand to gather the first-fruits of the new dispen 
 sation. 
 
 Von Kaltenau, considering that at last he had 
 set his ^Eolian harp to the most advantageous 
 breeze, lent an attentive ear to the forthcoming 
 harmony. The harmony came, indeed, but in a 
 grandiose and complicated mode that intimidated 
 rather than pleased ; and a subtle threat of dis 
 cord was never absent from its tones. 
 
 The Marchese, who had rushed into his whimsi 
 cal masque on the impulse of a moment, had never 
 paused to consider how it would seem to be super 
 seded even for a week or two as master in his 
 own house. Bruno had come into an old place 
 with a fresh eye, a youthful love of change for its 
 own sake, and a very definite intention of making 
 his force felt. He was impressed by some of the 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 125 
 
 traditional observances, but did not hesitate to 
 direct alterations in others, and his orders to the 
 Marchese himself, relative to changes in stable 
 and garden, required much finesse and ingenuity 
 to evade. 
 
 As for the Marchesina Lucetta, this lively young 
 person soon found herself tiring of the position 
 into which her brother s esprit and her own high 
 spirits had led her. The short petticoat and the 
 laced bodice palled by the second day, and by the 
 morning of the third the coquettish little head 
 dress upon her fluffy locks weighed like a veritable 
 cap of penitence. Bruno looked upon her with as 
 much admiration as her beauty demanded, but 
 treated her with no more consideration than her 
 apparent station in life justified. His compli 
 ments had more heartiness than delicacy. Her 
 little dream of a spirited young seigneur who 
 should treat her at once with the delicious ease 
 and freedon that a lady s-maid might call out and 
 the deference proper to gallant converse with a 
 marchioness, slowly dissolved. 
 
 The Freiherr soon noticed the growing tension 
 of the situation ; clearly, things could not remain 
 as they were. The arrival of Bruno s first guest 
 brought matters to a head. Yon Kaltenau was 
 actually in conference with the Marchese and his 
 sister when the earliest requisition upon the hospi 
 tality of Belriguardo was seen to impend. This 
 conference took place in one of the obscurer cor 
 ners of the great terrace in direct defiance of 
 
126 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 the Marchese s own orders forbidding the servants 
 to show themselves in that quarter behind a 
 friendly camellia standing on the balustrade in its 
 big earthen pot. Suddenly, from the road at the 
 bottom of the hill-slope, came the light patter of 
 hoofs, the jingle of bells, and the whoop of a boy 
 ish voice. The Freiherr, looking through an open 
 ing among the oleanders, caught sight of a head 
 bobbing on with gay good-will, and a moment 
 later, when the wall along the roadway fell to a 
 lower level, there was revealed the spectacle of 
 Mam zelle Hedwig, intrepid and unconventional, 
 advancing upon Belriguardo on the back of a 
 small donkey. 
 
 " Ah," cried the Freiherr, " it is the admirable 
 Mam zelle ! She said she would come, and here 
 she is ! " 
 
 " The the lady you spoke of ? " asked Filippo, 
 with a smile ; but it was a smile that had some 
 little touch of coldness round the edge. He looked 
 out again at the travel-stained rider, the ragged 
 beast, the dusty child scuffling behind. " Lucetta, 
 go get your whisk-broom." 
 
 The Marchesina did not respond to this ironical 
 sally. The Freiherr rushed in to forestall an out 
 break of vexation. 
 
 " All this can really go no farther," he declared ; 
 " you must set yourselves in a different light one 
 in better accord with your real position. You have 
 degraded yourselves quite enough ; let it be mine 
 to help you reconquer your lost gentility." 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 127 
 
 "But how?" asked the Marchesina, with a 
 rueful pout. 
 
 " Like this. Having disguised yourselves once, 
 there is nothing for you to do but to disguise your 
 selves again. Having begun as gentry playing at 
 being servants, you must now go on as servants 
 playing at being gentry. In other words, the 
 household staff of the Duke of Montegrifone will 
 now appear as his guests. They will be expected 
 to dress and to behave so as to give a reasonably 
 good imitation of ladies and gentlemen though 
 not too good a one ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Capoameno, thoughtfully ; " it 
 sounds complicated." 
 
 " How else can you eat at your own table ? " 
 
 " And imitations by imitations," complained 
 Lucetta ; " how can they be expected to deceive ? " 
 
 "In what other way, signorina, can you get 
 back into long skirts and escape the thraldom of 
 the whisk-broom ? Eeally, it is the only way out ; 
 indeed, I consider you fortunate to get off so 
 lightly from the consequences of such a grave in 
 discretion. Come, my dear friend," to Filippo, 
 " this will enable you to ride your own horses, 
 though only when the Duke suggests it. And 
 you, signorina, may then dine at the table in the 
 banquet-hall (there will be banquets, I assure 
 you) instead of merely nibbling cold things in the 
 pantry afterwards." 
 
 " Ah ! " gasped the Marchesina. 
 
 " Come," said the Freiherr, " let me ask the 
 Duke to direct you to " 
 
128 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " Direct ! " muttered Filippo, appreciatively. 
 
 "to direct you to impersonate his guests. 
 We need a few particularly a lady. Will you 
 condemn the perfectly worthy person who is now 
 approaching " another ringing whoop from the 
 ragged boy in the dust-cloud " to be the only 
 lady in the house? I trust not. I don t know 
 where her baggage is," he went on, while he 
 looked searchingly across the hundred yards that 
 intervened ; " but I assure you that she is a per 
 son of the warmest enthusiasms and the most deli 
 cate sensibilities; and if her mode of approach 
 seems to savor of an Oriental primitiveness, please 
 bear in mind that it is in accord with the best 
 Saracenic traditions. Hear me ; whatever you can 
 offer her of grace, distinction, gayety, and kindli 
 ness even if but travestied will no more than 
 meet the generous conceptions she has already 
 formed of the Sicilian nobility. My dear Filippo, 
 be a gentleman ! My dear signorina Marchesina, 
 let me beg you to be a lady! I am sure the Duke, 
 your master, will interpose no objections. Think 
 of the benefits to yourselves ! Think of the ad 
 vantages to our approaching guests! Think of 
 the magnificent impression upon the Duke him 
 self, when he sees that in Sicily even the major- 
 domos and the tiring-maids may take on signorial 
 modes and manners ! Oblige me ! " 
 
 The Marchese laughed loud and long. Donna 
 Lucetta shrugged her shoulders and gave a little 
 grimace. 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 129 
 
 " You think," she said, " that after deliberately 
 throwing away the loaf, we ought to be thankful 
 for any crumbs we can collect ? " 
 
 " Precisely," said the Freiherr. 
 
 " We thank you," said Capoameno, with a 
 low obeisance. " Pray plead our cause with his 
 Grace." 
 
 IV 
 
 " Very well, my dear Theodor," said Bruno, in 
 reply to the Freiherr s suggestion. " Mani zelle 
 is a most estimable woman, and" with an ap 
 preciable swelling of grandeur "I am willing 
 to take any step to insure her against the slightest 
 embarrassment. Even were she not a friend of 
 yours " 
 
 " Dear me ! " murmured the Freiherr ; " a 
 friend of mine." He noticed, too, that Bruno had 
 called him Theodor, for the first time. 
 
 Still it was evident that Bruno saw none too 
 clearly the reason for such sudden solicitude about 
 Mam zelle s sensibilities. Mam zelle, as far as he 
 had observed during those three days at Messina, 
 had knocked about with a good deal of freedom 
 sometimes with the two men, sometimes alone. 
 She had seen everything she wanted to see and 
 had gone everywhere she wanted to go, had shaped 
 a sturdy course alike by daylight and dark, and all 
 the time taken thoroughly good care of herself. 
 " Rather late for such delicate scruples," thought 
 Bruno. 
 
130 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 However, he liked Mam zelle almost as much as 
 von Kaltenau liked her. Her interest in things 
 kept up even after his own had begun to flag ; her 
 enthusiasm plashed like a perennial fountain over 
 gardens, galleries, churches, scenery, street-life, and 
 everything else, and washed away the last touch of 
 the grimy, the commonplace, the sordid, the over- 
 familiar. But what pleased him more than all 
 was the unceasing homage of Mam zelle s grati 
 tude. Mere civil toleration was something for 
 her to be thankful for ; the slightest act of kind 
 ness was enough to startle her ; while he who did 
 for her a studied, conscious favor must be agile 
 indeed to get himself away from before gratitude s 
 opening floodgates. " Really," said Bruno, in one 
 of his least egotistical moments, " I hardly see how 
 she could have come along so far without receiving 
 more appreciation." 
 
 On Mam zelle s account, then, Bruno agreed to 
 receive certain members of his household staff at 
 his own table. " Let them dress as well as they 
 know how, and let them confer upon themselves 
 such titles as they please though I should prefer 
 to have no one above the rank of count. But little 
 Lucetta shall have carte blanche ; I shall be very 
 glad to see what the young minx can do. She 
 may call herself whatever she pleases, and wear 
 anything that she can lay her hands on." 
 
 Mam zelle first met her host and her fellow- 
 guests at dinner. And among these was one more 
 pilgrim from the north. For just at twilight, a 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 131 
 
 tall yellow cart, painted with the loves of Rinaldo 
 and Arrnida, cast a wheel before the gates of Bel- 
 riguardo, and the vetturino begged on behalf of 
 his employer the hospitality of the coachyard and 
 the services of a smith. The occupant of the 
 vehicle, a tall grave personage, leaned composedly 
 against a barrow while the work of repair went 
 on. He gave no account of himself, and would 
 have passed on unrecognized had not the Freiherr, 
 by some happy chance, found himself in that re 
 mote quarter of Bruno s new possessions. Though 
 the traveler was without his legal gown and 
 showed no wine-stain on his cheek, the Freiherr 
 detected him for Dottore Balanzoni of the Italian 
 Comedy, and smiled at recollection of the Astro- 
 fiammante ball, and laughed for thought of Filippo, 
 and gave the newcomer a hearty welcome. 
 
 At this first dinner Mam zelle received a plea 
 sing impression, and made one. She had brought 
 her portmanteau with her, after all. It had hung 
 on the other side of the donkey, where, while out 
 of sight, it had formed the suitable counterweight 
 to Mam zelle herself; and it yielded, through 
 some pre-dated miracle of packing, a costume that 
 would pass muster on such an occasion, a frock 
 of somewhat naive brilliancy and an unexception 
 able pair of boots. 
 
 The dinner moved on in formal, stately fashion, 
 and Mam zelle, who had never before in her life 
 come within miles of private splendor, she had al 
 ways seen her palaces by paying fees, luxuriated 
 
132 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 in the beauty of all the appointments, particularly 
 the candelabra, and in the slow pomp of the ser 
 vice. Most of her fellow-guests were quiet per 
 sons, who looked down a good deal at their plates ; 
 their dress and their manner made them seem. like 
 poor connections receiving the bounty of an opu 
 lent lord. Particularly did the costumes of Filippo 
 and his sister carry out this idea. They had en 
 tered upon the second stage of their masquerade 
 with renewed gusto, and had attempted to express 
 the last refinements of shabby gentility. Filippo 
 founded his efforts upon a cast-off suit borrowed 
 from his wondering credenziere; Lucetta appeared 
 in a marvel of frazzled dowdiness that a former 
 maid had disdainfully left behind. They slyly 
 looked at each other askant, wondering if, after 
 all, they had made any appreciable advance. 
 
 The Freiherr was soon deep in talk with Balan- 
 zoni ; while Bruno oh, gracious condescension ! 
 confined his observations altogether to Mam - 
 zelle. None of the other ladies came in for any 
 attention from him, save perhaps the Baronessa 
 Spazzola, as the Marchesina had joyfully elected 
 to denominate herself. She was extraordinarily 
 pretty and captivating, in spite of her dreadful 
 gown, but Bruno determined to save his apprecia 
 tion until it could be declared with more freedom 
 than at a dinner-table. 
 
 Filippo stole quiet looks of extreme amusement 
 as Bruno sat at the head of the table and ordered 
 the feast. " The young cub was born to it," he 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 133 
 
 whispered across to the Freiherr ; " he beats me 
 on my own ground ! " Then his head fell into his 
 hand, and he gave a stifled groan : he had heard 
 Bruno ordering up, through a terrified butler, the 
 choicest, most historical vintage of his cellar. 
 
 " I had been saving up those bottles for the past 
 fifteen years," sighed Filippo. He was sitting on 
 the edge of a fountain-basin, and the morning sun 
 came shooting athwart the empurpled Judas-tree 
 overhead. 
 
 " Try to bear up," returned the Freiherr. " I 
 knew we should devastate you. But it will not 
 be for long. Belriguardo is merely the first of 
 many estates we shall ravage. The locusts come, 
 but they pass on. We shall continue our good 
 work as soon as our itinerary comes to be a little 
 more distinctly marked out. But your aunt en 
 joyed that wine I know she did ! " 
 
 " You have conferred with his men of business? " 
 asked Capoameno, with comical solicitude. 
 
 " Yes, things are moving they are shaping 
 themselves. His rights are perfectly clear ; within 
 a week or more he can lay full hands on his own." 
 
 " Consult my men of business, too," cried Fi 
 lippo. " Let me send for them ; let me write ; 
 let them interest themselves in your behalf. I 
 want my chance at the Montegrifone wine-cellars ; 
 I want to eat up the green things in the Montegri 
 fone fields." 
 
134 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " You shall have your revenge. Let your peo 
 ple help ours, and then perhaps we can move on 
 before stripping you perfectly bare ! " 
 
 Toward sunset more locusts arrived a large 
 flock of them. At that hour a train of coaches 
 paused before the gates of Belriguardo, and a 
 courier, after a short volley of loud and confident 
 knocks, demanded shelter for his party for the 
 night. The important air of the man and the 
 state in which his party travelled brought the en 
 tire household to the gates. The courier threw 
 open the door of the handsomest of the coaches, 
 and 
 
 " Gentlemen ! gentlemen ! " cried the Lady of 
 Quality to Bruno and the Freiherr, u we meet 
 again, indeed ! " Nothing could exceed her sur 
 prise and pleasure. She gave each of them a hand 
 at the same moment. Then she withdrew her 
 hand from the Freiherr and gave Bruno both. 
 " Ah ! " she cried, " you have come into your own 
 most bravely ! And it is your hospitality that I 
 have ventured to ask ! " 
 
 Filippo, leaning against one of the great gate 
 posts, glanced at the Freiherr and said never a 
 word. 
 
 Meanwhile the coaches were emptying them 
 selves. Maids and grooms descended, and the 
 impedimenta of a great personage and her depend 
 ents began to pile up in the road. And behind 
 all this some one presently noticed a modest group 
 of three persons who huddled together in a depre- 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 135 
 
 catory way, wondering to how wide a measure the 
 influence of their patroness might be stretched. 
 
 Von Kaltenau, glancing casually in that direc 
 tion, recognized in one of them the young novelist 
 who had entertained him on the way to Taranto. 
 The others, recognized at the same moment by 
 both the Freiherr and Bruno, were the curious 
 pair whom they had met on the water-front at 
 Naples, the loquacious painter and the dumb poet. 
 
 " My little court," began the Lady of Quality. 
 " Wealth should encourage the arts. What ! 
 you know one another? You are acquainted 
 already ? " 
 
 " Madam," said Bruno, gravely, " you are a 
 remarkable woman." 
 
 " Why ? Because I have pushed this enterprise 
 so far into the South ? But surely I must see my 
 niece ! And why were brigands abolished, pray, 
 if not that I might indulge my whim ? Besides, 
 we have pistols in our holsters, and a carbine in 
 every carriage." 
 
 " Madam," said Filippo, advancing with the 
 greatest courtesy, " I beg to assure you of your 
 perfect safety." 
 
 The lady bowed markedly. Bruno flashed an 
 indignant look upon his major-domo for such pre 
 sumption. Filippo, with a despairing glance at 
 the Freiherr, leaned limp against his gatepost, and 
 the Lady of Quality stood convicted of having be 
 stowed an unnecessary degree of graciousness upon 
 a very inferior person. 
 
136 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 VI 
 
 Dinner, that evening, was a brilliant function. 
 Not so much from the costumes of ManTzelle and 
 the Marchesina, who wore merely what they had 
 worn the evening before, with some minor embel 
 lishments added ; nor from the efforts of the newly- 
 arrived among the men, who seemed a little too 
 tired and too strange to be at their ease ; but from 
 the ravishing exertions of the Lady of Quality, 
 who supplied all deficiencies by dressing for ten 
 and talking for twenty. Mam zelle looked and 
 listened with the pleased astonishment of a child ; 
 never had her generous ideal of a grande dame 
 been half so well realized. The affluent personal 
 ity of this newcomer cast such a brilliancy as quite 
 to obliterate the minor drawbacks of the spectacle : 
 the humility of the poor relations fed by Bruno s 
 bounty, and the growing abstractedness of Bruno 
 himself. He sat half the time deep in a brown 
 study, and the Freiherr, at the other end of the 
 table, well knew why. 
 
 " I shall go back to-morrow," said Bruno, a little 
 later, following von Kaltenau out upon the ter 
 race. "I shall go back to Palazzo Astrofiam- 
 mante, and back to her. I have delayed too long, 
 already ; everything to-day has combined to re 
 mind me of my duty. Everybody comes, and she 
 remains away, kept under lock and key by her 
 cruel father. The woman comes who helped me 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 137 
 
 to hold out against Malevento ; the very men 
 come whose hands held her back from the sea. I 
 shall go. I shall know now what to say. At last 
 I am all that I should be and have all that I 
 should have to make a final offer of myself and 
 my possessions. You, my dear Theodor, shall hold 
 my place here till I return." 
 
 " Wait a few days," counselled the Freiherr, 
 hoping that a little cooperation between Bruno s 
 own men of law and Filippo s might smooth out 
 the last complication in the new duke s affairs. 
 
 "I go to-morrow," insisted Bruno; "to-morrow 
 morning. I will not leave her longer with those 
 cruel jailers. I will not risk the possible presence 
 of Malevento I feel within the very depths of 
 my being that he has followed on." 
 
 Next morning the whole household assembled to 
 bid the gallant Bruno godspeed on his way. At 
 the very moment of his departure a lettiga borne 
 by two white mules issued from a bypath and 
 emerged upon the highway. A well-known face 
 looked through the window with an expression of 
 curiosity, then of surprise, then of joy, then of im 
 periled dignity. The youth astride the forward 
 mule jumped down at a sign from Bruno, and 
 flung the door of the lettiga open. Two women 
 alighted. The one was Monna Clotilde, the som 
 bre tragedy-queen of Bitonto. The other was 
 Violante, daughter of the Astrofiammanti. 
 
138 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 VII 
 
 Bruno sprang to the ground instantly and ad 
 vanced toward Donna Violante with all the fine 
 insouciance of a light tenor, and with all of that 
 vocal hero s indifference to the presence of a large 
 company ready to witness his doings, and to com 
 ment in concord upon the emotional situation, a 
 situation, indeed, that suggested an ensemble in 
 the middle act of some operetta. A varied troupe, 
 in truth, had poured out through the great gates 
 of Belriguardo and grouped itself about the 
 lettiga: Filippo, now in a gnawing rage at the 
 thought that he must appear at so cruel a disad 
 vantage before a young person of such supreme 
 and exquisite distinction ; Lucetta, who, while 
 willing to make herself a grotesque before so un 
 couth a woman as Mam zelle or so elderly a one as 
 the Lady of Quality, was on the point of treason 
 and rebellion at the notion of keeping up her ab 
 surd attitude before another beauty as young and 
 high-born as herself ; the Lady of Quality and her 
 little court, who caught at this rencontre with the 
 prehensile eyes of artists and stared in the open 
 hope that some rich emotional upheaval would 
 ensue at once ; Mam zelle Hedwig, already men 
 tally prostrate before the beauty and the com 
 manding mien of the travel- worn young patrician, 
 whose play of expression was so varied as to leave 
 everybody in doubt as to her precise state of mind, 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 139 
 
 and to the issue of the encounter ; Dottore Balan- 
 zoni, who recognized the youthful divinity of the 
 ball at Rome and felt achingly the triumphal 
 descent of beauty and passion to this dusty, weary, 
 time-worn earth ; Theodor von Kaltenau, who at 
 last met face to face the innamorata of his ardent 
 young guide and protege ; and a chorus of grooms, 
 gardeners, maids, footmen, and unspecified guests 
 persons who, at such a stage, appear (for the 
 first time, perhaps) in the background, persons 
 whose names may not be found on the printed 
 bill of the play, whose coming is not anticipated, 
 and whose presence is not explained. They sup 
 plement the cobalt skies, the rich greens of sub 
 tropical foliage ; they wear costumes that pass 
 readily enough at the back, and they swell the 
 volume of sound with an impersonal unanimity. 
 
 Bruno stepped forward quickly toward Violante, 
 and extended his eager hands. Violante made no 
 definite response. She looked about her, moving 
 her head slowly in a stately and self-possessed 
 fashion, as if to measure the meaning of such an 
 encounter at such a time and place before com 
 mitting herself to any of its consequences. " Vio 
 lante, Violante! " murmured Bruno, catching at 
 her hands. But Violante s eyes still swept the 
 crowd ; she made it plain that their affair was at 
 once too intimate and too complicated to be ad 
 justed in the general public view. It therefore 
 devolved upon Bruno, as lord of the manor, to dis 
 perse the throng with an easy and imperious wave 
 
140 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 of the hand to spread abroad the spirit of 
 prompt docility that sends the chorus rolling in 
 two equal waves to the wings, that causes the 
 minor principals to follow with a little more lei 
 sure, dignity, and eye to effect, and that leaves the 
 ground free to Him and to Her, with their respec 
 tive confidantes (retired up, perhaps, to a suitable 
 distance), in this case Monna Clotilde and 
 Theodor von Kaltenau. 
 
 VIII 
 
 " Violante ! " repeated Bruno, ardently, clasping 
 the girl s hand and looking intently into her face. 
 " What brings you here ? " 
 
 " What brings you here ? " asked Violante. 
 
 " What brings me here ? My good fortune, my 
 star, my right. And what brings me here keeps 
 me here. For I have come into my own. These 
 gates are mine, those servants were mine, those 
 guests were mine. And now you are come, one 
 guest the more, the last, the best " 
 
 " Hah ! " emitted Monna Clotilde, in her deep, 
 bell-like tone, a tone fraught with so much mean 
 ing that it was impossible for the Freiherr to over 
 look it. 
 
 Monna Clotilde, he perceived, was now quite 
 another woman. The dejection and aimlessness 
 that had marked her manner on their first meeting 
 were gone. She seemed to have found a new in 
 terest in life some new object upon which to 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 141 
 
 concentrate her scattered forces. He recalled her 
 desire to take into her empty and discouraged 
 hands the task of moulding some young life ; and 
 he wondered if Donna Violante, whose tone and 
 expression seemed too severe for her years and 
 even for her noble type of beauty, were the vic 
 tim for it would be nothing less destined to 
 be sacrificed in Monna Clotilde s last determined 
 effort to regain her zest for living. 
 
 " I know what brings you here ! " proceeded 
 Bruno, ignoring Violante s companion, whom he 
 took simply for her duenna. " Confess it. Come," 
 he went on fatuously, " say that you came here to 
 find me ! " 
 
 " Impossible ! " exclaimed Donna Violante, scorn 
 fully. 
 
 " Impossible ! " echoed Monna Clotilde, in the 
 tone of a teacher approving the reply of a pupil. 
 
 " How could I know you were here ? " de 
 manded Violante. 
 
 "How, indeed?" repeated Clotilde. 
 
 " Have you ceased to care for me ? " asked 
 Bruno. 
 
 "Have you ceased to care for me?" asked 
 Violante. 
 
 " Ceased ! " he cried. The Freiherr checked the 
 impetuous advance he was about to execute. " Tell 
 me, at least, then, why you have left your home." 
 
 " I left home to escape tyranny, persecution ; 
 the tyranny of harsh and self-seeking parents, the 
 persecution of a distasteful suitor." 
 
142 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " And there were other injuries no less hard to 
 bear," contributed Monna Clotilde, with a hearty 
 relish : " the negative injuries of neglect, indiffer 
 ence, forgetfulness ! " 
 
 " Persecution ? Distasteful suitor ? " cried 
 Bruno, overriding Monna Clotilde s observations. 
 " You mean Malevento ? " 
 
 " I mean Malevento." 
 
 " We mean Malevento," repeated Clotilde. 
 " And we mean you." 
 
 " He followed after you from Naples ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You deceiv you misled me. You told me 
 he cared nothing for you." 
 
 " He is one of the kind not to care when no one 
 else cares, and to care greatly when he hears that 
 another does." 
 
 " How did he learn that I that I cared ? " 
 
 " From my foolish, spiteful mother." 
 
 "In Naples?" 
 
 "Yes; and followed you southward when he 
 learned that you had followed me." 
 
 " And you have seen him since ? Where ? " 
 
 " Where?" repeated Violante, with a touch of 
 temper. " Where else than under my father s 
 own roof? a spot, it seems, easily reached by 
 one, yet wholly inaccessible for another; a feat 
 simple for him, but impossible for you ! " 
 
 " You wrong me ! " cried Bruno. " I stood inside 
 your house but a few days ago. I spoke to your fa 
 ther face to face beneath his own roof ! I swear it." 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 143 
 
 " They never told me," faltered Violante. 
 
 Monna Clotilde felt the situation weakening ; it 
 must be sustained. " When Malevento came," she 
 declared, " his coming was known to one and to all. 
 He did not say he came he had no need to swear ; 
 he was seen and felt. But he will never be seen 
 again by us," she continued, in a strain of vindic 
 tive triumph ; " and he will make himself felt no 
 more in the young life now within my keeping ! " 
 
 A round of applause was clearly due ; but 
 Bruno merely stared at this intrusive person as 
 one little to be preferred to Violante s own mo 
 ther. 
 
 " They did not tell me," repeated the girl, in a 
 contrite tone. 
 
 " I said to him all there was to say I told 
 him all there was to tell : what I was and what I 
 was to be. He laughed in my face ! " cried Bruno, 
 with a grand and ample gesture toward his gates, 
 his terrace, his tower. Yon Kaltenau flushed. 
 
 " They did not tell me," said Violante yet again, 
 drooping her head and fastening a self-reproachful 
 look upon the ground. 
 
 "And what is more," continued Bruno, gal 
 lantly pursuing his advantage, " just as you came 
 up I was on the point of setting out to see you 
 once again. Evening would have found me be 
 neath your window. I swear it ! " 
 
 " I swear it ! " echoed the Freiherr, finally con 
 scious that, as a second, he was showing himself 
 much inferior to Monna Clotilde. " I swear it," 
 
144 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 lie repeated. " Ever since our Montegrifone has 
 been in in possession here, all his thoughts have 
 been of you, and every day of delay in seeing you 
 has"- 
 
 " It is all mine," said Bruno, with another 
 grand backward sweep of the arm ; " and it shall 
 all be yours." He motioned toward the gateway. 
 " Come in." 
 
 " Impossible," said Yiolante, drawing away in 
 the direction of the lettiga. 
 
 " Impossible," said Monna Clotilde, conscious 
 of the dawning danger for her ascendancy. 
 
 " Why impossible ? " asked the Freiherr of 
 Violante. " You are not alone." 
 
 " Impossible," murmured Violante. 
 
 " You are not our only guests." 
 
 " Impossible." 
 
 " We have a houseful of friends you saw 
 them. Among them are several ladies of mature 
 years and complete discretion " 
 
 " Impossible." 
 
 " You have one of the of the same character 
 with you " 
 
 " Impossible." 
 
 Bruno laughed loudly. " Come in," he repeated. 
 " That is your only course. I am keeping open 
 house, and why should I throw myself open to 
 all the world if you, and you alone, are to be ex 
 cluded?" 
 
 " We will go on to the town," murmured Vio 
 lante. " We will find some inn " 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 145 
 
 " That is impossible. You would find the food 
 impossible, the beds impossible, the company im 
 possible. Come." 
 
 Violante looked toward Clotilde, who, resenting 
 this attack on the integrity of an influence that 
 was to be hers and hers alone, gave no sign of 
 encouragement. 
 
 "It is quite impossible," the girl murmured 
 once more. 
 
 Then Bruno took her by the hand, and she, 
 with a look for reassurance toward Theodor von 
 Kaltenau, let go her hold on the door of the let- 
 tiga ; and then, as the step was quite impossible, 
 she took it. She allowed Bruno to lead her in 
 through the great gateway, and Monna Clotilde 
 followed with the Freiherr. 
 
 IX 
 
 Von Kaltenau was happy. His combination 
 was now at least in so far as concerned his own 
 aims complete. He lent to the approaching 
 concords such an ear as is lent by the ravished 
 amateur who has just added the last and most ex 
 quisite of all the pipes to his organ. He leaned 
 back at ease as does the stoker who, having man 
 fully heaved the coal into his furnace, pauses to 
 feel the warmth and to take the glow upon his 
 face. Bruno now stood complete pipes, pedals, 
 stops, and all, and had nothing to do but sing. 
 Filled to the brim with hopes of future bliss and 
 
146 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 aflame with all the pride of love and pleasure and 
 mastery, it should be easy enough for him to shed 
 the palpitating warmth abroad and to spread the 
 red glow of joy far and wide. What he had done 
 in a small way at Rome he was now to do in 
 a larger way in Sicily. The world should again 
 take on new shape, life, and color, and everything 
 should once more seem worth the while. 
 
 Bruno trod the earth as a young god treads the 
 clouds ; his being, newly attuned, drew fresh har 
 monies from sea and sky and grove, and doubled 
 the odorous beauty of advancing spring that now 
 rioted amongst magnolias and oleanders and pome 
 granates, and reveled through the thickets of myr 
 tle and acacia that overhung the steep beds of 
 hastening rivulets. The broad terrace flowered 
 with camellias and aloes in their great earthen 
 pots ; the garden plats beneath bloomed with 
 euphorbias and asphodels and hyacinths and the 
 gallant red trumpetings of the hibiscus ; the fields 
 and the olive groves were sprinkled with violets 
 and anemones and cyclamen and the yellow oxalis, 
 and the crannied walls were hung with the purple 
 flowers of the pendent caper-plant. Day by day 
 the sky and the sea kept an inviolate pact of un- 
 flecked and unruffled serenity ; night after night 
 the stars shone soft and clear and the moon grew 
 bigger in the east. And by morning light and by 
 twilight dusk and by moonlight sheen, two young 
 lovers, proud of themselves and of each other, 
 walked abroad and abreast through this enchanted 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 147 
 
 domain, that new life and new interest and new 
 pleasure might be infused into the Kosmos for 
 those poor souls astray in the drear and sandy 
 tract of the desolate middle years. 
 
 Under the influence of the beauties of Belri- 
 guardo, of the glories of the Sicilian spring, of 
 the intoxication produced by the sight of ardent 
 youth happy in its love, many of the way-worn 
 pilgrims from the North came to the point of 
 abandoning their quest : the Last Refuge was 
 here. Dottore Balanzoni acknowledged that his 
 longings were almost appeased ; the Lady of Qual 
 ity declared that with the sight and the company 
 of such a noble young pair her ambitions were 
 pretty nearly realized. The painter and the novel 
 ist followed Donna Violante like a pair of hounds 
 in leash, striving to catch and to secure the last 
 fine shades in the color-symphony of human feli 
 city. The dumb Colossus from the North one day 
 broke through his cerements and surprised himself 
 and the company with a brief, though exquisite 
 poem the first he ever wrote, and the last. 
 
 Violante had been rather perturbed to find these 
 persons among the company at Belriguardo, but 
 she soon regained her composure ; that mad mo 
 ment at Naples was now too far behind, too far 
 away, for mention or even for thought. If Bruno 
 had not saved her then, he dignified and glorified 
 her now. She found him exquisite in his slender, 
 supple grace, in the rush of his unabashed ardor, 
 in his new-found dignity of a grand seigneur doing 
 
148 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 the honors of this romantic domain. She even 
 dwelt caressingly upon his name a name that 
 Giacinto Malevento, during one period of his per 
 secutions, had accused of a lack of gentility. 
 " Bruno ! " he had cried scornfully ; " a name for 
 a bravo crouched behind a wall, or for a vine 
 dresser busy with his pruning-knife ! " But Vio- 
 lante would linger upon the name in a very ecstasy 
 of fondness. Its barbaric brevity, its possibly ple 
 beian cast these stood so well for ardor, momen 
 tum, mastery ; if it grew near the ground it had 
 the fresh vigor and flavor of the soil itself. It 
 was a name to fill her idle moments by day and 
 her open-eyed moments at night. 
 
 In any event her own patrician appellation was 
 more than sufficient to maintain a proper average. 
 Her beauty, too, her temperament, her carriage 
 all these assisted her to tour through her new pro 
 vince with regal mien, and to secure the homage 
 due a queen upon her progress. Everybody coop 
 erated. The Lady of Quality opened her abundant 
 coffers that regalia might not fail, and even poor 
 Filippo would now and then smile his rueful smile 
 and admit that his ill-judged abdication was not 
 without its recompenses. 
 
 X 
 
 All were pleased save one. The little Mar- 
 chesina was finding the strain too hard to bear. 
 Her lively, sunny nature was under a cloud. Her 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 149 
 
 sense of the ridiculous was in abeyance. The situa 
 tion irked her. More, irksomeness had given way 
 to impatience, and impatience to pique, and pique 
 to anger ; the storm was almost ready to burst. 
 To be put at such a cruel disadvantage in the very 
 hour she most required free exercise of her powers ! 
 To be a masquerading servant in her brother s 
 house while another woman, no younger, no more 
 beautiful, no better born, made her fantastic entry 
 to rule as chatelaine ! To be snubbed or ignored 
 before the assembled company her brother fed and 
 lodged by an arrogant young impostor who half the 
 time did not trouble to keep up a decent feint of 
 the comedy they were playing! She had found 
 him hard to bear before the arrival of Donna Vio- 
 lante, but how much harder did she find him now ! 
 Then, at least, he had noticed her, had admired 
 her, had had words for her. For example, there 
 was that moonlit night when he had followed her 
 out upon the terrace, and had frankly and uncere 
 moniously set forth his admiration of her face and 
 figure. True, the entire proceeding had been tre 
 mendously de haut en has for he had taken the 
 tone of a very grand gentleman toward a very 
 minor actress ; but it had at least given her the op 
 portunity to wrench his remarks round to a distant 
 and perverted appreciation of her real quality. 
 Bruno had been taken who would not be ? 
 by her sprightly, tripping gait ; by her saucy little 
 nose which forgot its dignity at the last moment 
 to become tip-tilted in just the least degree ; by 
 
150 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 the arch, coquettish smile that she had copied from 
 Susanna, in the "Marriage of Figaro," and had 
 employed circumspectly on one or two private oc 
 casions. But now the Countess Almaviva herself 
 was come statelier, taller, more serene, more 
 regal, more imposing ; and poor little Susanna 
 found herself pushed quite aside. The Marchesina 
 
 lady s-maid, poor relation, what not made 
 moan to her brother. 
 
 " I can stand it no longer not a single day ! " 
 Indignant tears started in her eyes, 
 
 Filippo frowned blackly. " That graceless cub ! 
 
 has he been has he been taking liberties 
 with you ? " 
 
 " No, not exactly. No, I won t quite say that. 
 But I am sure that if I were if I were myself, 
 I should get more attention from him, and a a 
 different sort of attention." 
 
 Filippo laughed. " Your own fault ! And if I 
 had let you have your own way completely, you 
 would be scouring pans and kettles in the kitchen 
 this very hour ! " 
 
 Lucetta made a dreadful little grimace. 
 
 "But," went on Filippo, resuming his air of 
 gravity, " if I were to hear of his doing or saying 
 anything essentially improper, or even inconsider 
 ate, I should " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know ; you would punish him. An 
 easy thing to do. He can be thoroughly pun 
 ished at a moment s notice ; not only punished 
 crushed, annihilated. He is on a thin lava-crust ; 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 151 
 
 he stands on the gallows with the noose round his 
 neck" 
 
 Filippo s essential good nature came uppermost. 
 " I should not want to swing him off from Belri- 
 guardo before he can arrange to fall on his feet 
 elsewhere. We must pay for our foolish impulse 
 by a few more days of this ignoble existence ! " 
 
 XI 
 
 Bruno, meanwhile, unconscious of the slender 
 basis of mere suffrage upon which rested his 
 grandeur and all his happiness, present and fu 
 ture, began to rack his brains for new rituals by 
 which to show homage to the lady of his prefer 
 ence. All this time the scattered ruins of the little 
 Greek town below them were still strewing the 
 heights of the headland. Bits of entablature or of 
 stylobate mingled with the rugged growths of pal 
 metto and prickly-pear; fragmentary pavements 
 peeped out here and there through banks of aspho 
 del or tangles of curling acanthus leaves of glossi 
 est green ; and at the sunset hour loiterers on 
 Belriguardo s broad terrace would catch upon the 
 three or four remaining columns of the great temple 
 itself the ruddy glow that detached them still more 
 vividly from the unbroken blue of the sea behind. 
 Yes, the temple was there, and even the founda 
 tions of the altar. To these he must add the di 
 vinity, the priest, the ceremonial. 
 
 " What god shall we honor ? " he once asked 
 
152 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 the company assembled on the terrace in the early 
 twilight. " Before what divinity shall we light 
 our fires, sing our hymns, perform our dances, lay 
 our offerings ? Who will speak ? " 
 
 " Let it be Hope," said Balanzoni, wistfully. 
 " Upon the altar of such a goddess would I will 
 ingly pour a libation." 
 
 " Hope ? " repeated Bruno. He looked at Vio- 
 lante. 
 
 " Let it be Beauty," suggested Mam zelle, shyly. 
 
 " Beauty ? " exclaimed Bruno, after her. He 
 looked at Violante. 
 
 "Let it be Glory," pronounced the Lady of 
 Quality, with the dignity of a Roman empress. 
 
 " Glory? " He looked at Violante. 
 
 " Let it be Nemesis," muttered Monna Clo tilde, 
 darkly. 
 
 " Nemesis ? " He looked at Violante like a 
 protector. 
 
 " Let it be Art," suggested the painter. 
 
 " Art ! " exclaimed Bruno, impatiently. " Rather, 
 let it be Love," he looked at Violante once again 
 " Love, the god that " 
 
 " No, no," broke in the Freiherr. " Let it be 
 Youth youth, the one, the sole divinity the 
 strong young god that ever freshens and illumines 
 this worn old earth and creates in every new heart 
 the miraculous belief that our few years here are 
 to be worth the efforts we make to prolong them. 
 Let the rest go ; light your fires before Youth, 
 pour out your richest libations, pipe out the fullest 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 153 
 
 sweetness stored within your double pipes ; make 
 any sacrifice to keep it, for no sacrifice can ever 
 bring it back. No lustration save the bath of 
 youth will wash away the grime of the middle 
 years ; no illuminant save the torch of youth will 
 drive back the dark shades that gather round us 
 long before the end. Crown yourselves with myrtle 
 and laurel and pray with upraised arms that the 
 sun may stand still for but a single day t were 
 vain to ask for more ; for the divine sanctuary of 
 youth is the Last Refuge, and even that can har 
 bor us only too short a time. Youth includes all : 
 Beauty, Love, the Hope and Glory of the world. 
 And let this ever-fleeting, ever-renewing divinity 
 of youth be served by youthful priest ; no brow 
 upon which disillusion has ever weighed shall 
 wear her laurel ; no heart that enthusiasm has 
 deserted shall stand beside her pedestal ; no eyes 
 that disenchantment has dulled shall look up into 
 her face. Let such a priest minister before the 
 statue, while the rest of us, we weary, world-worn 
 mortals, humbly prostrate ourselves in the outer 
 court." 
 
 During these words, Violante, who had uttered 
 never a syllable, looked shyly once or twice at 
 Bruno ; Bruno, throughout, looked at Violante full 
 steadily and unabashed. The entire company ac 
 cepted Youth as the one, the sole divinity, and the 
 question simply became this : Shall the divinity 
 be a god ministered to by a priestess, or a goddess 
 ministered to by a priest ? The question remained 
 
154 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 open, even on the next morning, when the whole 
 company, clad in chlamys and himation and bear 
 ing oak branches, picked their sandal-footed way 
 down to the temple ; nor even when they were 
 grouped around the altar did the general indeci 
 sion end. The women (who wished to serve as 
 priestesses) urged Bruno to take his stand upon 
 the battered capital that was to serve the divinity 
 for a pedestal. The men (who would fain be 
 priests) begged Violante to lose no time in assum 
 ing the same place, that the ritual of adoration 
 might begin. But Violante, blushing divinely, 
 extended her white arms toward Bruno, and raised 
 her golden cup, as if to offer a libation. And 
 Bruno, with pride sparkling in his enkindled eye, 
 took his basket of first-fruits from the hands of 
 Donna Lucetta and made as if to lay it before 
 Violante s shrine. Complete confusion prevailed ; 
 no understanding could be reached. The white 
 heifer, with wreathed and gilded horns, strolled 
 away and began to browse among the fennel and 
 acanthus; and the Freiherr, with a faint sigh, 
 rested the sacrificial axe against a bit of broken 
 cornice. Neither object of this common worship 
 would take precedence, and the little company 
 returned to Belriguardo under the pall of utter 
 failure. 
 
 " Youth, youth ! " murmured the Freiherr ; " as 
 indomitable in its sacrifices as in its hopes and 
 enthusiasms ! " 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 155 
 
 XII 
 
 Bruno s youthful elasticity soon recovered from 
 the disappointment attending this ceremonial, and 
 he began to form plans for another. The second, 
 too, was designed to honor Donna Violante. The 
 first had taken place in a temple ; this one was to 
 take place at Belriguardo itself. The first had 
 been conceived in the spirit of antiquity ; the sec 
 ond was to be carried out in the spirit of the 
 middle ages. His failure had been Greek ; his 
 success was to be Saracenic. 
 
 Sicily ! swept by every breeze that ripples the 
 Mediterranean ! Sicily ! fruitful soil in which 
 seed from every quarter has found a lodging ! 
 Above all, the seed of Arabic poesy, borne hither- 
 ward in circuitous sweep through Moorish Spain 
 and gay Provence, and nurtured by Norman chiv 
 alry and later gathered a hundredfold by Tuscan 
 sonneteers to be spread broadcast through the 
 world. Bruno pined for a concourse of trouba 
 dours and dreamed of a Court of Love. Belri 
 guardo should be the Favara of to-day Favara, 
 where the great Hohenstaufen had held his cul 
 tured, cosmopolitan sway ; where poets and painters 
 and philosophers had come flocking to entertain 
 the court beauties, Christian and Mohammedan 
 alike ; where the delights of the South and the 
 East conjoined in fullest, most ideal union ; and 
 where the opening bud of Italian poetry was coaxed 
 
156 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 forward by the dexterous hand of the accomplished 
 Frederick himself. To Favara should be added 
 Granada and Toulouse, and eke the canorous choir 
 of Valdarno. There should be cansos and tensons 
 and baladas and aubades and pastoretas ; and the 
 songs sung by this newest consistory of the " gay 
 science " should all be in honor of one whom he 
 should wisely choose. 
 
 This court of love required a queen. There 
 was no ambiguity here; there should be no dis 
 pute as to primacy; the queen should have no 
 opportunity to draw back at the very foot of the 
 throne. In his mind s eye Donna Violante already 
 sat there in state. 
 
 He issued a mandate exacting a tribute of poems. 
 It was like a tax laid by the royal treasury, and no 
 one was to escape. He himself should write, and 
 none must think of failure. He urged the Frei- 
 herr to serve him with Dottore Balanzoni, whose 
 gravity he himself hardly dared attack. Yon Kal- 
 tenau took Balanzoni aside (Balanzoni was not 
 his real name, for he had brought a much better 
 one from Leyden, but it is too late to make the 
 change now) von Kaltenau, I say, took Balan 
 zoni aside, and asked him to bear his part in a 
 tenson. " A tenson," explained the Freiherr, " is 
 a sort of poetic combat, in which opposing sides 
 discourse on the philosophy of chivalrous love. 
 Enter the combat, I conjure you, as you are a 
 philosopher ! Bring back to mind the philosophic 
 and artistic glories of your own land. Live, live, 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 157 
 
 as you have so long wanted to live. Break 
 loose ! Soar ! Palpitate ! What better Kefuge 
 can you find than the refuge offered here ? " 
 
 The romancer also promised to contribute, and 
 to do as well as he could in a vehicle not properly 
 his ; the Lady of Quality, too, said that she came 
 from a clever land where everybody was expected 
 to turn his hand to everything, and that they 
 might count upon her for a roundelay of some 
 kind or other. The dumb poet, having broken his 
 silence once, might be expected, of course, to do it 
 again. Monna Clotilde said she could not write 
 a poem, but that she should be glad to recite one 
 written by anybody else : if her personal prefer 
 ence were consulted, the love she lent her voice to 
 celebrate would be an unhappy love. Mam zelle 
 Hedwig had been seen carrying a small bottle of 
 violet ink across the courtyard and along the ter 
 race, and was felt to be engaged in the fabrication 
 of something very choice and graceful and inde 
 pendent. The painter, who had no powers in verse, 
 promised to put the session of the consistory on 
 canvas. 
 
 Capoameno was one of the readiest and most 
 accomplished versifiers in Sicily. He approached 
 Bruno one morning very humbly and asked to be 
 allowed to participate. 
 
 " Certainly," said Bruno, with the most gracious 
 condescension. " Write something, by all means. 
 To such a queen in such a court the praises of 
 high and low alike are due. But you will under- 
 
158 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 stand that your piece need not be very long, nor 
 too impassioned. Let your own good sense and 
 good taste guide you." 
 
 " Thanks, Excellency," said Filippo, bowing 
 humbly as he slunk away. 
 
 XIII 
 
 The Court of Love was held on the great ter 
 race of Belriguardo one morning in earliest April. 
 The sky was cloudless, the sea was unruffled, save 
 for the lightest breeze, and the beams of mid- 
 spring s enkindling sun were shut off by the great 
 bulk of the Roman tower. To the terrace camel 
 lias were added branches of laurel and oleander, 
 and festoons of myrtle and smilax clung along 
 the lichened balustrade. Donna Violante sat en 
 throned under a canopy of cloth-of-gold ; Bruno 
 stood beside her on the lowest step ; and the rest 
 of the company, decked out in the accumulated 
 spoils of the centuries, grouped themselves about 
 the presiding figure in the similitude of a court 
 of the old Norman-Arabic days. The painter, 
 dressed as Count Raymond s favorite troubadour, 
 was enchanted. He was in the picture, and he 
 was out of it. He could take it subjectively ; he 
 could take it objectively. He cried for brushes 
 and canvas and felt himself on the threshold of a 
 triumphant masterpiece. 
 
 " I have found the Last Refuge, in very truth," 
 he said. And he looked again at the glorious 
 young couple in frank and unrestrained delight. 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 159 
 
 A court of love has its distinctly judicial aspect, 
 and the proceedings opened with a philosophical 
 discussion on the nature of love a matter upon 
 which the presiding spirit and her attendant ladies 
 were expected to deliver a judgment. The two 
 disputants were Dottore Balanzoni and the Frei- 
 herr of Kaltenau. One s verses maintained that 
 love was unselfishness ; the other s, that love was 
 selfishness itself. No one knew, however, the 
 author of either poem ; for the two scrolls were 
 dropped into a hat, and each one read the poem 
 he drew out. Judgment was reserved. 
 
 The forms of legal procedure partly satisfied, 
 the session moved on in a freer spirit. The Lady 
 of Quality, being perfectly prosperous and happy, 
 and thoroughly contented under domestic arrange 
 ments of her own devising, put together a mourn 
 ful little ditty about a broken heart. This was 
 recited with tragic emphasis by Monna Clotilde, 
 and every one was much affected. 
 
 The dumb singer from the Northland had been 
 unable to produce a second poem, and so repeated 
 his first. He stood forth with his sheet grasped 
 in his great bony hands and read his tender lit 
 tle lines in a voice like the roaring north wind 
 hushed. 
 
 The Marchese hurried rapidly and humbly 
 through his bit of verse ; everybody saw that he 
 was embarrassed and none too desirous of pushing 
 himself before his betters. " However," said the 
 Lady of Quality, " I think a fine handsome fellow 
 
160 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 like that might show a little more spirit. Nothing 
 is so annoying as too great humility." 
 
 Capoameno had avoided passion as well as pro 
 lixity. He read a piece of ten or twelve lines. 
 Nothing could have been more mischievous, more 
 sardonic, more packed with secondary meanings. 
 But only the Freiherr and the Marchesina under 
 stood them. When Bruno too came to understand 
 them, in the light of subsequent events, they pricked 
 him like red-hot needles. 
 
 Mam zelle Hedwig now came forward and bash 
 fully read her little sonnet in violet ink. It was 
 fragrant with gratitude and prim with respectful 
 homage. It was dedicated to a preux chevalier 
 who rescued damsels in distress. The Freiherr 
 smiled kindly as he listened. For the chevalier 
 that Mam zelle had in mind was clearly one who 
 resisted the demands of extortionate porters and 
 the advances of importunate cabmen, and who was 
 gently considerate with single women who were 
 past their first youth and defaced by the hard 
 knocks of travel. Mam zelle s innocent gratitude 
 showed in her tremulous voice and her blushing 
 cheeks. Everybody acknowledged her efforts with 
 cordial applause, the Freiherr with the rest to 
 keep himself and herself in countenance. But 
 Mam zelle s humble tribute was come too late as 
 a little star that begins to shine near dawn. For 
 daylight seemed breaking before the Freiherr s 
 eyes and all that little stars could do would be to 
 fade away. 
 
THE PALACE OF PLEASURE 161 
 
 Then Bruno. He stood at the foot of the throne 
 and gave forth his homage with the abandon and 
 momentum of a whirlwind. His eyes sparkled 
 with pride, his brown and sinewy young hands 
 trembled with passion, his whole slender frame 
 dilated and vibrated as if the very god of poetry 
 had descended upon him. His canso wedded the 
 suave rhythms of the South to the barbaric im 
 petuosity of the Servian highlands. It was all 
 for her for her, seated there upon the throne ; 
 let everybody see, let everybody hear. Donna 
 Violante, blushing, panting, trembling, abashed, 
 grew great and glorious in the eyes of all, as 
 her self-abandoned worshipper decked her canopy 
 with loves and graces, hurled into its farthest 
 recess the white illuminative rays of passion, 
 heaped up at her feet the multitudinous offering 
 of an ardent and boundless devotion. The en 
 thusiastic company broke out in loud applause ; 
 they stripped the terrace of its myrtles and camel 
 lias and showered them upon the poet and his 
 lady. Only Theodor von Kaltenau held back. 
 Bruno, still standing tall and straight, gave him 
 one triumphal glance, and threw out his arms with 
 the slightest turn of the head, as if to say : 
 
 44 There she sits ! " 
 
 The Freiherr had always had a great affinity 
 for such abstractions as time and place : he could 
 poetize an epoch and he could bestow an individual 
 physiognomy upon a town. He had a deep sym 
 pathy for things, and sometimes even felt a like 
 
162 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 sympathy for causes; but a sympathetic appre 
 hension of men and women he had never greatly 
 cultivated this was his chief defect. The hour 
 to bring the remedy had struck. The various 
 happenings of his journey southward had served 
 to rouse his dormant interest in actual life, and 
 now a fuller revelation was at hand. What every 
 body saw he too must see. If the Marchesina 
 could sink all jealousies and shower her queen with 
 flowers, could he do less? If ancient Balanzoni 
 were to be observed running hither and thither with 
 trailing festoons of smilax in his hands, must he 
 himself stand purblind and palsied ? He had seen 
 the goddess conducted to her pedestal; he had 
 seen the queen seated upon her throne : what was 
 there to delay the dawn ? 
 
 The youth who had made all these glories visi 
 ble still stood in his place and still seemed to 
 say: 
 
 " There she sits ! " 
 
 Von Kaltenau looked. Ingenuous, over-confi 
 dent Bruno, who had shown him more than he had 
 asked to see ! 
 
PART V. APPLES OF DISCORD 
 
 BRUNO was delighted by the success of his court 
 of love, and with his own part in it, nor would 
 he acknowledge that the other ceremonial within 
 the Greek temple had been in the slightest degree 
 a failure. His histrionic tastes were now fully 
 awakened, and his mimetic powers were growing 
 with every fresh exertion. He therefore deter 
 mined upon a third function that should quite 
 eclipse the other two ; he issued a decree for a 
 costume ball that should serve as an epitome of 
 Sicilian history, and should gather to one splendid 
 focus all the glories of the Island. 
 
 He summoned Capoameno, and the Marchese, 
 in his capacity of major-domo, promptly attended. 
 
 He gave the Marchese a series of minute, lavish 
 and diversified instructions, including directions to 
 prepare a list of the principal dignitaries and per 
 sonages of the province. 
 
 " And I shall ask you too to take part," said 
 Bruno, in conclusion, " as well as that young Lu- 
 cetta. I shall know how to manage the Greek 
 side of it, and the Carthaginian ; and there will be 
 plenty of people to do justice to the Saracens and 
 
164 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 the Normans. But the more primitive period must 
 be represented as well : I should like a pair of the 
 early Sikelians to come down from their hilltop 
 and mingle with the rest of us." 
 
 Filippo conveyed this command to his sister. 
 The Marchesina flew into a passion. 
 
 " This is an outrage ! " she cried. " It is more 
 than I can stand ! It is more than anybody could 
 be expected to stand ! I will go this very day to 
 that presumptuous boy and say to him : Sir, you 
 are a blind fool ! This house is not yours, but my 
 brother s. The escutcheon over the big archway 
 is his. The wine that you have been spilling is 
 his ; the horses that you have been laming " 
 
 "Not at all, my dear girl," interjected Filippo. 
 
 " the forbearance that you have been abusing 
 is his ; only the blind folly and arrogance of it all 
 is yours ! You have set aside a better man than 
 yourself in his own house, before his own guests ; 
 you have treated his sister with the familiar impu 
 dence due a kitchen-maid " 
 
 " How, Lucetta ? Do you mean that he " 
 
 " No," said the Marchesina, " not exactly. In 
 truth, the foolish, infatuated fellow won t look at 
 me at all. But if he won t look, he shall listen ! " 
 
 " My dear sister, your doing this is quite out of 
 the question. Things have gone too far. A man 
 may be dropped from a balloon at the height of 
 twenty feet, but not at the height of a mile ! " 
 
 " We are still to submit, then, are we ? I am 
 to be paraded about before Violante Astrofiam- 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 165 
 
 mante as a Sikelian savage, am I ? What did the 
 Sikelian savages wear? Skins? And did they 
 have anything on their heads and their feet ? And 
 while we are paddling about in such a guise, Donna 
 Violante and Montegrifone will be doing the beau 
 roles, I assure you. She will be Arethusa or Pro 
 serpine, or some great lady from the court of 
 Hiero or of Roger, and he will follow her about 
 as a Bras de Fer or an Alcibiades ! " 
 
 " We must endure things for a few days longer. 
 The end is in sight. Von Kaltenau says that 
 the" 
 
 " No, it is too much still another disguise 
 added to all the rest. The strain is becoming too 
 great. Think of it ! persons of some conse 
 quence, we masquerade as servants ; as servants, 
 we are ordered to masquerade as gentry ; and as 
 pretended guests we are further required to run 
 about in the wolf-skins and matted hair of the 
 aboriginal islanders. Three disguises taken on 
 one over the other ! My brain gives out, along 
 with my pride and my patience." 
 
 " The end is in sight, as I was saying. Von 
 Kaltenau has taken this young man s affairs in 
 hand, and they are all but arranged. He will 
 know the precise truth about himself and his new 
 belongings within a few days. This ball will be 
 his last performance here, and within a week he 
 will be in full possession of his own proper 
 estates." 
 
 Lucetta sidled away, pouting ; she seemed as if 
 
166 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 improvising a step that should bring an early Sike- 
 lian maid though much against her will down 
 from the tribal stronghold. 
 
 II 
 
 Donna Violante was soon made to feel that she 
 was expected to take a dazzling part in Monte- 
 grifone s coming capo tfopera. She listened 
 quietly to all of Bruno s unbridled suggestions, 
 and then talked them over with Theodor von 
 Kaltenau. 
 
 This involved the spending of odd half-hours in 
 the shade of the oleander grove near the great 
 fountain, or under the tall group of stone pines 
 that shadowed a marble bench just beneath one 
 corner of the wide terrace. Bruno had opened his 
 friend s eyes to the beauty of the world about him, 
 and now his middle-aged pupil was beginning to 
 perceive, though dimly, the interest to be got out 
 of the people inhabiting it. Youth and beauty 
 and ardor were making themselves felt. 
 
 Violante received von Kaltenau s measured at 
 tentions with much amiability and no scant mea 
 sure of appreciation. She had been a good deal 
 in the sun of late, and a little period of shadow 
 was grateful. The sun is glorious and masterful 
 and essential it is the life and centre of the sys 
 tem wherein we hold our atomic place ; but no one 
 can stand an uninterrupted exposure to it through 
 the long summer day. Bruno had blazed royally, 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 167 
 
 had burned down with an imperious fierceness. No 
 passing cloud of diffidence had interposed to give 
 even the briefest respite to the girl upon whom all 
 the rays of his being converged, and who, faint 
 and dazzled, now felt the need of a moment s 
 shade. Theodor von Kaltenau offered it. She 
 liked his cool, subdued manner ; his measured 
 voice, speaking of interests less exclusively per 
 sonal than those that moved Bruno, rested her ; 
 and she was flattered to be addressed as a mature 
 and serious person by a man so much her senior. 
 It was pleasant to be able to abandon her hand 
 for a moment upon the bench with some assurance 
 that it would not instantly be caught up by an im 
 pulsive youth close beside her. It was agreeable 
 to be allowed to adjust a flying lock at the nape 
 of the neck without feeling that a pair of brown 
 eyes and a pair of brown hands were instant to see 
 and to assist. Von Kaltenau indeed saw the hand, 
 abandoned to the kindred whiteness of the marble 
 or raised to put the fluttering lock in place, and 
 she knew that he saw it, and that he had only just 
 begun to see it ; but she felt sure that he was not 
 preparing to dispute with her over her own mas 
 tery of it. 
 
 Bruno, with the scant ceremony of one whose 
 rights were paramount, would now and then ob 
 trude upon one of these slow, grave and quiet 
 conferences, as it went on in its corner of the ter 
 race or round the curb of the old Byzantine well. 
 Then Theodor would nod and Violante would 
 
168 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 smile and neither of them would be quick to 
 bring their little talk to a close, or to give Bruno 
 a definite share in it. Once, when he approached 
 them in the courtyard, they greeted him without 
 removing their elbows from the edge of the well 
 or lifting their eyes from the fern-lined shaft down 
 which they were both abstractedly looking. Such 
 things disconcerted and irritated Bruno, and Monna 
 Clotilde, who sometimes saw his incipient frown, 
 could not restrain her ominous smile. 
 
 Bruno had frankly disliked the woman from the 
 beginning, and now his vaguely-stirring need for 
 some scapegoat opened his lips against her. " My 
 dear Theodor," he said one day to von Kaltenau, 
 " her presence here is no advantage." What she 
 had done for Malevento, he may have thought she 
 might do, too, for him. 
 
 "You are right," rejoined the Freiherr; "she 
 is no suitable companion for Donna Violante. 
 How did they meet ? " 
 
 " The poor girl, on leaving home, took refuge 
 in a church frightened by her own impulsive 
 action. They met there." 
 
 " Ha ! " muttered the Freiherr; " a church once 
 more. I could wish the woman well away from 
 here," he added. 
 
 " Let me send her away," blurted out Bruno. 
 
 " If the one went, the other would not stay. 
 With all her demerits, Clotilde is at least defi 
 nitely a duenna. She will have to remain." 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 169 
 
 III 
 
 Other eyes besides those of Monna Clotilde 
 saw von Kaltenau s growing interest in Violante. 
 Mam zelle Hedwig now began to droop her eye 
 lids plaintively and to give vent to small, patient 
 sighs, and to feel it were well to let her little day 
 dream dissipate before its outlines should become 
 too clear. There had been times when she had 
 ventured on the arch and the coquettish with 
 Theodor von Kaltenau, and when he had appeared 
 to meet her more than half way ; and young 
 Bruno and others had lifted their eyebrows ever 
 so slightly, and had seemed to look upon the 
 gentle, gentle dalliance of such a pair as an in 
 structive exhibition of middle-aged misjudgment, 
 and as a living example of the error and the folly 
 of picking up the component parts of life regard 
 less of their proper succession. Yes, Theodor was 
 right : the meal must be served in regular courses, 
 the book must be read in regular order ; the turn 
 ing back of mature people upon the interests of 
 youth was an awkwardness, an absurdity, it led 
 to contretemps, it led to laughter. 
 
 Deprived of the comfort of von Kaltenau s so 
 ciety, Mam zelle began to turn her wide eyes upon 
 Capoameno and to make her mature smile a little 
 more decidedly his. The subordinate part played 
 by so personable and well-mannered a man was 
 still a mystery to her; though if he were but a 
 
170 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 poor hanger-on of a great house her own modest 
 merits, she may have thought, could ask for no 
 thing more. Filippo met her advances admirably; 
 though her northern gaucheries gave him endless 
 entertainment, a great deal of tolerance went with 
 his amusement, and no slight appreciation of her 
 essential qualities. 
 
 " You might count for more here than you do," 
 she said to him one day ; having gained her own 
 liberty, it pained her to see another still in sub 
 jection. 
 
 " I have counted for more than I do," he re 
 turned. 
 
 " You should place a higher value upon your 
 self." 
 
 " I have been taught the value of humility." 
 
 " Humility is not for you. Assert yourself. 
 Lay hold on what you want." 
 
 " Everything has been taken. The beau role 
 has been snatched away ; I am nothing now but a 
 conquered savage." 
 
 " Savage ? I cannot grant that. I have never 
 met a man more fully civilized. You can never 
 come to savagery," 
 
 " Then the savages have come to me. They 
 have borne down upon my civilization. At any 
 rate, I am conquered the victorious chief sets 
 his foot upon my neck and raises a shout of tri 
 umph." 
 
 " We are the savages, then we from the 
 North ? But the South will do what it has always 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 171 
 
 done for the barbarians : it softens them, it tames 
 them ; they remain, they cannot get away " 
 
 Filippo gasped. A week or less, he had hoped, 
 would see Belriguardo his own again. 
 
 " the soft air enchants us ; the blue sky, the 
 bluer sea, delights us ; the glorious vegetation of 
 early spring transports us. The monuments invite 
 us to study ; the long procession of glittering 
 dynasties absorbs us. We forget the gray skies 
 that overhang our own bleak mountains ; we for 
 get the long, cold winter of the North. All is 
 light, beauty, serenity, joy. Hearts are expansive ; 
 thoughts are kind. We feel that at last we have 
 come into our own. This is what we have hoped 
 for, dreamed of, longed for ; we are here here 
 here, and who will drive us back ? " 
 
 As Mam zelle improvised this little rhapsody 
 (which was to be set down in due time, in violet 
 ink, like her previous production), she opened her 
 wide virginal eyes more widely still upon wonder 
 ing Filippo, and threw out her arms with a con 
 fiding gesture of modest and impersonal passion, 
 and made it manifest that now at last her eyes 
 saw the sights, her ears heard the sounds, her 
 lungs breathed the very air that destiny, however 
 thwarted, had from the first decreed. Filippo, 
 much awed by this gothic expression of resolute 
 tenacity, began to wonder whether Bruno s brief 
 day would end so early after all, and whether Bel 
 riguardo were ever to lapse to the control of its 
 proper master. 
 
172 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 IV 
 
 Meanwhile the entire household was deep in the 
 study of myth, of legend, of history ancient and 
 medieval : the coming fete was to resume all that 
 was most striking and brilliant in the long roll of 
 the many-storied island. Bruno had determined 
 to make himself the central figure of the pageant, 
 and swept a quick eye over all the flotsam and jet 
 sam with which the wreck of empires had strewn 
 the Sicilian shores. He thought first of Hiero of 
 Syracuse, the ideal Greek tyrant ; Hiero, energetic, 
 successful, refined, artistic, witty, popular yet 
 with the iron fist clenched within the velvet glove ; 
 Hiero, walking into the theatre, a tall, stately per 
 son in the short tunic of a warrior, with a regal 
 circlet among his curling locks, and attended by 
 a Pindar and an 2Eschylus . . . No, it was all 
 too formidable, too grandiose ; something simpler 
 must be found. He thought of Alcibiades, the 
 curled darling with the broad fillet on his scented 
 locks, and the engaging lisp, and the profile of a 
 statued god, and the gold-embroidered chlamys, 
 Alcibiades, who stood in the theatre of Catania 
 and harangued the fascinated crowd while the 
 Athenian fleet stole into their harbor . . . No, to 
 be Alcibiades was to be an effeminate trickster. 
 Let us have something more vigorous, more bar 
 baric. He thought of Hannibal and of Himilco, 
 and saw himself arrayed in a long black robe 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 173 
 
 flowered with gold; upon his head a coronet of 
 pearls in many tiers, like a initre ; round his throat 
 a necklace of dusky stones engraved with cabalis 
 tic signs ; and to end with, bracelets and anklets 
 of uncut gems. Then he threw himself upon a big- 
 limbed Tunisian horse, a beast shaved from head 
 to tail, maneless, earless, with a silver horn set on 
 his forehead ; or he mounted into a brass tower on 
 the back of some elephant with painted ears and a 
 caparison wrought in tiny scales of bronze . . . 
 
 He laughed at the impossibility of realizing 
 these African excesses and openly confessed to 
 the assembled company his fear that the Cartha 
 ginian epoch in Sicilian history must go unre 
 presented. But aid came from an unlooked-for 
 quarter. The Lady of Quality, who had shyly 
 informed them a few days before that her given 
 name was Sophonisba, now offered to support the 
 weight of this historic appellation : she would ap 
 pear, unless prevented, as the daughter of Has- 
 drubal and the wife of Syphax, and would carry 
 through the mazes of the grand procession as much 
 barbaric splendor as the part required. 
 
 " Good," cried Capoameno, jumping up in a mo 
 ment of self-forgetfulness, and clapping his hands. 
 "Carthage remains indestructible, after all! " 
 
 Bruno looked severely at the Marchese, as if he 
 had transgressed the utmost bounds permitted, and 
 poor browbeaten Filippo sank back into silence. 
 
 Then Bruno passed on, naturally enough, from 
 the Carthaginians to the Komans. But the only 
 
174 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 Romans who had made any great figure in Sicily 
 were Marcellus, who wept over Syracuse before 
 plundering it, and Verres, who plundered it with 
 out weeping over it at all. Then there was the 
 Saracenic emir that had done as much at a later 
 date, but nobody could recall his name. 
 
 Then came the young eagles of the Norman 
 house of Hauteville, each fired with a lordly deter 
 mination to clutch in his talons a kingdom all his 
 own: Roger, Drogo, Robert, Raymond, Tancred, 
 turbulent, eloquent, romantic ; bold, lighthanded 
 robbers, with clanking coat of mail and sturdy 
 round helmet and ponderous battle-axe. There 
 were a round dozen of them. Which to choose ? 
 
 Why not pass them all by and elect to be their 
 great descendant, the Emperor Frederick the Sec 
 ond ? Frederick, Southron-born, for whom Sicily 
 was always the favorite part of his empire, and for 
 whom all men and all creeds were as one ; Fred 
 erick, who spoke alike Greek, Arabic, Latin, and 
 the new-formed Italian ; Frederick, whose court 
 was thronged with the miscreant beauties of the 
 Mohammedan world, no less than by poets, artists, 
 and philosophers, and who returned from his cru 
 sade against the Sultan of Egypt with a bevy of 
 dancing-girls, the Sultan s own gift; Frederick, 
 who spent the days in genial rivalry of poesy with 
 his own sonneteering chancellor ah, decidedly 
 such would be a gallant, salient, brilliant figure ! 
 Then his consort. If Bruno were Frederick him 
 self, why should not Violante 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 175 
 
 But no ; a moment s thought led to a moment s 
 investigation. Frederick, it appeared, had had not 
 one consort but four. And beautiful were their 
 names, Constance, lolanthe, Isabella, Bianca, 
 but far too numerous. " So fickle, so forgetful ! " 
 said Bruno. " Let him pass." 
 
 Little seemed left now short of the Sicilian Ves 
 pers. But nobody cared to obtrude the thought of 
 a massacre upon the festivities, and nothing re 
 mained but to begin at the beginning and go over 
 the ground again. The earliest mythology yielded 
 all at once the name of Acis. 
 
 " Acis and Galatea," said Dottore Balanzoni. 
 
 "Yes, Acis and Galatea," croaked Monna Clo- 
 tilde, from the edge of the group, as she glanced 
 toward Theodor and Yiolante, who were seated a 
 little apart in low- voiced converse ; " and Polyphe 
 mus, rushing down the side of ^Etna to hurl his 
 rocks after them ! " 
 
 V 
 
 Violante showed herself willing to fall in with 
 Bruno s ideas, whatever turn they might ultimately 
 take ; but she gave him acquiescence rather than 
 enthusiasm merely expressing a hope that the 
 final arrangement would permit her to wear a 
 simple classical costume, beyond which she hardly 
 cared to go. Bruno, remembering the peplum she 
 had worn at the ball in Rome, was far from inter 
 posing an objection, but he resented her lack of 
 
176 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 positive enthusiasm : objection, controversy, even 
 a little vulgar bickering would be better than this 
 placid assent. 
 
 "You are losing your interest," he said reproach 
 fully. 
 
 " Not at all," she rejoined. 
 
 " You don t care about pleasing me." 
 
 " Pleasing you ? " repeated Violante, with a flash 
 of the eye. " Does it not seem to you that I have 
 done enough, even if I do not try to please you ? 
 It was a great deal for me to enter here, and a 
 great deal more for me to allow myself to remain 
 here." 
 
 "Forgive me," said Bruno. "But you care 
 nothing for my ideas. Have you been getting ideas 
 from from some one else ? " 
 
 "From whom?" 
 
 "From from that painter. He follows you 
 about all the time begging you to let him do your 
 portrait " 
 
 " Many others have done the same. And this 
 one, surely, has claims to my consideration ! " 
 
 "He had two hours of your time, yesterday. 
 Has he begun work ? " 
 
 " On a sketch." 
 
 " I know their ideas ! " said Bruno, irritably. 
 " While I was waiting up and down that jasmin- 
 walk, he was filling your head full of bangles and 
 jackets and fezzes and those flowing trousers " 
 
 " And since I have decided to go in Greek dress, 
 you may be sure that I have declined any such sug- 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 177 
 
 gestions. And if I go as a Greek, you ought to 
 know why." 
 
 Bruno did know why : it was in memory of their 
 first meeting. " But they all run after you," he 
 went on pugnaciously. " They take your time ; 
 they demand your attention ; they override the 
 just claims of others. What do you find, for ex 
 ample, in that great uncouth creature who is al 
 ways pursuing you through the garden, racking his 
 hands and working his features, and trying to vent 
 poems that never come ? " 
 
 " He, too, is entitled to considerate treatment 
 from both of us." 
 
 " He never even wet his feet ! " cried Bruno, 
 angrily ; " while / why, I would have " 
 
 " Sh," said Yiolante, dropping her eyes for an 
 instant. " And I suppose I have been receiving 
 suggestions from him," she went on, "even 
 from the dumb ? " 
 
 " No, no ; but " - 
 
 "Then I am accepting a little attention, now 
 and then, from that professor from Ley den, per 
 haps ? a grave, reticent person, old enough to be 
 my father, almost my grandfather. Poor old 
 gentleman ! do you think a little youth, a little 
 pleasure, a little sweetness put into his life must 
 be just so much taken out of yours ? " 
 
 "I I do not mean Dottore Balanzoni," stam 
 mered Bruno. " I never gave him a thought." 
 
 " Then you must mean that unaccountable indi 
 vidual who sits every evening at your table in a 
 
178 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 shiny coat, and whom, despite his good looks and 
 his charming manners even if they are a little 
 too subdued you browbeat so unpityingly " 
 
 " Ha ! " cried Bruno ; " that fellow ! I should 
 like to hear of Ms presuming in the slightest de 
 gree upon your favor. And if I should learn that 
 
 you" 
 
 " And now you are browbeating me ! " 
 
 " Not at all ! I never browbeat anybody ! I 
 never had the least thought of browbeating you ! " 
 
 " You have been browbeating me for the last ten 
 minutes. How much longer is it to last ? How 
 much longer do you think I will endure it ? " 
 
 " And how much longer do you think I will en 
 dure your slighting of me and your open partiality 
 for Theodor von " 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Violante. " It is Herr von Kal- 
 tenau, then ? If that is the case, let me tell you 
 what I think of him. I think he is a very esti 
 mable and interesting man. I like his gravity ; I 
 like his quietness. I like his ability to rise above 
 trivial personalities. I like his way of treating me 
 as a person of sense, and as if I were his equal 
 which heaven knows is far from the case in dis 
 cretion. I feel free to say that he pipes a very 
 pleasant, restful little tune : must I have the drums 
 and trumpets dinning* in my ears continually?" 
 
 " Am I the drums and trumpets ? " 
 
 " Yes, and the cymbals, too ! " 
 
 " You shall enjoy silence at once ! " he declared 
 angrily, going. 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 179 
 
 " Foolish boy ! " she exclaimed ; " stay where 
 you are only quiet down this dreadful fortis 
 simo." 
 
 But Bruno flung himself away in a rage ; and 
 after a short concluding measure filled out by 
 rests, the interview came to an end with a double 
 bar one that delayed reconciliation for some 
 hours. 
 
 VI 
 
 For some time after this all mention of Acis and 
 Galatea ceased. And when, that evening, poor 
 Bruno, taking a moonlight stroll through his 
 stately pleasance, came upon a well-remembered 
 bower only to find Donna Yiolante and Theodor 
 von Kaltenau seated there in easy yet self-absorbed 
 converse, the abolition of all mythology seemed im 
 minent and desirable. The roses rioted over the 
 heads of this oblivious pair, and a nightingale, in 
 some distant thicket poured forth its sympathetic 
 passion ; and Monna Clotilde, hovering near, smelt 
 unwillingly at the flower-beds. Bruno rebelled ; it 
 was his bower, his moon, his rose-thicket, his 
 nightingale. And the man who dared to call him 
 self his friend had taken possession of this whole 
 enchanting domain and even usurped a rightful 
 lover s place. Bruno resolved to throw himself 
 away and upon the most abject creature within 
 his ken. 
 
 Of course he had made a mistaken estimate of 
 von Kaltenau s attitude. The Freiherr, even when 
 
180 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 aided by the revealing power of his young friend s 
 vision, had reached, as yet, nothing like a plenary 
 illumination. He had merely come now that 
 another had favored him with so positive a de 
 monstration to a consciousness (nor too vivid 
 a one) of Donna Violante s exquisiteness. He 
 viewed her through a glass not darkly, but 
 through the teasing, provocative glass that while 
 more than translucent is still less than transpar 
 ent. He saw, too, with a borrowed eye and with 
 a borrowed appreciation. 
 
 But Bruno credited Theodor with his own pene 
 trative vision and his own rapt estimate. And in 
 his heart he condemned Donna Violante as false. 
 She was of far too stately and self-centred a char 
 acter to be accused of such lightnesses as coquetry 
 and frivolity. He passed at once to the last and 
 lowest word in his vocabulary : she was false. 
 
 Yes, he should throw himself away upon Lu- 
 cetta ; and Donna Violante, informed of the true 
 standing of this pretended guest, should learn that 
 he had been deprived of nothing that a mere serv 
 ing-maid could not replace. 
 
 The Marchesina, actuated half by pique and 
 half by a mere sense of fun, jumped into the 
 breach. She ordered her double part with a 
 steady hand. She brought out all sorts of shabby 
 finery from some reservoir unsuspected yet seem 
 ingly inexhaustible, and she garnished her talk 
 and manner with a variety of familiar little vul 
 garisms that left her new cavalier in a teasing 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 181 
 
 state of uncertainty as to whether he should laugh 
 or should chide. She frisked, she pirouetted, she 
 coquetted, with what seemed to Bruno to be the 
 most appalling license her station considered. 
 She enjoyed the wonder and then the dark dis 
 pleasure of Violante ; she took the full revenge of 
 the short, sprightly little creature upon one whose 
 height and stately bearing placed others, less fa 
 vored, at a disadvantage. And, to end with, she 
 exacted that Bruno should be her escort at the 
 ball. This was further than he had meant to go, 
 but she insisted tenaciously. 
 
 " You shall be Richard, Coeur de Lion, of Eng 
 land," she said, " and I shall be Berengaria of 
 Navarre. They were married at Messina, which 
 brings them well within our lines." 
 
 And yet, for all her plebeian origin, she was a 
 fetching little creature. She had a merry eye, a 
 plump little hand, a cheery tip to her saucy nose 
 she was just the sort of sprightly wench who 
 would determine to parade it as a queen. Then 
 there came up before his eye the kingly coat of 
 mail, the battle-axe, the grandiloquent blazonry of 
 Richard s shield . . . 
 
 VII 
 
 Meanwhile the rest of Belriguardo s company 
 went on fitting themselves out with suitable char 
 acters characters developed through their own 
 researches or suggested by helpful friends. The 
 
182 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 ransacking of history and of mythology yielded 
 limitless spoils. One ingenious spirit suggested 
 that Dottore Balanzoni appear as Empedocles, 
 wearing the guise in which that philosopher was 
 wont to roam the slopes of JEtna : the purple robe, 
 the Delphic crown, the betraying iron sandals. 
 Another suggested Gasparone, the bandit chief, 
 who ruled over those same slopes from his Bene 
 dictine convent, robed as the general of the order 
 and eating in the refectory with a sentinel at the 
 door and a pair of pistols at every plate. Another 
 brought up Timoleon of Corinth, who crossed the 
 sea to free Sicily from her multiplying brood of 
 tyrants, and who brought the statues of his prede 
 cessors to his judgment-bar and dealt them out 
 their deserts as living men. 
 
 Suggestions for the ladies came with equal 
 facility. Ceres must appear just as she first ap 
 peared on the Catanian plain, teaching man by 
 her own example to sow his seed. Nor must Cha- 
 rybdis fail, said Capoameno. She should leave 
 her whirlpool as should Scylla her cavern over the 
 way, and let both tread a pacific measure to Monte- 
 grifone s music. He showed his imperfect appre 
 ciation of Mam zelle Hedwig and his intuitive 
 dislike of Monna Clotilde by adding half audibly 
 that the first might impersonate the one and the 
 second the other. And there was Lai s, too, 
 Lai s, snatched in her young years from her natal 
 coast and carried by the Greeks to Athens, to be 
 the rival of Phryne, and to be stoned to death in 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 183 
 
 the temple of Aphrodite by an infuriate band of 
 her own sex . . . But no ; why pursue the sug 
 gestion ? Rather commemorate the theft of Pro 
 serpine from the banks of the Lago Pergusa, or 
 duplicate the pomps and splendors of the wives of 
 the Spanish viceroys. 
 
 Donna Violante heard these facetious observa 
 tions, but did not smile. Rather did she look upon 
 the course of things with a grave displeasure, and 
 Monna Clotilde, a good second, helped to hold her 
 firmly in countenance. 
 
 "Your friends, my poor child, have saved you 
 from one man," she said to the indignant girl ; 
 " and soon the time will come when they " this 
 plural pronoun meant Monna Clotilde alone 
 " must save you from another. I know the world 
 of men, I do ; who better ? Open your heart and 
 you will be flouted ; trust and you will be be 
 trayed. Tell me, my poor girl, do you know in 
 what character our young host is to appear, and 
 with whom ?" 
 
 " No," stammered Violante. 
 
 "You ought to. And you shall. I will tell 
 you," declared the worthy woman, and she did so. 
 " And as for me," she added, " if I must go to this 
 foolish ball impending, I go as Atropos or not at 
 all!" 
 
 And Monna Clotilde, assuming her tragedy 
 frown and her tragedy stride, withdrew grandly. 
 
184 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 VIII 
 
 Donna Violante summoned Bruno de Brunelli 
 to the judgment seat. She made no delay; she 
 depended in no degree upon favoring chance. She 
 did not send looks of piteous injury widely afield 
 with the remote hope that they might find the 
 target, nor did she loiter slowly with drooping 
 head along distant garden-paths that she might 
 be overtaken and placated in tones of honeyed 
 apology. Her character was of an integrity to 
 match the simple seamlessness of some monolithic 
 monument. She saw no equal within her range 
 of vision and proudly disdained anything that 
 savored of finesse, diplomacy, subterfuge. 
 
 Bruno came, and drummed his fingers on the 
 edge of the sun-dial at the end of the pleasance. 
 He seemed almost a culprit at least she was 
 determined to treat him as one. 
 
 " Who is the creature ? " demanded Violante, 
 haughtily. 
 
 " That is just the question she asked me about 
 you," replied Bruno, the culprit, sturdily. 
 
 " She called me a creature ? " 
 
 " Assuredly not. Her sense of respect, of pro 
 priety, her sense of duty toward me and my guests 
 would have prevented such an expression." 
 
 " She asked who I was, you say? " 
 
 " Who you were ; what you were ; where you 
 were from." 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 185 
 
 " You were able to tell her. Did you ? " 
 
 "Not too specifically." 
 
 " In other words, she spoke slightingly of me 
 and you found nothing to say in my defense." 
 
 " You stand in no need of defense." 
 
 " I am not so sure. I was in error when I let 
 myself be persuaded to come within your gates, 
 and every day of my stay has made my error less 
 defensible." 
 
 " My gates stand wide. I am keeping open 
 house. You are free here anybody is, every 
 body is." 
 
 " Anybody, everybody ! that, indeed, raises 
 my value in my own eyes ! This pert young chit 
 are you going to tell me who she is ? " 
 
 " Not too specifically unless you positively 
 insist." 
 
 "I do ; let me have more about that sense of 
 duty." 
 
 " I hope that you will not." 
 
 " I do. That sense of propriety what does it 
 mean?" 
 
 " Very well, then : she is a member of my house 
 hold." 
 
 "A member of your household? What may 
 that signify, pray ? " 
 
 " I beg you will not question me further." 
 
 " A member of your household ! You are defi 
 nite, indeed ! What am I to understand ? " 
 
 " She is a serving-maid." 
 
 " Associating with your guests ? " 
 
186 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " Under stress of circumstances." 
 
 " And employed to affront me ? Do you think 
 I will stay here an hour longer ? I came suddenly ; 
 I can go suddenly." 
 
 " You will stay," said Bruno, steadily. " And 
 you will not impute unworthy motives." 
 
 " Stay ? I shall not stay a moment ! I have 
 stayed too long already. Nothing can excuse the 
 wretchedly mistaken impulse that led me here. I 
 will find Monna Clotilde. We will leave at once." 
 
 " If you go," said Bruno, immovably, " I shall 
 follow you. You shall not escape me again." 
 
 " I forbid you." 
 
 " I shall follow you. Take your choice : will 
 you have me by your side here under a sheltering 
 roof that justifies all, and among a goodly com 
 pany of friends to keep you thoroughly in coun 
 tenance, or will you have me journeying alongside 
 over the public highway ? " He paused a moment, 
 that she might see them both travelling the same 
 road, passing through the same villages, stabling 
 their horses in the same innyards, and subjecting 
 their actions to the same comment. " I shall follow 
 you, infallibly. Will you be any great gainer by 
 the change ? " 
 
 Bruno, severe, immovable, still drummed with 
 his sinewy brown hand upon the edge of the sun 
 dial ; nothing less culprit-like than his firm gaze. 
 Violante, pursuing her journey, could see no end 
 in view, save, possibly, the distasteful roof from 
 which she had fled. 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 187 
 
 " But you will let that shameless hussy go ? " 
 He suppressed a smile, knowing that flight was 
 stayed. But he had not forgotten the many hours 
 stolen from him by Theodor von Kaltenau a 
 theft Violante herself had permitted and encour 
 aged. " That requires consideration," he said, as 
 he left her. 
 
 And Violante, with a trembling lip and a few 
 indignant tears, started up and moved off rapidly 
 in the opposite direction. 
 
 IX 
 
 The day set for Bruno s third and crowning 
 function arrived. Filippo, most discreet of mas 
 ters of ceremony, had revised Bruno s invitation- 
 list so that only such pezzi grossi of the province 
 should be bidden as could be depended upon to 
 preserve a scrupulous respect for the situation as 
 it existed and as it must exist until the climax of 
 the ball. On the arrival of that magical moment 
 the contents of the kaleidoscope were to shift, and 
 new forms of a surpassing beauty and grandeur 
 were suddenly to supersede and eclipse the old. 
 For, thanks to von Kaltenau s activity and to the 
 assistance of the Marchese s own men of business, 
 the legal proceedings required to confirm Bruno s 
 rights and to establish him in the enjoyment of 
 them had reached a successful end: the last for 
 mal documents were expected to arrive during the 
 course of the day. Adieu, then with many 
 
188 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 thanks to Belriguardo, and a quick entry into 
 other estates more charming, more splendid, in 
 town and in country, villas and palaces, orchards 
 and vineyards, galleries, chapels, casinos what 
 you will. 
 
 The Freiherr lingered with Violante upon the 
 great terrace of Belriguardo. The sky shone cloud 
 less ; the breath of bay and laurel came borne on 
 the wings of the lightly-stirring breeze ; the ruddy 
 lateen-sails of the fishing boats cut the high line 
 of the far horizon ; the utmost revelation of pro 
 sperity and felicity hung imminent ; and all things 
 seemed good. The coming splendors of these ma 
 terial pomps in whose furtherance von Kaltenau 
 himself had been so active an agent shed an 
 illuminative glow upon young Bruno, and Bruno 
 in turn shed the same glow upon this magnificent 
 young creature at Theodor s own side. The pride 
 of life had set up its painted and coruscating pane, 
 and he saw her through it richly. But it were 
 easy to eliminate the middle term, Bruno, and 
 surely more noble to dispense with all mere exter 
 nal trappings. This left, then, only the ultimate 
 beneficiary in all her brilliancy and graciousness, 
 and the moving cause of the entire enterprise 
 for thus the Freiherr had come to figure himself 
 in all the gratified surprise of a final and com 
 plete awakening. 
 
 Violante breathed a faint sigh as she looked 
 across the stirring treetops toward the sparkle of 
 the distant sea. " This is the most beautiful spot 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 189 
 
 in the world, and this the most beautiful day that 
 our visit here has brought us." 
 
 " There are more beautiful spots still awaiting 
 us," said the Freiherr, " and more beautiful days 
 than the present may shine upon them. Let us 
 forget all this and look toward the future." 
 
 " Forget it ? " 
 
 " Yes. Belriguardo is but a passing show, an 
 evanescent dream. To-morrow ends it. To-morrow 
 week it will be but a dim memory a memory 
 dulled by newer splendors. 
 
 " To-morrow ends it ? " 
 
 " To-morrow, or the day after. By that time 
 Montegrifone and I shall be moving on toward 
 something better some nobler gate, some more 
 gracious garden. The little company here will 
 pass through the one, I hope, to find still greater 
 pleasure in the other. There will be a dozen ser 
 vitors for every one seen here ; for every rose, a 
 hundred ; for every glory, a thousand " 
 
 Bruno and Lucetta crossed the other end of the 
 terrace, and both glanced toward Violante. Lu 
 cetta seemed more arch and sprightly than ever, 
 the tip of her nose more saucy, the smile on her 
 lip more provocative. Bruno s face wore at once 
 a smile and a watchful frown, and his manner 
 combined gallantry with injured dignity in such 
 measure as to mark the jealous lover consciously 
 playing a part. 
 
 "And for every deceit a million!" said Vio 
 lante, vehemently. 
 
190 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 "Deceit?" 
 
 " You leave to-morrow, you say ? Then why 
 have I been urged to remain ? Is it one deceit the 
 more ? Or is it that I may be insulted, up to the last 
 moment, by the spectacle of a vulgar intrigue ? " 
 
 " A vulgar intrigue ? " 
 
 " Do you not know that that creature " Lu- 
 cetta and Bruno were now moving off, with an 
 elaborate yet wary portrayal of gay unconscious 
 ness " is a mere serving-maid in this house ? " 
 
 " No, no ; you are wrong, believe me." 
 
 " Wrong ? Did not Montegrifone himself tell 
 
 ?* 
 
 The Freiherr groaned. " He told you so ? Im 
 possible ! How could such an odious thing ever 
 have come about ? " 
 
 "I I" 
 
 " You asked him ? " 
 
 " I urged ; I insisted. I never trifle ; I never 
 temporize. I always take the simplest, straightest 
 way." 
 
 " It has misled you. She is not a serving-maid 
 here." 
 
 " One deceit the more ! She is a guest, then, on 
 an equality with the others ? " 
 
 Von Kaltenau hesitated. " No," he felt con 
 strained to answer. 
 
 " Still another deceit ! A web of deceit, and I 
 am entangled in its meshes. Pretense, subterfuge, 
 tricky uncertainties of every kind ! Even you, 
 whom I was beginning to like and to trust, seem 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 191 
 
 in some dark conspiracy against me. I will go ; I 
 will not remain another hour. I care nothing for 
 this deceptive place and its dubious gayeties. I 
 will go this moment, and I will not be followed ! " 
 
 She rose and glided indignantly across the ter 
 race, an incensed young goddess too single-minded 
 for concealment, too single-souled for compromise. 
 Her bosom rose and fell, her sweet lips quivered, 
 and tears compounded of anger and uncertainty 
 and self-pity started in her dark eyes. 
 
 Theodor followed after her and caught her hand. 
 " You are not to go, he said. 
 
 She paused. Though there was a tremor in his 
 hand, his hold was firm ; while light and gentle 
 enough, it showed no sign of relaxing. There was 
 a tremor, too, in his voice, but its tones were very 
 grave and quiet. Violante checked her course ; he 
 had impressed her. She would have broken away 
 from the clamorous impetuosity of Bruno, but the 
 repression and self-mastery of this mature man 
 established, in a way, his mastery over her as 
 well. 
 
 " You are not to go/ he repeated. " You have 
 deceived yourself, or you have been deceived ; in 
 any event you are in error. You need the guid 
 ance of older heads, and you must accept it. You 
 must trust for a little ; you must trust me. What 
 ever you may wish to know, you will learn to-night 
 or to-morrow. Meanwhile, you must stay. Do 
 you think that you can be allowed to leave us ? 
 If you withdraw Belriguardo stands without fur- 
 
192 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 ther reason for existence, and the future will be 
 but a blank echoing hollowly, fruitlessly with the 
 ghostly sounds of things that might have been. 
 You are to stay, and to fill the part that of right 
 is yours to fill, the part that nature herself de 
 signed you for : to be the queen of every revel, the 
 centre of every festivity, the ruler of every heart. 
 You promise?" 
 
 Donna Violante looked at him with eyes as 
 grave and steady as his own. " I promise," she 
 said. 
 
 He stooped to kiss the hand upon which he had 
 never relaxed his hold. There was still more that 
 might be said and done, but he himself was to 
 blame for the imbroglio that had brought about 
 this opportunity, and must not push the occasion 
 too far. He set his kiss there and went away. 
 
 Bruno, returning, saw this act of homage, but 
 overlooked, of course, the scruple that had put a 
 bar to further colloquy. His eyes glowed at once 
 with passionate love and anger. He caught at the 
 hand that Theodor had just relinquished, and 
 darted a sternly indignant glance after his retreat 
 ing friend. 
 
 " You are for me ! " he said hotly, to the girl, in 
 a voice of repressed rage and longing. " You are 
 for me, despite the wiles of treacherous friends. 
 And I am for you, all that I am and have," 
 here his hand swept over Belriguardo s fair do 
 main, " and hope to have. Take me, and let 
 there be an end." 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 193 
 
 Violante considered him steadily for a moment. 
 His tone and his manner were alike violent ; but 
 the surface excitement of the ocean is little when 
 compared with the vast nether movement that 
 sways the flood as an immense unit, yet leaves 
 the surface itself scarce ruffled. And his way was 
 too assured rather the assurance of youthful con 
 fidence, it seemed, than the assurance that comes 
 from a consciousness of self -poise and self-control. 
 He seemed very young. And that anomalous little 
 Lucetta was hardly out of sight round the corner. 
 
 " Speak to me," he said ; " I love you. Fulfil 
 your destiny be mine ! " 
 
 Donna Yiolante had recovered her composure, 
 and now looked about slowly, in more directions 
 than one in that, among others, which Theodor 
 von Kaltenau had taken upon retiring. Bruno s 
 eager eyes were fastened on her face. She with 
 drew her hand from his and took a step or two 
 away. 
 
 " That requires consideration," she said, in un 
 conscious repetition of Bruno s own words. 
 
 X 
 
 The middle of the afternoon found the entire 
 company disposed in scattered groups over the 
 wide expanse of Belriguardo s gray-flagged ter 
 race. The preparations for the evening s fete 
 were complete. Dottore Balanzoni had finally 
 decided upon Empedocles. Madama Sophonisba 
 
194 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 had contrived, from the contents of her many cof 
 fers, a costume magnificently barbaric enough for 
 any Carthaginian princess. Her young men had 
 devised simple dresses based on the Greek tunic, 
 and helped out by wreaths and sandals. A general 
 truce prevailed. Donna Violante ignored Lucetta, 
 and kept Bruno at arm s length. Von Kaltenau 
 and Capoameno, busy with some practical details 
 of one kind or another, overlooked, for the mo 
 ment, any tension that might exist. 
 
 All at once the rumble of wheels and the clatter 
 of hoofs were heard in the distance. The sound 
 grew to a crescendo and suddenly ceased at Belri- 
 guardo s gate. 
 
 The one passenger in the coach alighted and 
 was admitted. He advanced along the terrace 
 a dark man of thirty, of no more than medium 
 height, with broad, square shoulders and a dense 
 black moustache, with a like tuft just below his lip. 
 It was Prince Giacinto Malevento. 
 
 Malevento made a rapid survey that took in 
 everybody, yet ignored all save Bruno and Vio 
 lante, to the latter of whom he gave a marked 
 but distant bow, and walked straight toward 
 Filippo, smiling and extending his hand with the 
 overdone cordiality of a mere acquaintance who 
 means to ask for hospitality. 
 
 " My dear Marchese ! " he exclaimed, in a high, 
 clear voice. Everybody heard him. 
 
 "You know this man?" whispered the Freiherr 
 in Filippo s ear. 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 195 
 
 " I know him slightly ; I know him as I know 
 hundreds of others," whispered Capoarneno in re 
 turn. 
 
 Malevento glanced about with an air of lordly 
 self-possession. " "Welcome me to Belriguardo," 
 he went on, addressing the Marchese. " Rumors 
 of your fete have reached the outer world, my dear 
 Capoameno, very curious and puzzling rumors, 
 to tell the truth ; and the slightest encouragement 
 would induce me to participate ! " 
 
 Violante stared in astonishment. Bruno, at 
 whom the Prince was now beginning to look with 
 a singular, questioning expression, contracted his 
 brows in an angry, jealous frown and made a quick 
 stride forward. 
 
 Filippo still refrained from taking Malevento s 
 hand and tried to becloud the look of recognition 
 that he had allowed to dawn upon his face. The 
 overwhelming mortification awaiting young Bruno 
 was greater than he had heart to help bring about. 
 
 " Surely you remember me," said the Prince. 
 "I am Giacinto Malevento. We have met at 
 Naples, at Castellammare, at " 
 
 " Giacinto Malevento ? " 
 
 "Yes; and you, as surely, are Filippo Capo 
 ameno, master of Belriguardo " 
 
 " Master of Belriguardo ! " gasped Bruno. 
 
 " and I have to acknowledge your kindness in 
 giving asylum to a lady whom I have sought every 
 where for a week or more." Malevento glanced 
 toward Violante. 
 
196 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 "But this is certainly an error," said Capo- 
 ameno, "I" 
 
 "Assuredly so," said Bruno, haughtily. "An 
 unpardonable one ! " 
 
 "I very much regret," pursued Filippo, " that a 
 misunderstanding should have led you to to " 
 
 Malevento stared at the Marchese with an air 
 at once puzzled and offended. The Marchesina 
 pushed forward and caught Filippo by the arm. 
 
 " Filippo ! " she cried, " what do you mean ? 
 My dear brother " 
 
 " His sister ! " gasped Violante. 
 
 " my dear brother, how much longer shall you 
 keep up this mad perversity? Of course " and 
 she turned toward the perplexed company " you 
 are the Marchese Filippo Capoameno, and equally, 
 of course, the master, the one and only master, of 
 Belriguardo ! " Lucetta paused panting and shot 
 such a glance at Bruno as gave ample revenge for 
 the embarrassments and humiliations of the past 
 fortnight. 
 
 "Yes," he said, smiling feebly, and at last 
 
 taking hold of Malevento s waiting hand ; " yes, 
 
 I am Filippo Capoameno. Welcome to Belri 
 guardo." 
 
 XI 
 
 Bruno s guests looked at him and at one another 
 in blank amaze. They felt the ground shifting 
 beneath their feet. The common tie that bound 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 197 
 
 them all together was relaxed. The Palace of 
 Pleasure crumbled in an instant. 
 
 Donna Violante advanced toward Bruno with an 
 air of boundless scorn. Monna Clotilde followed 
 close after her and looked over her shoulder like a 
 bird of ill-omen a bird about to utter a croaking 
 note long meditated. 
 
 " This, then, is your love ! " said Violante to 
 Bruno. " You have tricked me ; you have insulted 
 me. You have humiliated me ; you have made me 
 ridiculous. You have set fraud beneath my feet 
 and woven the web of deception round my head. 
 I have never once placed foot here upon honest 
 ground, never once been allowed to see things as 
 they really were. You offer me everything, when 
 what you have to offer is nothing. You offer me 
 yourself, after having insolently offered yourself to 
 another under my very eyes. "We part here and 
 now. I have no respect for you ; you should have 
 no respect for yourself. This is the end." 
 
 Bruno looked at her as from a cloud, a cloud 
 full of eyes the eyes of those exacting and in 
 quiring persons who had clamored for life to come 
 close to them with all its passions and surprises. 
 " This house is mine," was all he could say. 
 
 " This house is mine," said Filippo, gently. 
 " No one could be sorrier than I, and no one more 
 to blame." 
 
 "The house is nothing," exclaimed Violante. 
 " A hundred houses would be nothing. A hut 
 would have been enough, if more, much more, had 
 
198 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 not been promised and promised all unasked. 
 But the deceit I never can forgive, nor the morti 
 fication." She turned toward Filippo. " Let me 
 beg a thousand pardons for such inconsiderate 
 treatment of so gallant a gentleman, so kindly a 
 host" 
 
 Malevento began to get a stronger grip on the 
 situation a grip somewhat weakened by Filippo s 
 generous denial. He smiled satirically to see 
 Bruno de Brunelli at so cruel a disadvantage a 
 disadvantage that could not but advance his own 
 plans. 
 
 He stepped over toward Violante. She shut 
 him out from her as summarily as she had already 
 shut out his rival. 
 
 " No," she said, and said no more. Her head 
 drooped slightly to one side, and the young ro 
 mancer who stood close by, and whom the Freiherr 
 remembered as having apostrophized the multitu 
 dinous waves of the ocean of life, held unconsciously 
 to his earlier practice, and drew away : not yet was 
 he ready to surrender his toes to the wash of the 
 sea. So Donna Violante let her hand be gathered 
 up in the advancing hand of Monna Clotilde and 
 let her head fall toward Clotilde s shoulder. 
 
 " No," repeated Clotilde, cutting off the two 
 young men from all hope and mercy, but saving 
 the full venom of her eyes for Malevento. " Look 
 your last upon her, both of you," she cried in a 
 tone of strident triumph, " for you shall never see 
 her more ! " 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 199 
 
 She led Violante away. The girl went passively, 
 with her eyes on the ground and a deadly mortifi 
 cation gnawing at her heart. 
 
 XII 
 
 The exit of Violante produced a deep and diver 
 sified impression. The little knot of pilgrims 
 looked at one another in great embarrassment and 
 uncertainty. " Are we welcome guests ? " they 
 seemed to be asking, " or are we unwelcome intru 
 ders ? And if guests in good standing, who is our 
 host ? And may we remain here yet a little longer, 
 or must we leave at once this palace of delights ? " 
 Dottore Balanzoni relapsed into the dense dejection 
 from which the pleasures of the past fortnight had 
 almost rescued him. Mam zelle Hedwig drooped 
 before the blighting idea that these few precious 
 days of gallantry and courtesy were already of 
 the past. Madama Sophonisba s countenance was 
 darkly overclouded at the thought that one of the 
 choicest episodes in her life had come to a sudden 
 and equivocal close. 
 
 But the artists in her train were in high feather. 
 The occasion offered them more than observation 
 it offered participation. They were in the drama 
 and almost of it. The painter, wondering upon 
 whom the gathering rage of Bruno was about to 
 fall, felt that he was getting into things at last. 
 The fictionist, viewing the deep distress and con 
 trition of von Kaltenau, inwardly determined that 
 
200 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 lie would not shirk active participation a second 
 time let the flood come, if it would. They both 
 looked after Violante, and then they both brought 
 their eyes back to Bruno. 
 
 Bruno stood there in arrest like a young bull 
 who escapes from his long dark confinement to 
 face his antagonists in the arena. The flood of 
 light poured in upon him had dazed him, and he 
 raised and lowered his head as if to distinguish 
 and to attack some one particular opponent. He 
 might have chanced upon Filippo, whose fantastic 
 folly had brought them all into this dire imbroglio, 
 or upon Malevento, whose abrupt disclosures had 
 shattered in a moment the entire fabric of his 
 dream. But the first face that issued clear before 
 him from the intolerable glaring mist that en 
 wrapped all was the distressed and solicitous face 
 of Theodor von Kaltenau. 
 
 " I am indebted to you for this," said Bruno, in 
 a voice half inarticulate from mortification and 
 rage. " I trusted you as a friend, and my trust 
 has brought me here. You misled me ; you 
 deceived me. You have placed me in a fool s 
 paradise where all might mock at me ; you have 
 stolen from me my self-respect and you would have 
 taken advantage of my utter trust in you to steal 
 something dearer far than all " 
 
 " No, no ! " cried the Freiherr, in earnest pro 
 test. 
 
 " You have allowed me to insult our common 
 host" 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 201 
 
 " Pray let that pass," cried Filippo, quickly. 
 "The fault is mine." 
 
 " and to to " Bruno looked toward Lu- 
 cetta with a flush, and found no words to voice his 
 penitence. 
 
 " Let that pass, too," cried Lucetta, brightly. 
 " I deserved the punishment." 
 
 " My dream is over," pursued Bruno. " I shall 
 go back to my northern home, chastised for my 
 hopes and my presumption " 
 
 " No, no ! " exclaimed the Freiherr again. " If 
 there is one loss, there will be a dozen gains. Let 
 Belriguardo go tis but a makeshift, a stop-gap; 
 t is but the skiff you have taken to board a great 
 steamer for a long and prosperous voyage left 
 when no longer needed, and " 
 
 " Not a word more ! " said Bruno. " I will not 
 listen to you. In your selfishness you have dis 
 graced and degraded me before the one being that 
 I" 
 
 He paused to throw a look of utter detestation 
 upon Giacinto Malevento and then reeled away, 
 thrusting back a stiffened arm that forbade all 
 companionship and all pursuit. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Violante had upbraided Bruno, Bruno had struck 
 at Theodor, and now Theodor, intent upon passing 
 along the buffet, looked about for some deserving 
 cheek. He could not tax Malevento, who appar- 
 
202 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 ently had not had the fullest idea of the effect that 
 his recognition of Filippo was to produce, and who 
 had controlled a bitter tongue that might have 
 said many taunting things. Filippo himself was 
 to blame, Filippo, the ultimate fountain-head of 
 all these woes. But poor Filippo, already in the 
 depths of contrition, was too pitiful an object to 
 be made to serve as general scapegoat. " Besides," 
 thought the Freiherr, " I myself am to blame in 
 part. My own determination to enjoy, my own 
 eagerness to enjoy at once, my own unwillingness 
 to endure the least delay in that poor boy s as 
 sumption of his office of interpreter these, in 
 the end, have to answer for all." 
 
 And the end was come. Bruno abashed, abased, 
 broken in spirit, ruined, perhaps, in timbre ; use 
 less as a riven lute, as an unstrung harp. Vio- 
 lante incensed, cruelly mortified, in a position now 
 odiously irregular, and upon the point of a hurried, 
 goalless flight. His own plans wrecked, his own 
 hopes dashed, his future days already under the 
 gray shadow of the demon who rules the hapless 
 middle years. The palace of Klingsor had crum 
 bled ; the enchanted gardens had withered in an 
 instant. 
 
 The little knot of pilgrims looked about them 
 dubiously, reproachfully, asking upon whom they 
 might cast the blame for this last and greatest dis 
 appointment in lives too full of disappointment 
 already. Another mirage had faded ; the fata 
 Morgana had deceived them once again. The 
 
APPLES OF DISCORD 203 
 
 Palace of Pleasure had dissipated into thin air; 
 the Last Refuge was as far away as ever. The 
 dumb poet now seemed double-locked in silence ; 
 the Dutch jurist leaned upon the balustrade in a 
 very abandonment to despair. 
 
 Yon Kaltenau, in fullest need of some friendly 
 prop, crossed over to Balanzoni and placed a hand 
 upon his shoulder. 
 
 " That city the city you told me of in Rome," 
 he said : " I may wish to journey thither with 
 
 you." 
 
PART VI. MANOEUVRINGS 
 
 BELRIGUARDO S historical pageant was carried 
 through with such maimed rites as could not but 
 follow on a sudden change of host and the defec 
 tion of the chief guests. There was no Acis, no 
 Galatea. Polyphemus a new one had come 
 rushing down upon them from his stronghold and 
 wrecked their loves. Violante, accompanied by 
 Monna Clotilde, had fled away forthwith, disdain 
 ing to hear a word of justification from Bruno and 
 refusing to take the least avail of the friendly 
 offices of Theodor von Kaltenau. She could for 
 give Bruno for Belriguardo, but not for Lucetta. 
 In the one case he may have been a victim ; but 
 in the other case he was surely an offender. One 
 house, more or less, made little difference ; but one 
 woman, more or less, made all the difference in the 
 world. She could overlook, even pity, the lack of 
 perception that had led the young man so easily 
 into the quagmire of error, but she could not par 
 don the double dealings that had marked his rela 
 tions with the Marchesina. 
 
 As for Bruno himself, his one idea was to hide 
 his humbled head from mortal view. He could 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 205 
 
 not face Capoameno, notwithstanding the kindly 
 jocularity with which the Marchese tried to carry 
 things off; he could not pluck up the spirit to 
 meet the cynical, satirical smile of Giacinto Male- 
 vento ; he could not trust himself to any further 
 parley with von Kaltenau, whom he looked upon 
 as a traitor doubly damned a trusted friend 
 who had led him into a fraudulent palace of en 
 chantment and then had employed its dazzling 
 fascinations to rob him of his love. He, too, left 
 within the hour, and went none knew whither. 
 
 Filippo, then, appeared as host, in proper per 
 son, and his aunt, who had played the part of 
 housekeeper, resumed her native quality and re 
 ceived his guests. They came in numbers, their 
 curiosity piqued by the promise of a particularly 
 unique entertainment. Young Cervel-Balzano, who 
 had figured in the cavalcade as a postillion, pre 
 sented himself with three or four others of his 
 kind, and their quizzical humor contributed still 
 further to the discomfiture of the remaining pil 
 grims. The situation had its restraints, its diffi 
 culties, and though the Marchese had urged his 
 guests to let the sudden change in host make no 
 difference in their plans, most of them declined his 
 invitation to abide longer and left on the following 
 day. They all felt the flaw in their beautiful ideal, 
 the wrench to their collective hopes and aspira 
 tions ; the Last Refuge surely lay elsewhere. 
 
 To some of them, as to Dottore Balanzoni, the 
 palace of pleasure was a ruin one more ruin in 
 
206 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 a land of ruins. Youth, love, hope, joy all these 
 had receded like a half-revealed mirage. Nothing 
 was left but recollection ; nothing was to do but to 
 brood over what might have been. In this mood 
 the travellers dispersed over the island, in search 
 of they scarce knew what. Their thoughts 
 turned to other ruins : to Segesta, desolate on 
 its high hilltop ; to the sandy promontory of Seli- 
 nunto, within the mass of whose dishevelled colon 
 nades the Arabs made a last stand against the 
 conquering Normans; to Girgenti, girdled with 
 temples on its upper and lower rims alike; to 
 Syracuse, where the vast limestone plateau that 
 overlooks Ortygia is strewn with f ragmental tokens 
 of glories past ; to Taormina, which looks out from 
 the midst of ruins Greek, Roman, Saracenic, 
 Norman-Gothic across toward the blue Cala- 
 brian mountains dim in the east. " A world in 
 itself, all this ! " exclaimed Mam zelle Hedwig to 
 von Kaltenau, vivaciously. And she gave him an 
 appealing glance, as if to ask whether a poor lone 
 woman who knew but little of the native tongue 
 and still less of the native ways was to venture 
 into all these distant tracts alone. 
 
 II 
 
 Thus it happened that while Montegrifone 
 secure at last in his title was dividing a hot 
 attention between an installation in his new estates 
 and an interception of Malevento s advances on 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 207 
 
 Donna Violante, to von Kaltenau fell the milder 
 employment of escorting Mam zelle Hedwig 
 through a succession of the Sicilian towns. Yes, 
 Mam zelle had her uses ; she held despair at bay 
 and rescued her vacillating friend from the sombre 
 offices of the despondent Balanzoni. 
 
 Theodor von Kaltenau had an honest liking for 
 Mam zelle and her peculiarities. If Donna Vio 
 lante reminded him of the dusky and ambiguous 
 and exotic splendors of a Cappella Palatina, then 
 Mam zelle Hedwig brought into view the gro 
 tesque yet familiar homeliness of a late-Gothic 
 chapel in a back street of some small German pro 
 vincial town. The one was strange and magnifi 
 cent and fascinating ; the other was of the racial 
 blood, and made no acute address because it made 
 a constant one. Von Kaltenau had strained his 
 eyes over Donna Violante just as one may strain 
 his eyes in the heavy dusk that enwraps the an 
 tique columns and pointed arches that bear up 
 King Roger s wondrous dome. Full illumination 
 had never quite come, not even when the wor 
 shipful hand of another had lit up the tapers in 
 the towering marble candelabra and had called 
 upon the sheeted spread of gold-mosaic to issue 
 glitteringly from the enshrouding gloom. The 
 Teutonic imaginings of the northern architect, on 
 the other hand, gave him no trouble whatever ; he 
 could even shut his eyes and yet see the naive 
 heraldic bearings that sprawled over the painted 
 panes, the graceless stub-tail traceries, the gro- 
 
208 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 tesque fancies carved in maladroit fashion upon 
 the receding arches of the weather-beaten porch. 
 Mam zelle, in short, was homely, but easily intelli 
 gible on the ground of mere racial affinity. 
 
 They met, furthermore, upon a common ground 
 still broader : the singular northern longing for 
 the South. Two pines had uprooted themselves 
 from the cold northland heights to take their 
 poise upon the " brennende Felsenwand " of which 
 the poet sings, and if their tips tended* a little now 
 and then each toward the other no one need won 
 der. Perhaps Mam zelle leaned a little the more 
 of the two ; she was not only a Teuton, but an ad 
 miring and a grateful Teuton. To her the Freiherr 
 was a gracious being, of chivalry all compact ; she 
 could not withhold her highest esteem from a man 
 who had done so much and done it so quietly, 
 withal to rehabilitate her in her own eyes. 
 Mam zelle had always been the lame duck of her 
 own domestic brood ; her years at home were 
 a moving chronicle of snubs and repressions suf 
 fered from overbearing relatives. The Freiherr s 
 earliest attentions had filled her with wondering 
 surprise, then with an overflowing gratitude ; and 
 she was now rapidly reaching the point where she 
 could feel herself fully grounded upon the rock of 
 self-esteem at last. His courtesies almost the 
 first she had ever encountered confirmed her 
 wavering impression of her own worth, and were 
 already prompting her to take the initiative on her 
 own account. Mam zelle well might Theodor 
 
MANCEUVRIXGS 209 
 
 von Kaltenau have anticipated her evolution ! 
 began to become a little arch, a little coquettish, a 
 little exacting, a little imperious . . . 
 
 An unfortunate incident that occurred at Se- 
 gesta strengthened Mam zelle s position, and al 
 most confirmed her dominance. It was here that 
 the Freiherr saved her life. This was her own 
 contention ; his was that he had merely saved her 
 purse. But Mam zelle s impassioned outpouring 
 of thanks caused her opinion to prevail. 
 
 He had left her seated in the theatre, while he 
 himself descended to the temple in search of some 
 of her small belongings that she had heedlessly 
 left behind. He returned to find her threatened, 
 with a sort of feeble ferocity, by a poor ragged fel 
 low who was physically and morally the victim of 
 Sicily s deplorable social and economical condi 
 tions. Mam zelle defended her pocket valiantly ; 
 no attack on the national treasury could have 
 evoked a more heroic spirit of resistance. She 
 felt the corner-stone of her exchequer assailed, 
 and saw the entire fabric of her Sicilian journey 
 crashing down into ruin. She had the vision of a 
 precipitate return to the distasteful parental roof, 
 and of the one expansive opportunity of a lifetime 
 brought to nothing. All this nerved her against 
 the fierce sallow face and the clutching fingers of 
 the poor creature whom his own crying needs and 
 the loneliness of the spot had impelled to a read 
 justment (so far as he himself was concerned) of 
 the general social scheme. But Mam zelle had no 
 
210 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 thought of surrender or of compromise. To her a 
 penny was a pound, and a pound was a fortune. 
 She tugged and screamed, and bravely held her 
 own. She gripped her shabby little purse, and in 
 her stress of action was but dimly conscious of the 
 possible stiletto that, under circumstances less 
 strenuous, would have shone before her with such 
 steely clearness as to paralyze action altogether. 
 
 The Freiherr, returning, saw her straits, and 
 came running to her rescue. He caught at a knife 
 that was just coming forth clumsily from some 
 pocket or other of ragged Robin s shredded ap 
 parel, and firmly sent the fellow about his busi 
 ness. His own lack of temper and of violence was 
 quite impressive to his charge, who coughed and 
 choked a little to free her throat from the sense 
 of her assailant s fingers, and looked at her bruised 
 wrists and forearms in comfortable confirmation 
 of a great danger escaped, and gave a second s 
 admiring consideration to Theodor s mastery over 
 circumstances and over himself, and then panted 
 a little and modestly swayed his way and closed 
 her brown button-like eyes and let her head fall 
 on his shoulder. 
 
 " You have saved my life ; you have saved my 
 life ! " murmured Mam zelle, and would take no 
 denial. 
 
 Ill 
 
 From that moment Mam zelle Hedwig was a 
 person of vastly greater importance in her own 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 211 
 
 eyes. A preux chevalier had found her life worth 
 saving; far be it from her, then, to underesti 
 mate that life s value. More, when a man saves 
 the life of a woman whose company he has de 
 liberately chosen almost anything may follow 
 her future is in his keeping. It was now that 
 Mam zelle began to ply her arch imperiousness, 
 and to tax the Freiherr with imaginary slights and 
 neglects, and to ask him, in moments when his 
 attention seemed not fully alert to her addresses, 
 where his thoughts were wandering, and to create 
 imaginary beings upon whom the responsibility 
 for his indifference might be cast. For Mam zelle 
 was another of those who had been denied the 
 blessing of taking up the component parts of life 
 in regular order ; and there were moments when 
 her courses seemed to be bringing them both 
 within the lines of an affair than which none 
 could be more awkward, more maladroit : such an 
 affair, in short, as threatened to carry back two 
 mature persons, by a sort of amatory undertow, to 
 flounder gracelessly enough, before countless eyes 
 only too avid of entertainment, among the shim 
 mering shallows of young love s shore. 
 
 " Intolerable ! " thought the Freiherr, with a 
 shudder. 
 
 He continued to be the victim of the intermit 
 tent brown study, an obsession for which his 
 companion now openly ventured to hint a reason 
 more specific than any yet entertained, or at least 
 mentioned. They were now at the far west of the 
 
212 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 island, and their ascent from Trapani to Eryx on 
 donkey-back, with the constant shiftings of posi 
 tion incident to such a mode of locomotion, gave 
 her good opportunity for her abundant intimations 
 and insinuations. 
 
 Slowly they swung and jolted up to the ancient 
 shrine of many gods and many nations, and the 
 Freiherr would willingly have given a faithful 
 meed of attention to the abounding memories of 
 other days : to Hercules and uiEneas, rival foun 
 ders ; to Baal and to Astarte, to Jupiter and Venus 
 Erycina; to Hamilcar and to the destruction of 
 Carthage s fleet in the waters below them a vic 
 tory that closed the first Punic War ; and to the 
 widening panorama of mountainous island and 
 rocky headland and ever-extending coast-line and 
 ever-lifting horizon that grew with their ascent. 
 But Mam zelle had other thoughts, and unscrupu 
 lously let drop the curtain of mere personal in 
 terest between him and a view so illuminated by 
 beauty and so charged with history. 
 
 " Ah, the present moment ! " began Mam zelle, 
 in a fine generalization that was soon discovered to 
 be less comprehensive than it sounded. " It is the 
 only thing that counts the only thing we are 
 sure of. The past is past. Its hopes, its pleasures, 
 its disappointments let us forget them, let us not 
 try to bring them back. The mirage fades ; the 
 last cloud-shred is dissipated " and more in the 
 same general tenor. 
 
 " True," said the Freiherr, quite accustomed, 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 213 
 
 by this time, to Mam zelle s little flights of lyri 
 cism. 
 
 " You say, true, " observed Mam zelle, tugging 
 at her donkey s bridle ; " but what is the use of 
 perceiving a truth if one does not act upon it ? " 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 " You are dwelling on the past. You regret it. 
 You would like to relive it." 
 
 " By no means. I can think of scarcely a day 
 in my life that I should care to relive. I have had 
 few experiences that I should not be quite willing 
 to forget." The Freiherr, not caring to exert him 
 self to any great degree, fell into this strain almost 
 automatically. He had found that it always in 
 terested women particularly single women past 
 their first youth. 
 
 Mam zelle looked at him, over the wagging ears 
 of her unkempt little beast, as if about to request, 
 point-blank, his complete autobiography. 
 
 " Even that of Belriguardo ? " 
 
 " Belriguardo ? Is that already of the past, and 
 only of the past ? Is the door locked ? Is the 
 book shut ? Is the scroll rolled up and forever 
 laid away ? " Thus he repaid Mam zelle in her 
 own poetic coin. 
 
 " Is it of the present?" she asked peremptorily. 
 
 "So much might be declared. Who shall say 
 when a thing is over ? " 
 
 Mam zelle s lips tightened. " I knew it," she 
 said. 
 
 "Knew what?" 
 
214 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " What you are thinking of. What you are 
 always thinking of. What has not been out of 
 your thoughts for an hour since all of us bade Bel- 
 riguardo good-by." 
 
 " What is it ? " demanded von Kaltenau, with 
 all directness. " Come, come ; no hesitation. Tell 
 
 IV 
 
 " Why," began Mam zelle, stammeringly, now 
 that she found herself actually in the breach, " you 
 you are thinking of that ungrateful boy, and 
 are taxing yourself with offenses not justly yours." 
 
 " Oh, really," began von Kaltenau. He had 
 indeed been thinking over his relations with 
 Bruno, but the more he thought of them the less 
 was he inclined to give himself the blame. He had 
 in truth put the boy at a poignant disadvantage, 
 but only a temporary one ; while, on the other 
 hand, he had done substantial service toward estab 
 lishing the new duke in the niche wherein he pro 
 mised to pass a long life of dignity and affluence. 
 Bruno himself would think the matter over and 
 would presently come to a like conclusion. As he 
 visited some newer villa or familiarized himself 
 with some richer estate or conferred with his stew 
 ards and attorneys in that lofty old palace at the 
 capital, he would come to a juster idea of his 
 friend s services and be more willing to put aside 
 all memory of that last mortifying hour at Belri- 
 guardo. 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 215 
 
 " I shall never forget," said Mam zelle, " how un 
 graciously he flung away from you ; how he refused 
 to hear one word of regret or of explanation " 
 
 "I am afraid that I myself gave him a bad 
 example of impulsiveness," said von Kaltenau. 
 "I was too eager for enjoyment; less for his en 
 joyment than mine, and indeed no more for mine 
 than for yours." 
 
 Mam zelle stroked her donkey s ears very ten 
 derly and reined him a little nearer to his mate. 
 " For mine ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I saw you had ideals, and I wished them 
 to be satisfied. No, I was not thinking particu 
 larly of Montegrifone." The Freiherr had become 
 rather proud of the impulsive action that had in 
 volved Belriguardo in such dire embarrassments ; 
 for so marked an impulsiveness argued, after all, a 
 certain degree of youth. 
 
 " Then," proceeded Mam zelle, " you must be 
 thinking of the Marchese and of all the discom 
 forts you made him undergo just for my pleasure. 
 The blame for that is no less mine than yours. I 
 will share it with you," she said sociably. 
 
 " Let him bear it all. He was old enough to 
 know better. Don t give him a thought I m 
 not doing so." 
 
 " Then," said Mam zelle, " you are thinking of 
 of that poor dear old gentleman from Leyden. 
 Your conscience reproaches you for having pro 
 mised to travel on with him and then having 
 chosen to travel on with me ! " 
 
216 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " Oh, he will rub along very well," declared the 
 Freiherr. "I shall meet him again, somewhere, 
 before long. Meanwhile, he does n t weigh on my 
 mind, I assure you." 
 
 He smiled to himself at Mam zelle s assumption 
 of his having " chosen " to travel with her. There 
 had been no choice, unless a choice of her own. 
 He had passively accepted an arrangement such 
 as the fate that presides over the fellowships of 
 voyagers seemed of itself to have decreed. 
 
 " Then," persisted Mam zelle Hedwig, now mak 
 ing an appreciable advance into the core of her 
 theme, " you are reproaching yourself for the an 
 noyances you caused that dear little Marchesina. 
 So youthful, so pretty, so charming, so worthy the 
 attentions of a spirited and gallant young fellow 
 and yet kept under a cloud the whole time ! What 
 could be more humiliating, more exasperating?" 
 
 " Nothing," acknowledged the Freiherr, picking 
 his way carefully up the stony slope. 
 
 " But it is all over now," said Mam zelle, em 
 phasizing her assumption that Belriguardo and 
 its associations were completely of the dead and 
 buried past ; " it is all over now. No wonder you 
 are pensive ; no wonder you sigh ! " 
 
 The Freiherr smiled. This presentation of the 
 possible loves of Bruno and Lucetta pleased him 
 though a treatment still more lightly decorative 
 would have harmonized more completely with the 
 humor that always prevailed in him when he came 
 to consider the heart interests of two very young 
 
MANGEUVRINGS 217 
 
 people. At such a juncture neither temperament 
 nor habit of mind greatly helped him. Even the 
 much more tangible affair of Bruno and Violante 
 he could not always solidify into serious signifi 
 cance. They were children, just as he and Mam - 
 zelle Hedwig were aging adults. The affair of 
 two children was light ; the affair of two middle- 
 aged persons was absurd. Sometimes only an 
 affair between a young girl and a man no longer 
 in his first youth seemed the one to conserve all 
 the necessary elements and yet to eliminate the 
 elements of juvenile slightness and of absurdity. 
 
 " Yes, it is all over," reiterated Mam zelle, with 
 solemnity ; " it is all a thing of the past. And 
 that haughty, heartless girl, who threw him over 
 when she felt herself disappointed in her hopes 
 of earthly grandeur she is a thing of the past, 
 too ? " asked Mam zelle, dexterously altering her 
 inflection and inserting an interrogation-point in 
 her eyes as well as in her text. " Will he ever for 
 get her cruel disdain ? Will she ever forgive his 
 innocent deception ? Yet they would have done 
 so well together ; they were almost made for each 
 other. It seemed so to me ; it must have seemed 
 so to you. May we hear of their union yet ! " 
 
 Mam zelle was apparently determined to wipe 
 all the young people clean off the board, and to 
 leave the field clear for the manoeuvres of an 
 earlier generation. " It must have seemed so to 
 you," she repeated. " Did n t it ? " she added. 
 " Does n t it ? " she added, further. 
 
218 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " Look behind," said von Kaltenau, twisting 
 himself sidewise upon the furry back of his don 
 key. " Let us drop the future for a moment." He 
 waved his hand seaward. " Let us cast an eye 
 over the present, and the past. Look ! " 
 
 Mam zelle s boy plied his stick and grasped his 
 beast by the tail and brought the widening pro 
 spect over plain and sea and rocky coast within 
 her range. The citadel of Eryx still lay far above 
 them, the crown of many wooded and precipitous 
 slopes ; but the horizon had lifted itself grandly, 
 and the shores, from Punic Marsala on the one 
 hand to the bold headland of San Vito on the 
 other, spread map-like below them. Far out at 
 sea the -ZEgadian Isles reared their mountainous 
 peaks, still claiming the sky rather than the sea 
 for their background, and challenging tall Mari 
 time, at least the rugged rock above their heads, 
 where Phoanicians and Romans alike had founded 
 their strongholds and sanctuaries. Brigs and fe 
 luccas laden with grain and sulphur and the wines 
 of Marsala and the alabaster of Trapani drew their 
 gray or ruddy sails across the blue field of the wa 
 ter, and the rich coast plains stood spring-decked 
 in the varying greens of orange and olive and 
 mastic-trees. 
 
 Mam zelle looked. " Did n t it ? Does n t it ? " 
 she repeated. 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 219 
 
 The Freiherr twitched his bridle. Mam zelle s 
 abounding enthusiasm was in temporary subordi 
 nation ; he wished that she would soon become her 
 normal self. 
 
 "They were made for each other, of course," 
 she reiterated. " It cannot be that you would 
 have them separated." 
 
 The Freiherr gave his beast a second intimation 
 to go on. 
 
 " You do not speak. Does that mean that you 
 have not made up your mind ? " 
 
 Donna Violante, under Mam zelle s stippling 
 touch, was recovering a vividness that had begun 
 to fade. Nothing kept her completely before him 
 save her own bodily presence or the pointed com 
 ments of friends. Bruno could accomplish this in 
 one way. Mam zelle seemed able to accomplish it 
 in another. Donna Violante, in all her youth and 
 grace and beauty and spirit, was returning from 
 the limbo into which the Freiherr s dulled brain 
 had allowed her to lapse ; and the more clearly 
 she reappeared the more definitely did Mam zelle 
 Hedwig seem but a pleasant, homely grotesque 
 and nothing more. 
 
 " It is hardly my mind that will decide these 
 matters," he replied. 
 
 " Then let them decide for themselves." 
 
 " Where there are three hearts, one must be 
 broken, I suppose ! " 
 
 " Then make a firm resolve. Sacrifice your 
 self ! " 
 
220 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " If the third heart were only mine ! But the 
 third heart is the Marchesina s as you yourself 
 have just pointed out." The Freiherr smiled half 
 whimsically, half provocatively, as a man who does 
 not fully know his own mind. " Do you ask me 
 to sacrifice hers ? " 
 
 " That girl is still in your thoughts, I see." 
 
 " Lucetta ? Surely." 
 
 "I mean the other. And that boy should be 
 there too. You have a duty toward him a duty 
 of forbearance, at least. You must not let him give 
 you the right to accuse you of of treachery." 
 
 " Quite true," said the Freiherr, gravely. " I 
 am thinking of that." 
 
 " Their union is predestined. There are no seri 
 ous bars between them. There is no line of race 
 to be overstepped, nor of age, nor of rank, nor of 
 language, nor of creed." 
 
 " Those are all things to be considered." 
 
 "Then consider them," said Mam zelle, with 
 emphatic archness. 
 
 Von Kaltenau smiled as he reviewed the waver 
 ing course of Mam zelle s diplomacy, the donkey 
 boys thumped and shouted, the horizon steadily 
 rose ; and presently, Mam zelle, standing on the 
 rugged rock of Eryx s ivy-grown castle, laid aside 
 her personal preoccupations, like a good traveller, 
 and made the noble prospect far and wide her 
 own. 
 
MANCEUVBINGS 221 
 
 VI 
 
 Our two friends soon found that little time was 
 needed for the scanty ruins within the dwindling 
 town, and they presently remounted their beasts 
 to regain Trapani by sunset. As they dismounted 
 again, just within Trapani s town gate, a man 
 passed by with the observing glance of the stran 
 ger and the assured mien of the grand seigneur. 
 Von Kaltenau looked after him and recognized 
 Giacinto Malevento. 
 
 They met that evening at dinner ; they were 
 lodged in the same hotel, and they ate, as chance 
 would have it, side by side at the same table. Both 
 were surprised at this rencontre in faraway Tra 
 pani, and both sparred politely, each to learn why 
 the other was here. Donna Violante, upon leaving 
 Belriguardo, had laid an equal ban on Montegri- 
 fone and Malevento alike : neither of them was to 
 presume to make the slightest attempt toward fol 
 lowing her. Where was Violante now? Where 
 was Bruno ? Why was Malevento here ? 
 
 " You have been in Trapani some time ? " asked 
 the Freiherr, balancing his spoon. 
 
 " A day or so." 
 
 " You have friends here, perhaps ? " 
 
 " Quite the contrary ! " returned Malevento, 
 shrugging his shoulders. 
 
 " Enemies, then ? " 
 
 " That might be said." 
 
222 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " Enemies ? And are you to fight them or to 
 fly them?" 
 
 " Both." 
 
 " You are not to fly too soon, I trust. I shall 
 hope to have the pleasure of finding you still here 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Until to-morrow noon no longer. Time has 
 its value." Malevento spoke as one who, if he had 
 not accomplished his purpose, had at least laid his 
 hands upon the means of doing so. " And you ? " 
 
 " I have no fixed plans, no set hours. I am a 
 mere idler." 
 
 " You are here alone ? " 
 
 " No," smiled the Freiherr. 
 
 " Still the faithful friend, I see." 
 
 " I hope so," returned the Freiherr, smiling 
 broadly. " I ask to be no more." 
 
 "Friendship makes its exactions, inflicts its 
 trials." 
 
 " Truly you are right." 
 
 " And has its failures as well as its successes." 
 
 " So much so that certain forms of friendship 
 might be said to be foredoomed to failure." 
 
 " Yes ; friendships where there is a great dispar 
 ity of years : there must be no greater trial than 
 the headlong selfishness of mere boyhood." 
 
 " Or the clinging hold of coming middle age." 
 
 Malevento could get no particular meaning out 
 of this observation. It seemed, however, to remove 
 Bruno from the field. " You find little enough of 
 interest here, I suppose ? " 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 223 
 
 " Little enough. And you ? " 
 
 " I look for nothing more than has been yielded 
 already." 
 
 " Something of value, I dare say? " 
 
 " Something of great value. You will be leaving 
 to-morrow too ? " 
 
 " Possibly." 
 
 " And you go toward " 
 
 " It may be Selinunto. Or Girgenti." 
 
 " Make it Girgenti, by all means. The hotel 
 there is too good to lose the only good one in 
 the Island, outside of Palermo. It is a family 
 villa. I know the proprietor a charming fellow : 
 a young man who was a lieutenant of cavalry, and 
 who keeps his own racing stable . . . Let me note 
 it down for you. Make it Girgenti, by all means ! " 
 
 Malevento thrust his hand into his pocket, with 
 the idea of dedicating a detached page from his 
 note-book to this service. Along with the note 
 book came two or three letters that fell on the table 
 amidst the spoons and glasses. One of them, in 
 particular, caught the Freiherr s eye. Its square 
 envelope, of a creamy white, was addressed (aside 
 from the supplementary hands of forwarding 
 clerks) in the large, sprawling, angular penman 
 ship that awakens admiration in some parts of the 
 world and derisive wonder in others. But the 
 mere penmanship was nothing ; it was the address 
 itself that took his attention. This address, which 
 showed a fine relish for the elaboration of an aris 
 tocratic title, was that of the Duke of Montegri- 
 
224 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 fone ; and the postmark, which the Freiherr caught 
 as well, in the brief moment that intervened before 
 Malevento could snatch the letters up, shuffle them 
 together, and return them hastily to his pocket, 
 was that of Trapani, where, doubtless, the letter 
 had just been claimed and delivered. 
 
 " There ! " said Malevento, thrusting his memo 
 randum upon von Kaltenau. " Enrico is a thor 
 oughly good fellow ; he will do everything to 
 make you comfortable. And when you go to Syra 
 cuse," he went on rapidly, " there is the new hotel 
 close to the harbor. And at Taormina of course 
 you will not omit Taormina pass over the whole 
 brood of minor inns and go to the monastery that 
 my friend Count Albergatore has just fitted up. 
 The most glorious situation in Europe, on a cliff a 
 hundred and fifty metres above the sea, full in the 
 face of the Calabrian mountains, and in the very 
 front of ^Etna I am sure you like mountains, 
 you strange Northerner. You sleep in the cells, 
 and every bedroom has its antechamber ; and there 
 are bath-tubs, I am told, in case you care to " 
 
 Malevento was struggling hardily to recover his 
 self -composure and to down the tell-tale flush he 
 felt upon his cheek. 
 
 " Thank you, * said von Kaltenau, accepting 
 the memorandum. " You have done me a great 
 service." 
 
 It came to this, then: Bruno was here, and 
 Malevento was intercepting his letters. Which 
 of the two had come first, and why had the other 
 
MANOEUVRINGS 225 
 
 followed? And why was Malevento so intent 
 upon packing his " strange Northerner " to the 
 other extreme of the island ? 
 
 " Yes, Bruno is here," said the Freiherr, coming 
 back to the one seeming certainty. He made im 
 mediate inquiries within his own hotel and sent 
 messengers to the others. Nothing was learned. 
 " To-morrow morning, at the bankers and at the 
 post-office," he said. 
 
 VII 
 
 The bankers told him nothing, but the post-office 
 had a letter for him a letter whose original ad 
 dress in a crabbed scholastic hand was now over 
 laid by the work of many clerkly pens. It was 
 from Dottore Balanzoni, and was dated from a 
 villa which turned out to be, after all, but a 
 dilapidated masseria in the remoter environs 
 of the capital. 
 
 " She is here," he wrote ; " come." She, it im 
 mediately developed, was Donna Violante. And 
 her condition ? That was portrayed as promptly, 
 if all too briefly : she was eating her heart out. 
 
 No supplementary means of succor was sug 
 gested ; no consoler of Yiolante s own years was 
 mentioned. The Freiherr felt that he himself was 
 frankly treated here as a young man, and was not 
 displeased. The image of Donna Violante came 
 to his mind once more ; he reviewed the varying 
 outward forms that heartbreak may assume. He 
 saw her with a pale cheek propped by an elbow 
 
226 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 on some ruinous balustrade ; he saw her dragging 
 her weary feet regretfully, perhaps remorsefully, 
 through some dank, neglected garden . . . 
 
 He read the letter again and smiled at the 
 determined efforts of the old gentleman from Ley- 
 den to throw himself into the pulsing concerns of 
 life. Despite this obvious intention, the tone of 
 the letter was singularly nebulous, indecisive. It 
 betrayed throughout the accents of the temporizer ; 
 it seemed to convey a vague apology for inaction. 
 And, indeed, why should Balanzoni, why should 
 anybody else linger in a place so curious and so 
 curiously situated ? Was it mere whim ? Was it 
 fear ? Was it simply nerveless incertitude ? 
 
 The Freiherr walked through the town to the 
 harbor, creasing his letter and wondering what re 
 sponse whether of word or of deed he should 
 make. Donna Violante would leap to his eye as 
 a pleasing possibility whenever the friendly hand 
 of another was advanced to perform the propelling 
 act ; the string sounded vibrantly enough when 
 plucked by some power outside himself. A look 
 from Bruno, a word from Mam zelle, a line from 
 Balanzoni, and there she stood. But there seemed 
 little within him to enable him to do this for him 
 self, and every vibration caused from without was 
 a thought weaker than the preceding one. No; 
 more than the chance phraseology of a letter was 
 needed to make him feel that he was still young. 
 His best years his good years were past ; he 
 lived by proxy ; he felt by mere secondary impact. 
 
HANCEUVRINGS 227 
 
 What miracle could be expected to turn back the 
 hands of time, to make good his general dilapi 
 dation, to string to a vigorous tension the relaxed 
 fibre of his spirit ? 
 
 He was now upon the rough flagging of the 
 quay. Ships and facchini multiplied ; casks and 
 boxes blocked his way. The smells of the port, 
 grateful or otherwise, were stronger in his nos 
 trils ; the cry of a sailor, silhouetted against the 
 fleckless blue, came down from a yardarm over 
 head ; a coasting steamer, at anchor for the past 
 hour in the harbor, gave repeated signs of coming 
 departure. 
 
 Before one of the houses fronting on the quay 
 he saw gathered a little knot of three or four men. 
 One in the middle received the deference of the 
 rest, and all of them gesticulated freely in the 
 direction of the house, as might a great landed 
 proprietor and his familiars. The central figure 
 suddenly added a sweeping gesture to those already 
 made, a gesture to portend immediate and radi 
 cal changes of much moment, following upon the 
 exercise of the master s own good pleasure. The 
 Freiherr looked more closely. It was Bruno. 
 
 vni 
 
 Their eyes met. "Were the rancours and heart 
 burnings of the past done with, or were they still 
 to prevail ? Had Bruno forgiven ? Would he not 
 grant some recognition of the Freiherr s services 
 
228 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 in one direction, however ill-judged his efforts may 
 have been in another ? 
 
 Bruno advanced. In a tone calmly gracious, 
 but slightly distant, he gave the Freiherr greeting. 
 Things had taken on a new aspect. He had now 
 been beheld by his former friend as a great landed 
 noble in the very exercise of his high functions, 
 and all recollection of the brief hour of mortifica 
 tion at Belriguardo he could well afford to set 
 aside. 
 
 The Freiherr detached Bruno from his stewards 
 and agents and told him that Malevento was in 
 the town. 
 
 " I know it," replied Bruno, not warming ap 
 preciably. " I have seen him once or twice." 
 
 " Why is he here ? " 
 
 " Because I am here, I dare say," replied Bruno, 
 turning aside a little, as if still interested in his 
 house. " He heard where I was, and followed." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " To learn what he seems to have been unable 
 to learn elsewhere." 
 
 " Has he learned it ? " 
 
 " Not from me," said Bruno, looking askance at 
 the shipping, with a dark frown. 
 
 " You had nothing to tell ? " 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 Von Kaltenau pondered. Bruno was cooling; 
 Bruno was no longer gracious he was become al 
 most sullen ; that cruel wound stung and smarted 
 still. He himself was in part to blame and ought 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 229 
 
 to make what amends he could. He held the 
 means of grace within his hand a means of 
 grace to serve for either : should he employ it 
 upon himself while doubting if his case might not 
 be beyond its efficacy, or should he employ it in 
 behalf of another with whom it was much more 
 likely to succeed ? And there was Bruno s friend 
 ship ; he could not reconcile himself to the idea of 
 letting it slip away. 
 
 Bruno thrummed upon the head of a cask and 
 looked at his companion as if to ask what further 
 thing he had to say. The Freiherr worked his 
 clasped fingers behind his back ; here, truly, was 
 a youth to whom he owed a debt of gratitude that 
 never could be fully discharged. Everything that 
 he had seen he had seen through Bruno s eyes; 
 everything that he had felt had reached him 
 through Bruno s well-attuned nature. His enjoy 
 ment of earth s beauties and his interest in human 
 kind had been quickened through this medium. 
 Left to himself, he was helpless there could be 
 no deception here. It was Bruno who had re 
 vealed Rome to him, the world to him, the men 
 and women in it. One woman, particularly. 
 Alone, he should have been blind even to Belri- 
 guardo, and pulseless even before Yiolante. In 
 his eyes she was only what Bruno had made her 
 seem. Even now, before his own unaided vision, 
 she would be doomed to sudden collapse and ex 
 tinction. The part for him to play was the part 
 of renunciation. The animation of his past month 
 
230 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 had been but a temporary and deceptive revival ; 
 his dulled, numbed being had been galvanized to 
 a brief and ghastly similitude of life. There was 
 nothing left for him but to help on the happiness 
 of others. Already he felt himself drawing back 
 into the cool gray shade of altruism the Last 
 Refuge, as it seemed, if any indeed remained. 
 
 " Have you received all the letters you ex 
 pected ? " he asked at last. 
 
 " I hope so," replied Bruno. 
 
 " Here is one." 
 
 " It is addressed to you." 
 
 " But meant for you. It will replace another 
 that was sent to you, but never reached you." 
 
 " Never reached me ? " 
 
 " One from a woman." 
 
 Bruno s eyes lighted up. " A woman ? Was it 
 from Donna " 
 
 " I shall not go so far as to say that. But this 
 one is." 
 
 Bruno took the letter and cast a puzzled look at 
 the envelope. " Where did you see the other ? " 
 
 " In the hands of Giacinto Malevento, who 
 leaves this place within an hour." He looked at 
 his watch. " No ; less than that." 
 
 " How did he get possession of it ? " 
 
 " Perhaps they can tell you at the post-office. 
 Meanwhile, read the one you have." 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 231 
 
 IX 
 
 As Bruno stood there, a few moments later, in 
 full knowledge of Donna Violante s place of re 
 treat and in full appreciation of von Kaltenau s 
 continuing kindness, a carriage laden with a variety 
 of light luggage came clattering along the rough 
 pavement, headed for the point of embarkation. 
 The occupant, with a nervous eye fixed upon the 
 steamer at anchor in the middle of the harbor, 
 urged the driver to push on his stumbling beast, 
 and held in place as best he might the bags and 
 portmanteaus jostled to and fro by the rough ra 
 pidity of his course. It was Giacinto Malevento. 
 
 Bruno called to the driver to halt. 
 
 A clumsy facchino, crossing before the horse at 
 that moment, dropped a case of oranges, and the 
 resulting wreck made an instant s delay inevitable. 
 
 " I stop on your command, of course," said 
 Malevento, pointing satirically to a second porter 
 who had fallen over the first and blocked the nar 
 row way entirely. " T\"hat is your pleasure ? " 
 
 " To hold you where you are." 
 
 " For a moment, my dear friend ; no longer. I 
 have information, and must act upon it." 
 
 " I shall act too. The foul means you have em 
 ployed shall not go unheeded nor unpunished." 
 
 " All is fair you know the rest. You know 
 everything, save the one great essential, which re 
 mains my secret and shall work to my advantage." 
 
232 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 "I know all that you know," said Bruno, 
 savagely. 
 
 "Then why are you loitering here? But the 
 reason is plain : the new master, engrossed in the 
 novel pleasure of possession. May these new pos 
 sessions be more real than others have proved ! " 
 
 " They will be. They are," said Bruno, shortly, 
 with a rising anger. 
 
 " Ah, the dilemma of opposing interests, then 
 too much for an inexperienced boy to grasp. Let 
 me help you let me share your burden. Go on 
 looking after your new houses and lands ; I will 
 look after the rest ! " 
 
 Bruno, with a fierce cry, instantly had his foot 
 upon the carriage-step and his hand upon Male- 
 vent o s throat. 
 
 " Bruno ! " cried the Freiherr ; " not here ; not 
 now ! " 
 
 Malevento, rolling his eyes wildly, reached for 
 the driver s whip. Both his race and his rank 
 negatived the notion that he should combat as 
 man to man with the mere elemental weapons of 
 nature s own providing. In default of a knife to 
 plunge into the throat of this savage beast or a 
 pistol to point against his breast, a whip-cord 
 slashed across his face or a whip-handle broken 
 over his head must serve the turn. But Bruno 
 crowded him back among his bags and choked 
 him black in the face. 
 
 " You miserable wretch ! " he cried ; " I know 
 all you know and how you learned it ! I know 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 233 
 
 where you are going and why you are going, and 
 I shall prevent it ! " 
 
 " Fall back, you mad young savage ! " said 
 Malevento, articulating as best he might through 
 the viselike grip of Bruno s strong brown hands. 
 And then, to the driver : " Go on ; go on ! " 
 
 The horse, lashed vindictively by the coachman, 
 sprang forward through the debris that littered 
 the roadway. The carriage, with a crunch and a 
 jolt, passed over the broken boxes, and Bruno, 
 none too firmly poised upon the step and embar 
 rassed by the shifting mass of Malevento s lug 
 gage, reeled backward and barely saved himself 
 from falling flat in the roadway. Before he had 
 fully recovered himself, Malevento, rattling ahead 
 rapidly, had gained the quay. 
 
 u I will follow him," panted Bruno. " We will 
 board that steamer too, and reach the villa as soon 
 as he does." 
 
 " My dear Bruno," expostulated the Freiherr, 
 aghast before a flight still more hurried than any 
 they had undertaken yet ; " this is quite imprac 
 ticable. We have our luggage, our concerns here, 
 our indebtedness to settle, our friends " 
 
 " Our friends ? I have you, and you have me. 
 What more ? " 
 
 Yon Kaltenau s eyes moistened as Montegri- 
 fone thus suddenly and completely sealed their 
 reconciliation. 
 
 " Mam zelle Hedwig," he said, " could scarcely 
 be left here without a word of " 
 
234 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " Humph ! She is still with you, then ? " 
 
 " Still with me," replied the Freiherr, patiently. 
 " But what difference is there in an hour or two ? 
 Or even in a day or two if you are sure of merit 
 ing the first place in Donna Violante s thoughts ? " 
 
 " An hour or two ? " cried Bruno, stridently ; " a 
 day or two ? Say a year or two, and spend them 
 here, with your blood thickening into pitch. But 
 I can I wait calmly here, knowing that every 
 moment is " 
 
 " Take the train." 
 
 " No train leaves till dusk. And the last one 
 left an hour ago." 
 
 " Intercept that one." For Trapani, most remote 
 of all places, lies at the end of a long, wide bend, 
 to cover which consumes the better half of a day ; 
 the minimum of distance, the maximum of time. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Find a vetturino at once. "We can set out 
 within half an hour, everything in readiness, and 
 all dues discharged. Get a good coach and good 
 horses. It is a mere dash across country of twenty 
 miles." 
 
 This proposal caught Bruno s fancy, and fell in 
 with his urgent need for action. To sit passively 
 on land or on water, in company with a hundred 
 other people, all equally the victims of a formal 
 time-table and a hopelessly indifferent engineer, 
 would be intolerable. A mad course over moun 
 tain roads responded more closely to his mood : he 
 himself might urge and cry and belabor, might 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 235 
 
 stimulate by voice and example and promise of 
 gain the lagging energies of man and beast. 
 Sturdy shoulders set, if need be, against reluc 
 tant wheels, impassioned imprecations hurled at the 
 heads of loitering carters . . . 
 
 " I choose your way," he said. " And may the 
 steamer be late ! " 
 
 " The steamers almost always are," said the 
 Freiherr, composedly. 
 
 Sunset. The Ave Maria echoed faintly from 
 height to height along the far sweep of girdling 
 hills, and the last rays of the sun illumined with a 
 golden mist the green reach of plain and the blue 
 expanse of bay and set a silver-purple bloom upon 
 the distant mountains whose wide embrace inclosed 
 the most enchanting prospect that human eye may 
 view or human memory recall. The plain was lux 
 uriant with spring s richest leafage of citron and 
 lemon and odorous with the far-flung breath of 
 orange blossoms innumerable. The sea pulsed with 
 the swift lightness of fishing-boats returning to 
 port under ruddy sails that glowed more ruddy 
 still before the enkindled gleam now shining from 
 the west. The mountains swam and wavered in 
 suave outlines that almost merged in the unsullied 
 azure of the sky itself, and reared their high- 
 perched villages to shine pink in the full-flooded 
 glow of the day s last hour, and looked down 
 
236 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 proudly upon numberless lovely villas at their 
 feet, where recessed loggias or long-drawn balus 
 trades broke with faint shadows the universal 
 reign of light. And above all the mountains 
 in the midst of their revering circle rose one 
 more beautiful than any. Its triple peaks hung 
 there delicately in a tender bloom of purple, like 
 the vast and noble tent of some Saracenic emir 
 seen, or half seen, through the delusive air of the 
 desert. And a sole pink cloud, the only one in 
 sight, hovered above its central peak, like a crown 
 descending upon the brow of acknowledged ma 
 jesty. And at the mountain s foot, upon the edge 
 of the bay, was seen, or half seen, a city. Its 
 white walls, its domes, its towers, rising above the 
 citrons and tamarisks and magnolias of the plain, 
 caught the same pink glow that suffused the whole 
 wide prospect. But distance softened its outlines 
 to uncertainty, and the lance-like forms of many 
 cypresses that rose dispersedly between teased and 
 thwarted the eye that would achieve a clearer 
 vision. Yet there it lay, the city palpitant, the 
 city illuminate ; the city of highest hopes and of 
 most boundless desires ; the city that, seen with 
 the eyes of the heart, shines gracious and alluring 
 beyond all others : La Felice, the City of Hap 
 piness. 
 
 And upon its own rocky spur sat, like the rest, 
 the Villa dei Dubbii and shared this enchanting 
 prospect with its mates. But the villa was now a 
 villa by courtesy only a villa merely through 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 237 
 
 memory s retrospective charity. It had sunk 
 slowly to the last stages of neglect and dilapida 
 tion, and was now little better than a farmhouse, 
 little more than a tavern that humbly requested 
 the poor patronage of the infrequent passer-by 
 and echoed to the brief joviality of carters noisy 
 over their cups. And young Kocco, who ruled its 
 half dismantled chambers and stabled his draught 
 horses in its cavernous basements, was at once 
 husbandman and host. A few beds, seldom occu 
 pied, stood gauntly beneath frescoed ceilings ; and 
 a garden, an orchard, a haycock, and two or three 
 butts of wine hidden away somewhere in the villa s 
 dusky substructure kept him in countenance when 
 his rudely lettered sign caused an infrequent trav 
 eller to halt and to request the customary refresh 
 ment for man and beast. 
 
 Young Rocco had worked contentedly enough 
 among his vines and sung as he plied his mattock 
 in his barley patch ; and Barbara had cooked and 
 washed and spun ; and the baby had played with 
 his toes or crept down the dishevelled avenue of 
 holm oaks in search of casual fallen leaves all 
 three equally regardless of the great outside world 
 and its interests. And now the world was come 
 to them. The last few days had brought it. It had 
 come on foot and on wheels and on horseback 
 a strange, diversified world that none of them had 
 ever known, not even the baby. And it moped in 
 ones and twos along the broken pavement of Roc- 
 co s terrace, and sat meditatively for long hours 
 
238 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 over unsipped glasses of wine, with its elbows 
 planted on his rude and rickety tables, and con 
 ferred in ominous whispers among the unkempt 
 laurel thickets where the pedestals bereft of stat 
 ues gathered mosses unto themselves through the 
 uneventful years. But most of all did these 
 strange creatures lean forward over the disinte 
 grating sandstone balustrade and gaze in long 
 silences at the distant city. And more than at 
 any other hour were they prone to this at the hour 
 of sunset, when one great dome caught at the 
 excess of golden light and all the multitudinous 
 topmasts of the harbor seemed tipped with living 
 fire. Then they would look fearfully at one an 
 other, and each say to his neighbor yet of tener 
 each to himself " To-morrow. We will go down 
 to-morrow." 
 
 But to-morrow came, and still they tarried. 
 Hope seemed no stronger than fear ; expectation 
 was palsied by doubt. Young Rocco, never of too 
 speculative a nature, gave up speculation alto 
 gether. He and his wife attended to the wants 
 of their guests as best they knew how, and carried 
 on their customary occupations as best these inter 
 ruptions would allow, and came to heed scarcely 
 more than did little Nino himself the timorous 
 accents of that reiterated word: To-morrow, to 
 morrow. 
 
 The sun sank, the last echoes of the chiming 
 bells died away, and the sound of a carriage that 
 coursed furiously along the doubling road below 
 
MANCEUVRINGS 239 
 
 came up through the olive grove shivering in 
 the twilight. The clamor mounted, the carriage 
 stopped at the ruined posts that flanked Kocco s 
 dismantled gateway, and two men, Bruno and the 
 Freiherr, advanced rapidly along the oak avenue 
 toward the terrace upon which a dozen or more 
 despondent persons were just settling down to a 
 frugal supper of Kocco s providing. Von Kalte- 
 nau, scanning the group rapidly, saw several 
 familiar faces among them that of the old man 
 whom he had once found musing amidst the ruined 
 temples of Metapontum and as many strange 
 ones. Bruno s eye, brushing past all these, friend 
 and stranger alike, saw but one thing : Donna Vio- 
 lante, leaning against the balustrade with drooping 
 head, while close beside her, holding her hand and 
 whispering in her ear, stood Giacinto Malevento. 
 
PAKT VII. THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 
 
 TO-MORROW had dawned thrice upon the Villa 
 dei Dubbii, and once more still, and yet again, and 
 the doleful dwellers within that House of Doubt 
 had made a collective resolve that the next to-mor 
 row should be the last, when the arrival of Donna 
 Violante, whose coming was late and purely by 
 chance, plunged them back into the gloom from 
 which they had been striving so heroically to 
 emerge. 
 
 " We must make an end of this," Dottore Balan- 
 zoni had said one afternoon, addressing the whole 
 sad company. " Let us summon up our courage, 
 and risk all upon the last cast of the die. We 
 have all but reached our goal ; let us learn every 
 thing, whether of good or ill, that may await 
 us." 
 
 "You are right," said the Lady of Quality, in 
 fullest approval. " Such a strain is unbearable. 
 The worst certainty could be no worse than this 
 dreadful suspense. My coaches shall be made 
 ready to-morrow. You shall all go with me ; to 
 morrow morning we will meet our fate in a body." 
 
 Then Donna Violante had come, bringing her 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 241 
 
 own uncertainties and fears, exhausted, exasper 
 ated, and attended, as ever, by Monna Clotilde. 
 They knew her plight already, and little time was 
 lost before she had learned of theirs. Violante 
 threw a vindictive glance of hatred upon the city 
 beneath them, the city of her birth, and 
 spread a smile of disdainful pity over the doubting 
 and despondent souls that had come flocking round 
 her. 
 
 " This, then," she cried, as she extended her arm 
 toward the distant walls that rose from the gir 
 dling plantations of citrons and medlars, " is the 
 asylum you have imagined, the last harbor of 
 refuge to which you have all shaped your course ! 
 Then let me tell you that you might have made a 
 better choice ! Well may you linger here in hesi 
 tation ! You look for light, for joy, for the ful 
 filment of every dearest hope ; but you will be 
 disappointed. I who speak know that city and 
 know it well. I was born there, bred there ; yet 
 what has it given me, its daughter? Coldness, 
 injustice, harsh severity. It has repressed the 
 best impulses of my nature and thwarted my every 
 just desire." Donna Violante spoke indeed as a 
 daughter, but as the daughter of stern and un 
 sympathetic parents, contrivers of restraints and 
 coercions, callous inflicters of punishment. For 
 her the city was a city of hard-faced fathers, of 
 indifferent relatives, of carefully guarded con 
 finement, of broken hopes and balked desires* 
 " Forego your expectations, whatever they may 
 
242 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 be," she cried, with impatient scorn. " If your 
 last hopes are centred here, I pity you indeed ! " 
 
 The little company cowered beneath these cruel 
 buffets. Action once more was palsied ; to-morrow 
 held no more promise than to-day. 
 
 There was a certain self-absorbed student among 
 them, an abstracted follower of the courses of his 
 tory, to whom to-morrow was less than yesterday, 
 and yesterday less than the day before. He held 
 aloof from the others and apostrophized the city 
 softly, and was shaping a private resolve to flee 
 alone forthwith. He was impatient to move 
 through a town whose varied inhabitants had lived 
 at once under a triple code, that of the Sara 
 cens, the Normans, and the Greeks, ruled by 
 masters who had blended with the laws that gov 
 erned Rouen and St. L6 the Codex of Justinian 
 and the precepts of the Koran. He was eager to 
 find himself beneath the roofs of monuments that 
 fused these three racial influences in enduring 
 stone and marble, and to stand before the tombs 
 of kings who had spoken the triple tongue of 
 Athens, Arabia, and Norman France. Particu 
 larly did the Arabic fascinate him. Though the 
 name of the city was Greek, the lesser details of 
 its nomenclature were largely Oriental. " Gala," 
 he would murmur ; " Cassaro ; Kalsa : the imme 
 morial East still stamps their harbor, their streets, 
 their squares." 
 
 He lay these considerations before Donna Vio- 
 lante, timidly. But for her the city was not a city 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 243 
 
 of the past ; no, rather of the poignant and embit 
 tered present. She stared at him in disdainful 
 wonder and gave him no reply. 
 
 Less fortunate was a certain placid, silver-headed 
 scientist, whose absorbing interest in botany had 
 plunged him into the midst of the Sicilian spring. 
 He too would lean over Rocco s balustrade to 
 spy out a certain lordly and historic pleasure-house 
 on the further skirts of the town, a retreat devised 
 for their northern rulers by Saracenic artisans. 
 There were fountained recesses crowned by honey 
 comb work, and decorated with mosaics of pea 
 cocks and huntsmen, and bordered by ornate in 
 scriptions in the ancient Cufic character. But 
 above all, there was the garden. And the suffi 
 cing name of this lovely inclosure was El- Aziz 
 The Glorious. For as Europe was the glory of 
 the world, thus the text ran, so Italy was the 
 glory of Europe, and Sicily was the glory of Italy, 
 and this garden was the glory of Sicily the ulti 
 mate glory of glories. " And I must see it," said 
 the gentle old man. 
 
 " Go, see it," said Violante, cruelly ; " and let 
 me know if you find there more than I have found : 
 a few orange-trees, such as may be seen anywhere ; 
 a few neglected bean-beds, lying between unkempt 
 paths ; a broken cart ; a heap of brushwood ; a 
 ragged child or two . . . Are these the elements 
 of glory ? Pray let your foolish fancy die." 
 
 The poor old man dropped his head and stole 
 away. For him, also, to-morrow now held no more 
 than to-day. 
 
244 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 II 
 
 But Donna Violante s exacerbated spirit soon 
 remitted such excesses as these ; an impatient scorn 
 presently gave way to passive despondency a 
 mood that threatened to lead on to absolute mel 
 ancholia. Monna Clotilde set a studious eye on 
 these changing phases, and Madama Sophonisba 
 a sympathetic one. "I must soon take steps to 
 rescue that poor girl from herself," she said, 
 " and from her companion." Madama Sophonisba 
 had definite grounds for a quickened sympathy. 
 For more than a week, now, she had been carry 
 ing in her bosom a letter from the niece the sight 
 of whom, in the midst of the new and noble circle 
 that surrounded her, was to bring a long, labori 
 ous journey to a brilliant close. The Lady of 
 Quality read the letter, and reread it ; in fact, its 
 reading had come to be almost a habit. She read 
 old meanings out of it, and new meanings into it. 
 She read charges of cruelty and injustice there, 
 and accusations against individuals and against a 
 whole social order, even against a whole civiliza 
 tion. She was full of doubts and fears : fears for 
 the inexperienced girl who had elected to overstep 
 the dividing line drawn by race and speech and 
 creed and had attempted to make a life-place for 
 herself in an alien society ; grave doubts whether 
 that society could be the splendid and soul-satisfy 
 ing thing that it must be if her own ideals were 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 245 
 
 to be realized and her long progress to end in tri 
 umph. But one doubt, graver than any, assailed 
 her incessantly : the doubt whether she had done 
 well to send word at a venture to Bruno, all un 
 known to Violante, of the place where the poor 
 fugitive was to be found, by the letter, in fact, 
 that had ended the last of its repeated flights in the 
 hands of Giacinto Malevento. But as she saw Vio 
 lante sinking more deeply into despondency with 
 every hour, she determined that no other course 
 could have been possible for a feeling friend. 
 
 " I was right to do it," Sophonisba declared to 
 herself, " and the poor despairing child shall know 
 what I have done." 
 
 She found Violante in the lower part of the 
 grounds, where she was strolling alone through 
 a neglected tract overgrown with palmetto and 
 prickly pear. On this inferior level not even the 
 most wilful eyes could by any chance perceive the 
 distant city. 
 
 Madama Sophonisba told her of the letter to 
 Bruno, and would have gone on with her own 
 plaints and fears, but that Violante, pricked as by 
 a goad, stopped her. This invasion of her maiden 
 reserve dispelled her despondency and aroused her 
 earlier temper to its fullest pungency. 
 
 " How dared you do such a thing ! " she cried ; 
 " without one word from me, without one word to 
 me ! And you say, besides, that you have placed 
 one of your coaches at his disposal ! That is 
 odious, impossible ! " 
 
246 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " Not impossible in my part of the world nor 
 in many others." 
 
 " It is in this ! " 
 
 " You strain at gnats now ? " 
 
 " But I will not strain so far the conventions of 
 my own order. And as for that other unfortunate 
 girl within this city s cruel toils, believe the worst, 
 believe the worst ! " And Violante fled away, weep 
 ing bitterly. 
 
 Madama Sophonisba could not save herself from 
 yielding complete obedience to this passionate in 
 junction, but the others round her were already 
 recovering from the lapse into despair that had 
 followed Violante s arrival. " One may easily give 
 undue heed to the hasty words of an inexperienced 
 girl," they said ; " she overcasts everything with 
 the tints of her own little griefs and disappoint 
 ments. She shall not influence us. We will go 
 down to-morrow." 
 
 But before to-morrow came another fugitive ar 
 rived, as if fleeing from the city of wrath itself. 
 At noon a coach stopped just outside Eocco s gate, 
 and a young woman whose face bore all the evi 
 dences of dread and distress that accompany a 
 hurried and aimless flight begged for momentary 
 asylum and refreshment. As she came along the 
 terrace and caught sight of the Lady of Quality, 
 she gave a glad cry of joy and relief and fell tear 
 fully upon the ample bosom of her unlooked-for 
 relative, where she panted out her tale of injury 
 and woe. A selfish, neglectful, cynical husband, 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 247 
 
 unjust and hectoring relatives, a scoffing society 
 debased and corrupt all these had conspired to 
 break her will, to smirch her ideals and to prey 
 upon her substance. " My dearest aunt," she 
 sobbed, " if you are going down there., think twice, 
 think twice ! " 
 
 " Ha ! " cried Monna Clotilde, to Violante ; " you 
 hear that ! " 
 
 Yes, Violante heard it, and the others heard it, 
 and again to-morrow was postponed. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The tide, then, ebbed once more ; but soon it 
 was again at flood. " How ! " cried the painter 
 to his poet ; " shall such things deter us ? What 
 have we here, after all, but the distresses of one 
 young girl the more ? Shall we not, rather, press 
 forward to a city where such interesting episodes 
 are possible ? Life, surely, is there, the life we 
 are in search of, and the life we need ! " 
 
 " The distress of one young girl ! " muttered the 
 wistful old man from Metapontum ; " what is that 
 in the great bulk of human concerns ? It is little 
 to you, and less to me ; there are other things 
 upon which we, inured to the world, may fix our 
 thoughts. She and her trivial misfortunes shall 
 not affright us. We will go down to-morrow." 
 
 But before the lapse of many hours there ar 
 rived a Mere Tourist, hot and angry. He, too, 
 fled from the city of wrath, and vehement was his 
 
248 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 clamor. He had been maltreated, robbed. And as 
 a consequence of his own manly endeavors to com 
 pel restitution, he had been threatened, then duped, 
 then derided. " Justice is a mockery there ! " he 
 cried. "The whole town is one vast conspiracy 
 against the stranger. And those who know best 
 whisper that most of its inhabitants are in con 
 spiracies and counter-conspiracies against one an 
 other, as well ! " To the student of history, who 
 timidly begged for some reassuring details, he 
 brusquely declared there were none. "A mon 
 grel, hybrid population ! " vociferated the Tourist ; 
 " a seething mass of chicanery and corruption ! 
 Family against family, clique against clique, and 
 all against the Government. Keep away, keep 
 away ! There are wheels within wheels, and they 
 will grind the unwary stranger to dust ! " 
 
 This strident tirade made a vastly deeper im 
 pression than did the sobbing recital of Madama 
 Sophonisba s niece. Here was no inexperienced 
 girl, but a mature and well-seasoned man of the 
 world, whose words must have weight. Poor 
 Balanzoni abandoned himself to black despair ; 
 clearly a malign fate had set for him one more of 
 her ironical traps. The Lady of Quality relapsed 
 into doubts over the wisdom of her course : surely 
 the offer of one of her own coaches had been ab 
 surdly impulsive and romantic. No sooner had 
 she snatched one brand from the burning than 
 she seemed to be thrusting another upon the same 
 fiery fate. Monna Clotilde could have given their 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 249 
 
 precise shade of value to the wild utterances of the 
 Mere Tourist, but she chose to seize and to mag 
 nify anything that might thicken the atmosphere 
 of apprehension in which her hapless companions 
 were moving. She caused the corruptions and 
 evils of the world to dilate before Violante s 
 young eyes. Man was a cruel and selfish op 
 pressor ; woman a predestined victim ; society a 
 shifting tissue of falsities and self-seekings. To 
 hope was to invite disappointment ; to trust was 
 to invoke betrayal. And much more. 
 
 Under such vigorous schoolings Donna Violante 
 quickly veered away from melancholy. Her in 
 born pride regained its earlier fibre ; her nature 
 even took on an unaccustomed shade of hardihood. 
 The dignified severity of the outraged goddess 
 came uppermost once more, and in such a frame 
 of mind her two suitors in case they came 
 were to find her awaiting them. 
 
 IV 
 
 Both came and but a few moments apart. 
 And Malevento arrived first, to the falsification 
 of all the Freiherr s hopes and predictions. For 
 the steamer met the expectations of the one pre- 
 tendant, arriving, by some unaccountable miracle, 
 on time ; while the coach disappointed the expec 
 tations of the other, who indeed had abundant op 
 portunity to put his shoulder to the wheel, and full 
 justification, viewing the accidents of travel, for 
 
250 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 vociferating curses upon his horses, their driver, 
 the road, his fate, the whole undertaking, in 
 short. 
 
 Malevento murmured his court in the moments 
 that intervened between sunset and dusk ; and 
 Violante, who had received him at first with the 
 boundless hauteur born of her resentment of his 
 earlier indifference and of her mortification over 
 the rencontre at Belriguardo, slipped down pre 
 sently to a plane upon which she could listen to 
 his words with patience at least if not with en 
 couragement. Surely there were some things in 
 his favor. If indifferent once, he was assiduous 
 enough now ; he was held to be a worthy mate by 
 her own family and circle of friends ; he offered 
 her rescue from a grotesque and anomalous posi 
 tion ; above all, he had come unsummoned, while 
 another, even when called Well might Donna 
 Violante bite her lip over the officiousness of the 
 Lady of Quality, and droop her head and blush in 
 the fading light to think how fruitless this well- 
 meant service had been, after all. 
 
 Malevento pressed his advantage. Who, of all 
 the pack, had coursed faster, had lasted longer? 
 He and he alone was in at the He stopped 
 himself in the midst of his ill-omened metaphor ; 
 surely death the death of some hunted creature 
 was the last thing in the world to mention here. 
 
 But this ominous note, however muted, was 
 soon followed by another of more ominous im 
 port still a note that sounded like a clarion. 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 251 
 
 Monna Clotilcle, returning from concerns that had 
 caused her briefly to leave her post of duty, was 
 amazed to find Malevento in intimate converse 
 with her charge and treated with forbearance 
 and even consideration, at that. She instantly 
 gathered the flying threads of things into her own 
 competent hands. She stood forth, before the 
 astonished Violante, and launched a splendidly 
 formal and impressive curse upon the Maleventi, 
 root and branch. She damned them individually, 
 and she damned them collectively. Then, assum 
 ing that the representative of that stock before her 
 would justify in the future, if he had not already 
 done so in the past, the most thorough and careful 
 employment of her histrionic talent, she blended 
 in one supreme effort all that memory and inven 
 tion could bring to her aid and hurled it at his 
 apprehensive head. Violante, none too familiar 
 with the elder school of acting, was impressed; 
 clearly she must think twice before allying herself 
 with the scion of such a house as this. 
 
 Malevento would have laughed outright at so 
 naive a manifestation of belief in the efficacy of 
 tragedy, but for his vexation over such an intru 
 sion at such a time. Yiolante herself begged 
 Clotilde to retire, and the worthy woman, con 
 vinced that an effort of so much solid merit could 
 not fail of effect and of reward, reluctantly with 
 drew. Donna Violante, more shaken than ever, 
 and more racked by incertitudes, drooped over 
 the balustrade in the waning light and gave pas- 
 
252 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 sive precedence to the flow of her suitor s dis 
 course. She scarcely knew what to think, what 
 to say, what to feel, or, indeed, whether she felt 
 at all . 
 
 Bruno s heels clanged with gallant speed over 
 the rough flagging of Farmer Rocco s terrace. He 
 was late, just as he had been late at Naples ; but 
 he was not too late, he trusted. He advanced 
 quickly on the oblivious pair. He had not hesi 
 tated at Trapani, and he did not hesitate here. 
 He snatched Violante s hand away from Male- 
 vento. The need of her present moment was 
 decision ; Bruno provided it. If his manner was 
 that of a mountain chieftain taking to himself his 
 share of the spoils after a successful raid, this was 
 a minor matter. Violante s hand remained in his. 
 
 Malevento s tongue was instantly active with 
 taunts and insults. Bruno s youth, his race, his 
 lagging in love, his confiding inexperience such 
 things formed his rival s theme. Malevento scoffed 
 at his boyish bravado, at his barbaric ignoring of 
 the conventions that govern the man of breeding, 
 and at the puerile trust that could make him such 
 an easy dupe as he had shown himself at Belri- 
 guardo. 
 
 But he made no demonstration of physical force, 
 and when he saw von Kaltenau following slowly 
 along the terrace even his tongue lost its vigor. 
 Bruno alone he might have braved ; but here was 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 253 
 
 a witness in Bruno s behalf whose testimony to his 
 own sneaking meanness was not to be gainsaid. 
 He felt himself threatened, as a last resort, by 
 a full exposition of his underhanded courses at 
 Trapani : was not the game, in fact, as good as 
 lost? 
 
 However, he would try to hold his ground; in 
 any event he would yield it, if yield he must, with 
 out derogation of his dignity. " When you are 
 older," he said, eyeing Bruno with a cruelly con 
 temptuous smile that tore the poor boy s self- 
 esteem like griffins claws, " you will " 
 
 But the Freiherr interrupted. " My friend 
 here," he said, in a calm, steely tone, "is fully 
 capable of ordering the matter in hand. There 
 are cases where the years take from us more than 
 they give. This is one of them." 
 
 Violante looked up, and looked at von Kaltenau 
 himself. Here was light from darkness, a flash 
 from the cloud, a prop when everything seemed 
 wavering. Malevento caught this look and felt 
 his own cause doubly lost. 
 
 " Go," said Bruno. " Go with what grace you 
 may, or stay and be disclosed for what you are." 
 
 "Go, by all means," counselled the Freiherr, 
 " or sacrifice even the slight forbearance that we 
 might wish to grant you." 
 
 Malevento looked toward Violante herself. 
 
 " Go," she said. 
 
 This triple demand could not but be obeyed. 
 But it was little less than a triple insidt too, and 
 
254 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 must be avenged. One poisoned barb, discharged 
 in flight, might do the deed. 
 
 Malevento, ignoring Bruno for the moment, 
 glanced back and forth between Violante and von 
 .Kaltenau. Clearly the coming of the Freiherr 
 had steadied and comforted her far more than 
 Bruno s own; clearly, too, the tide of chivalrous 
 admiration returning to the Freiherr s face was 
 ordained to rise once more to a higher level than 
 that marked by mere friendship. To these indi 
 cations Malevento added a malicious conjecture of 
 his own. 
 
 " I go," he said, bowing low to Violante ; " I 
 go, and leave you to your rival suitors still." 
 
 And as he strode away in the dusk old wounds 
 opened, old difficulties revived, and the future of 
 Violante Astrofiammante remained even more be 
 clouded by harassing incertitudes than before. 
 
 VI 
 
 The Freiherr lay in the dark beneath his frescoed 
 ceiling Rocco had provided both Bruno and von 
 Kaltenau with frescoes and bed-coverings and 
 thought of many things. One stood forth promi 
 nently from all the rest : he had heard himself 
 formally characterized as a claimant for Donna 
 Violante s hand. The speaker had been unfriendly, 
 but who could say that he had been ironical ? And 
 who could say that Donna Violante had given a 
 warmer welcome to Bruno than to von Kaltenau 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 255 
 
 himself ? Her manner, as a fact, had been warm 
 toward neither ; but it was not difficult to see upon 
 which of the two her dependence had instinctively 
 been placed. Her singular situation aroused his 
 sympathy ; her bodily presence had begun to 
 quicken once more his dormant interest. Mere 
 sympathy now fully enlisted for the first time 
 seemed pushing him beyond a line over which he 
 had not yet, strictly speaking, advanced. But 
 there was this to remember : he had come as a pro 
 fessed friend of a professed suitor ; honor, fidelity 
 both of these extended toward him a steadying 
 hand and held him to the course of duty. 
 
 Bruno, too, lay beneath covers of Rocco s pro 
 viding and stared at Rocco s gloom-enshrouded 
 frescoes. Whatever friend or enemy might say, 
 he could no longer accuse the Freiherr of any 
 thing remotely resembling treachery or even cold 
 ness. But Malevento himself had come to feel 
 what he, too, had felt all along ; furthermore, what 
 was there in Violante s reception of him to bring 
 reassurance on the most vital of all points ? He 
 had come as a St. George, a Perseus and the 
 thanks had gone not to him but to his steed, to his 
 golden sandals. He had done a gallant deed in 
 thus overtaking and dismissing his rival, and he 
 had bravely sung the resounding glories that for 
 tune, at last, had completely established as his ; 
 and yet almost for the first time his youthful 
 momentum seemed checked and his bright confi 
 dence was replaced by careful self-examination. 
 
256 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 And Violante ? Who shall say whether she too 
 passed the night s long hours in perplexed starings 
 at her own mythological ceiling, or who shall as 
 sure us that she gave friend Barbara s rustic bed- 
 coverings the slightest heed ? She may have spent 
 the time in futile fusings of two irreconcilable 
 ideals, the dash, the ardor, the generous en 
 thusiasms of youth with the steady poise and calm 
 considerateness of the middle years. But her 
 candle burned long into the night, and morning 
 showed her heavy-eyed from loss of sleep. 
 
 Von Kaltenau was early astir. The first person 
 he encountered was the ancient man of Metapon- 
 tum. " There is the city, the City of Happi 
 ness," said the Freiherr, pointing through the 
 dewy morning air ; " why do you linger here ? 
 The birds are singing, the flowers are opening, 
 the sun is shining, the very breeze is instinct with 
 hopes for happiness. Why, then, do you linger 
 here?" 
 
 " Not hopes," returned the other, timorously, 
 " but hope the one, the sole, the last. Is it a 
 light thing to risk all and perhaps lose all ? Must 
 the sole throw of the dice left to a desperate man 
 be made upon the instant? Shall the single match 
 remaining in the box on a numbing winter night 
 be struck in heedless haste? This is the Last 
 Refuge ; if we are disappointed here, there is 
 nothing but blank ruin beyond. I I shall go 
 down, perhaps, to-morrow." 
 
 " He is little better than mad," muttered the 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 257 
 
 Freiherr. " We must not leave her in such com 
 pany another day." 
 
 A door opened, and a new strange figure emerged 
 upon the dew -dampened terrace. The Freiherr 
 gave one look. " He belongs here ; he belongs 
 here ! " such were his only words. 
 
 It was a dark yet spectral man of middle age. 
 Tragedy was written upon his every lineament, 
 but he came forward with the even step and firm 
 bearing of one who treads on certitudes : they 
 might be terrible, but they were solid. 
 
 " Who are you ? " cried the Freiherr, with an 
 involuntary cry. "I I saw you in the shadows 
 last night, I think. Why are you here ? What 
 do you seek ? What have you fled ? " 
 
 " I flee from nothing," replied the other, com 
 posedly, " for what follows after me is not to be 
 escaped. My hour is approaching and I am pre 
 paring to face it. Heredity has ordered my days 
 and will set its own term to them in its own time. 
 I but study to meet my end as it should be met 
 as my father met his." 
 
 " Your father ? And how did " 
 
 " I am my father s very self. I have his eyes, 
 his hands ; I have his very shadow. I have his 
 thoughts ; his ways ; above all, his tastes " 
 
 " His tastes ? " 
 
 " He was a traveller. Travel filled his life and 
 devoured his substance. He cared for nothing else ; 
 I care for nothing else. Yes, I have his tastes to 
 the full, and his years to the full almost." 
 
258 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 And he died a"- 
 
 "He died travel-mad. As I shall. He died 
 there," pointing to the city. "I too shall die 
 there, within the month and die prepared, if a 
 lifetime spent in journey ings can serve. And my 
 last scudo will bury me." He walked on. 
 
 The Freiherr shuddered. "The man is mad 
 already," he groaned. "No, she shall not stay 
 here another hour she must be taken away at 
 once." 
 
 Presently Dottore Balanzoni came forth, a young 
 man by his side. " Another pupil in this accursed 
 school of doubt," muttered von Kaltenau. 
 
 The youth, despite his recent schooling, still bore 
 himself with something of a frank and gallant air ; 
 hope though a hope beclouded still shone from 
 his eyes. " He is too promising for this, by far." 
 
 He caught the young man by the arm. " Who 
 are you, what are you ? " he asked impulsively. 
 "And what dread mischance has brought you 
 here?" 
 
 " I am an architect," the other replied, " and 
 the city before us has always been my dream. I 
 was journeying hopefully toward it, when, to my 
 own misfortune, I paused a moment at this place. 
 My mind was full of portals and colonnades and 
 cloisters. I saw the pointed vaultings of cathe 
 dral naves, and the battlemented friezes of Arabic 
 pavilions. I was Byzantine, I was Saracenic, I was 
 Gothic. Domes, apses, radiant mosaics, all were 
 mine even the foolish corruptions and degrada- 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 259 
 
 tions of a later day would have had their use and 
 their interest. There was no room in me for doubts 
 and fears ; but now they have crowded out all 
 else. What must I do ? Tell me, I pray you ! " 
 
 4 Go ; go at once," cried the Freiherr, earnestly, 
 with a reproachful glance at Balanzoni ; " and 
 leave me here to take your place. See your 
 churches, your colonnades, your pavilions; enjoy 
 your youth while you have it. I will be your sub 
 stitute, and will think, at least, of things I may 
 not see." 
 
 He turned away with a choking voice. Yes, 
 after all, the glories of earth are for the young. 
 Youth, too, must mate with youth ; and as for 
 older hearts and heads . . . 
 
 Balanzoni left his student and followed after the 
 Freiherr. He slipped his arm within the other s, 
 and the two walked down the oak avenue together, 
 slowly. 
 
 VII- 
 
 " You came quickly," said Balanzoni. " I 
 thought I knew why, but " 
 
 " I came with him." 
 
 " With Montegrifone ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But for your own ends ? " 
 
 "No; for his." 
 
 Balanzoni drew the Freiherr s arm yet more 
 closely within his own, and they walked on down 
 the avenue two elderly men together. 
 
260 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 The morning was still young when Bruno and 
 Violante strolled down the same avenue and made 
 their peace another, if not the last. The great 
 facts were now ascertained in their essential mass 
 and outline, and only a few films of doubt and un 
 certainty remained to impede the clearest vision 
 and the fullest content. 
 
 Violante still felt Bruno to be, as compared 
 with von Kaltenau and with many of her new 
 associates, but a tempestuous boy, though order 
 and restraint, she knew, would come with the 
 years. Nor was she able to close her eyes to his 
 comparative inexperience. He had done less to 
 settle himself in his new saddle than his friends 
 had done for him one friend in particular. 
 Whenever she saw the lofty, statued sky-line of 
 Palazzo Montegrif one in the distant city Ma- 
 dama Sophonisba had first pointed it out to her, 
 and the noonday sun brought it into clearest view 
 for an hour or more, daily she could not but 
 feel that the Freiherr had been more effective in 
 securing the prompt possession of that storied pile 
 than the new heir himself. But the years would 
 bring experience too : surely his hand would at 
 least know how to hold what it had closed upon. 
 
 One thing more : was he heart-whole ? That 
 teasing dalliance at Belriguardo whether with 
 lady or with lady s-maid had never completely 
 left her memory. She scorned to insist upon pre 
 cedence ; never would she battle for supremacy. 
 All must be hers, and must be yielded freely as a 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 2G1 
 
 spontaneous and undisputed tribute, without di 
 minution, qualification, reservation. Not one piece 
 of gold on its way to the royal treasury must stick 
 to others fingers. The very seigniorage must be 
 hers. 
 
 " I will not speak of the Marchesina," she de 
 termined within herself. And generosity held her 
 back no less than pride. 
 
 " And now, what of Theodor ? " asked Bruno, 
 with his swiftest directness. 
 
 Violante flushed at memory of Malevento s part 
 ing words, and once again at Bruno s own peremp 
 tory and masterful tone. Further, she was made 
 to answer questions when she should be asking 
 them! 
 
 " 1 like Herr von Kaltenau. I respect him. I 
 admire him." 
 
 " What more ? " 
 
 " That is enough." 
 
 " Enough for his merits, or for my guidance ? " 
 
 " Enough for both." 
 
 " Pardon me. That is not enough for both." 
 
 " Enough for your guidance, then. Nothing 
 could be enough for his merits." 
 
 " You love him ? " 
 
 " Would you force me to?" 
 
 " Little force would be needed where merit is 
 so great." 
 
 " What connection is there between love and 
 deserving?" 
 
 " You love me, then, for my faults ? " 
 
262 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " You feel them ? Truly they are numerous 
 enough to make consciousness of them an easy 
 matter, even to yourself." 
 
 " What are they ? But never mind. I know 
 them. Listen; I will tell you. The first and 
 greatest is persistence I have followed you too 
 long, too far, too steadily " 
 
 " Persistence," murmured Violante. She thought 
 of the long nights through which he had haunted 
 the vicinity of that forbidding palace in Home, of 
 the crowded days during which he had searched 
 for some trace of her at Naples, of the gallant 
 pursuit that had led him stage by stage from the 
 Pincian hill to the very roof under which she had 
 been born. " Ah ! " she sighed. 
 
 Bruno heard this sigh and was encouraged. 
 " Another of my faults," he went on, " is trustful 
 ness. I have trusted in the kindliness of man, in 
 the fair appearance of things, in the honor of 
 friends, in the faithfulness of " 
 
 He paused and looked markedly at Violante, as 
 if expectant of another sigh. 
 
 The sigh did not come. " In whose honor have 
 you trusted ? in Theodor von Kaltenau s ? In 
 whose faithfulness have you confided ? in mine ? 
 Not at all I You have suspected him ; you have 
 doubted me. You have challenged us both you 
 did it not a moment ago." 
 
 Bruno hastily muted the string of trustfulness 
 and touched another. 
 
 "But my third and greatest fault is fidelity. 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 263 
 
 From the moment I first saw you my every thought 
 has been yours ; my every hope has centred upon 
 you" 
 
 " Are you deceiving me, or only deceiving your 
 self?" 
 
 " Neither," he rejoined. " has centred upon 
 you," he repeated, proceeding ; " my every desire 
 has been to please you, to be worthy of you, to 
 be Come, why do you turn away ? Look at 
 me, I beg ! " 
 
 " No," said Violante, within herself, " I will not 
 speak of the Marchesina, even yet." 
 
 " Look at me. I love you and you only. I 
 have never loved another in my life." 
 
 Violante did look at him, long and seriously. 
 "You swear it?" 
 
 " I swear it ! " 
 
 Violante still held him with her eye. Conces 
 sion was dawning upon her face. 
 
 " You believe me ? " he whispered. 
 
 Violante believed. Her arms fell to her side in 
 unconscious self-surrender. The treaty of peace 
 was now drafted and engrossed, if not actually 
 signed and sealed. 
 
 vm 
 
 The noonday meal had come to a subdued close 
 and many of young Kocco s guests were upon the 
 point of cancelling conscious depression by the for- 
 getfulness of sleep when the approaching sounds 
 
264 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 of gay tumult on the highway brought the whole 
 company to their feet and banished all thought of 
 siesta from their minds. Shouts, laughter, and 
 snatches of song mingled with the jolting of carts 
 and the clatter of many hoofs. Presently there 
 came into view a band of ragged, dishevelled 
 gipsies, accompanied by two or three cartloads of 
 plunder. Their leader, dismounting, advanced 
 with a graceful, easy swagger, jerked the thongs 
 of his sheepskin sandals into place, threw back his 
 mop of black hair, jingled his big gold earrings, 
 made a low reverence, and begged permission, in 
 the sweet, infantile jargon of Sicily, to offer enter 
 tainment to the gentry assembled before him. 
 
 Permission was readily granted. The shabby 
 carts, each thronged with its hilarious crew, 
 squeezed cautiously through Rocco s gate and 
 came along the avenue to the sound of tambour 
 ines beaten by the deft hands of black -eyed 
 wenches ; and four or five lively young tatterde 
 malions jumped down quickly to unload the para 
 phernalia of the profession : poles, planks, can 
 vases, draperies, guitars, three-legged stools, and 
 a number of big battered chests that might yield 
 almost anything. Lusty arms began to set up a 
 booth at one end of the terrace before a pair of 
 fig-trees, and the moments taken for these pre 
 liminaries were shortened by the enlivening songs, 
 dances, and antics of those who remained disen 
 gaged. 
 
 First a tarantella. A throb or two from a 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 265 
 
 guitar, a concordant tinkle from a pair of mando 
 lins, and a lithe young couple rushed at once into 
 the most inspiriting of dances. The youth spun 
 and gyrated valiantly, yet found time to run his 
 humorous eye over the motley assembly grouped 
 round him ; the girl fluttered her gay petticoat 
 and flapped her folded headdress and smiled too 
 but at her partner, as if in the joke as well, 
 though not so directly. Another couple reinforced 
 them ; the mandolins and the guitar sung with re 
 doubled vigor. The four pairs of sheepskin sandals 
 scraped and shuffled with spirit over the rude flag 
 ging of the terrace, and the stout fellows engaged 
 in setting up the booth paused now and then to 
 look on for a moment in respectful admiration. 
 
 Then a song. A wild, plaintive thing, shape 
 less, too, save for the persistent pulsings of its 
 peculiar rhythm and for the recurring chorus that, 
 at short intervals, came repeated from every quar 
 ter: from the ridge-pole of the booth, from the 
 busy workers over effects and properties behind 
 an improvised screen, even from the half breathless 
 dancers themselves ; a ritornello laden with the 
 pain and passion, the longing and unrest of all the 
 ages, and tissued from the formless wailings of 
 the most ancient East ; a refrain that called for 
 the gentle and regular swaying of the body, for 
 the soft clapping of the hands, for the eye s aban 
 donment to all externals and for its fixture upon 
 the eternal, immutable verities within. 
 
 All were impressed. " Why," said the Mere 
 
266 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 Tourist, to the painter at his elbow, " I have been 
 everywhere and have paid to see everything, but 
 I have never found anything so perfect as this. 
 They look as they ought, they dress as they ought, 
 they act as they ought ! It is too good to be true ! " 
 As indeed it was. 
 
 Meanwhile, Rocco and Barbara, at a sign from 
 the gipsy leader, were ranging their chairs in or 
 derly rows before the stage. The sounds of pound 
 ing, of dragging, of pushing multiplied behind the 
 curtain and the little band of refugees began to 
 seat themselves in expectation. The pact between 
 Bruno and Violante still held inviolate. They sat 
 together in the front row and von Kaltenau took 
 a chair just behind them. The Lady of Quality, 
 with her niece, majestically claimed a conspicuous 
 place, and Monna Clotilde, with an air of lofty 
 patronage, seated herself well to one side. The 
 historian prepared to make a gracious descent to 
 folk-lore ; the young architect grouped himself 
 with the poet, the painter, and the novelist ; the 
 silver-haired botanist and the ancient from Meta- 
 pontum looked on wistfully from afar. The mad 
 man watched all from his own window, above. 
 
 Scarcely was the company brought to order, 
 when the sound of wheels was heard once more 
 on the highway and another traveller stopped at 
 Rocco s gate. It was Mam zelle Hedwig, in a 
 numbered cab. She had followed on from Tra- 
 pani and had put up at a hotel in the city itself. 
 Then she had made a hard-and-fast bargain with 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 267 
 
 a cab-driver and had given herself the luxury of 
 a course beyond the walls. It was decidedly an 
 expense not to be repeated too often, but as Mam - 
 zelle looked round her and saw so many familiar 
 faces and found herself in the very thick of an 
 entertainment that might rival the doings at Bel- 
 riguardo itself, she felt sure that so few francs had 
 never brought the promise of so many pleasures. 
 " I might have given that man a sou or two more," 
 she said regretfully. 
 
 Mam zelle, after a general welcome of much 
 warmth, took her place beside the Freiherr. She 
 thanked him effusively for the word so thought 
 fully left behind, and declared the doubts she had 
 felt about finding Montegrifone and himself still 
 lingering in so curiously remote a spot, and asked 
 how much longer they expected to remain, and 
 wondered audibly who some of the strange people 
 round her might be, and why anybody should care 
 to put up for long with such forlorn and out-of-the- 
 way lodgings. 
 
 " And the city so near, too ! " exclaimed Mam 
 zelle. " What are they all waiting here for ? " 
 
 " They are going down to-morrow," replied 
 the Freiherr. 
 
 " Not one of them will regret it," declared Mam 
 zelle, enthusiastically. " I had but an hour or two 
 and went about only in the most general way ; but 
 never, never have I found a city so beautiful, so 
 interesting, so fascinating ! Nothing more pictur 
 esque than the port ; nothing more delightful than 
 
268 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 the cathedral-square ; nothing more delicious than 
 those gardens so many of them, too ! No state 
 lier streets in any capital ; while, as for that mag 
 nificent terrace above the Marina oh, I could 
 stroll there by the hour ! And you, too, are going 
 down to-morrow ? " 
 
 " To-morrow or next day," he replied, as the 
 signal to begin the performance was heard. 
 
 " Good ! " returned Mam zelle, with loyal hearti 
 ness. " And I will go down with you." 
 
 IX 
 
 The formal programme nothing less seemed 
 imminent opened with another dance, one of a 
 slower and graver character, and a few songs and 
 recitations : folk-songs in subdued minor strains, 
 Neapolitan ditties trolled by a ragged and jovial 
 young chorus of mixed voices, recitals from Ariosto 
 and Tasso the gay Orlandos and Clorindas and 
 Bradamants of Sicily s painted carts made vocal 
 for the ear. Then the curtain was drawn to, and 
 presently the master-spirit of the revel came for 
 ward and announced, in good Italian, this time, the 
 presentation of a masque The Gates of Glass. 
 
 The curtain once more drawn, there was dis 
 closed a small square before the gateway leading 
 into a city. On one side, a tavern ; on the other, 
 a shop or two. Above the walls a few domes and 
 towers, roughly painted on a strip of blue canvas, 
 typified the city within ; and in the middle a pair 
 of gates, opening freely at the touch of any hand, 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 269 
 
 gave access to it. These gates were composed 
 wholly of glass panel-like bits of mirror, f rag- 
 mental prisms, boss-like jewels in white and yel 
 low, all set at varying angles and reflecting every 
 thing brought before them a thousand times over. 
 They swayed lightly now and then, though none 
 touched them, and sent their teasing sparkle even 
 into the eyes of spectators the farthest removed. 
 
 The first to approach them was a grave, black- 
 gowned man a student and philosopher, doubt 
 less. He seemed bowed by a world of cares 
 others cares and his cares for these cares and 
 his sad face was deeply lined by doubts. Seeing 
 these doubts so multiplied by the myriad glitter 
 ing facets confronting him, he hesitated to enter 
 and fell back. He turned toward the tavern, sat 
 down at a table in front of it, and ordered a re 
 past. While he was waiting, a gaping yokel 
 strayed in, looked at the glassy gates with a broad 
 grin, saw his grin repeated before him as by a 
 world all grins, pushed open the gates without 
 delay and disappeared inside. The philosopher s 
 meal was but a Barmecide feast ; the dishes, when 
 uncovered, yielded nothing but smoke, and his 
 liquor went up in a few airy bubbles. The coun 
 try clown emerged from the city with a bottle of 
 wine under one arm, a strapping wench on the 
 other, and a string of sausages round his neck. 
 He grinned more broadly than ever, his every 
 wish gratified, his every expectation met. The 
 philosopher sadly withdrew. The idlers of the 
 
270 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 piazza mocked at him in chorus as they strummed 
 their guitars and beat the merry measure with 
 their feet ; and a young minx, who held her place 
 behind a vegetable stall, threw at Dottore Balan- 
 zoni, in the front row, a bunch of withered flowers. 
 
 The next adventurer was younger and more 
 erect. He had but to be happy, it seemed, yet he 
 passed from place to place and from person to per 
 son, picking up this trouble here and that trouble 
 there, and piling his back with the burden of dif 
 ficulties that were his but by his own perverse 
 choice. Then he paused before the gates and 
 drew his face to a painstaking frown in a search 
 for wrinkles that had not yet come. But the gates 
 of glass put wrinkles there in full abundance and 
 the traveller drew back abashed. The populace 
 chanted another ironical strophe, and the inn 
 keeper, tossing back his black mane and jingling 
 his great gold earrings, threw to Theodor von Kal- 
 tenau a scroll tied in a blue ribbon trimmed with 
 silver anchors. The Freiherr read : 
 
 " To-morrow comes not till to-morrow. Fi- 
 lippo." 
 
 The Freiherr hastily crumpled up his scroll, and 
 looked again at the unkempt, barbaric figure on 
 the stage. " Yes, it is Filippo ! " he murmured. 
 
 It was the Marchese indeed. And the next per 
 sonage in the masque of this ingenious impresario 
 was an elderly woman, magnificent of dress and 
 majestic of port : " The Pride of Life ! " announced 
 a loud voice from one side of the stage. " Who 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 271 
 
 takes the part ? " wondered the Freiherr. " Can 
 it be Donna Ortenzia, his aunt ? " 
 
 The majestic creature looked grandly at the 
 gates and saw herself grandly reflected. She thrust 
 them open with an ample gesture and entered the 
 city. She returned through them a moment later, 
 and stood looking at them as before. For her they 
 led from nothing to nothing ; they were all-sufficing 
 in their own hard glitter and in the glamour they 
 threw upon her magnificence. One poor little pipe, 
 played by a tangle-haired lad before the tavern, 
 wheezed pitifully for lack of air, and a bold young 
 peasant, rushing forth from the frame of the pic 
 ture, set a flimsy tinselled crown upon the head of 
 the Lady of Quality. 
 
 No one in the audience had attached much sig 
 nificance to the handful of withered asphodels, and 
 no one but the Freiherr knew the contents of the 
 scroll ; but the extraordinary attention bestowed 
 upon Madama Sophonisba caused a flutter of ex 
 citement. " Who are these daring people ? " every 
 body asked. And, " Whose turn will come next ? " 
 was a burning question with more than one. 
 
 Enter, now, a springy, sprightly, eager young 
 woman who swept over the stage wondering, ex 
 claiming, praising, drenching everybody in a flood 
 of unbounded and undiscriminating good-will. She 
 looked at the gates in admiring surprise, and the 
 gates looked back at her to the same effect : " The 
 Eyes of Innocence ! " came the announcement from 
 behind. This optimistic voyager gave a gallant 
 
272 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 toss of the head and passed in without delay. The 
 chorus clamored joyfully, and two merry young 
 girls rushed forward from the sides to shower 
 Mam zelle Hedwig with violets, anemones, and 
 field-daisies. " Eespectful homage ! " called a 
 voice from the stage the voice of Capoameno, 
 with no attempt at disguise. 
 
 " Good old Filippo ! " murmured the Freiherr ; 
 " he understands her, after all." 
 
 Mam zelle blushed vividly at this tribute, and 
 others round her felt their own apprehensions 
 allayed. But Donna Violante rose to withdraw 
 upon the appearance of the next figures in the 
 masque, and only the pressure of Bruno s hand 
 sufficed to detain her within the range of these 
 impertinent personalities. However, her apprehen 
 sions were groundless, for the two young lovers who 
 now entered showed in their faces only what each 
 found in the face of the other, and nothing ensued 
 save a simple reflection from the gates of their own 
 alternating hopes and doubts. The singers accom 
 panied these fluctuations upon their sympathetic 
 instruments, with voices now grave, now gay, 
 now timorous, now triumphant. Finally, the entire 
 company, entering upon a joyful fortissimo, in 
 vited the young pair to enter the Happy City. 
 Each pushed open one gate, and they disappeared 
 together. 
 
 The gates opened once more and out there came 
 a strange, exotic figure arrayed in farfetched splen 
 dors and escorted by a train of attendant maidens 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 273 
 
 and slaves. " Our Lady of Art ! " was trumpeted 
 from within the city. 
 
 The Lady of Art was none too tall, but she 
 strove for stateliness with a grand good-will, as 
 sisted by a towering and fantastic headdress and 
 by the long trailing of her heavily-embroidered 
 robe. She cast a demurely quizzical glance upon 
 her devotees in the audience painting, architec 
 ture, literature, the drama were all represented 
 as if meditating mischief ; then she caught sight of 
 Rocco and Barbara standing well to one side near 
 the door of their own humble quarters, and seemed 
 suddenly to change her mind. She signalled her 
 attendant Nubians to set down one of the great 
 chests and to take up another ; then the procession, 
 reforming, came down from the stage, musicians 
 and all, and advanced in intimidating fashion upon 
 Rocco and his wife. This devoted pair, vastly per 
 turbed, shrank back, but the Lady of Art would 
 accept no denial of hospitality. She had marked 
 these simple souls for her own, and meant to work 
 her fantastic will upon them. Farewell to simpli 
 city, farewell to homeliness ; the exotic, the facti 
 tious, the over-elaborated must reign instead. 
 
 The spectators, leaving their rude wooden chairs 
 in a disordered huddle on the terrace, flocked after ; 
 none could divine the end of so portentous a visita 
 tion. Monna Clotilde, still hoping that a laurel 
 crown would be her modest portion, followed the 
 rest ; the dumb poet, still dreading the presenta 
 tion of a stringless lyre, came with her. 
 
274 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 The Lady of Art paused before Rocco and Bar 
 bara long enough to conceal the homely garments 
 of daily toil by casting rich brocades over their 
 unwilling shoulders. Then she moved on to the 
 modest bedchamber where little Nino lay sleeping 
 in his cradle, and Barbara, struggling in her robe 
 of gold and purple, followed in swift alarm. The 
 light that illumined the room where Nino slept 
 was the blessed light of day ; but the Lady of Art 
 cloaked the windows with tapestries from her cof 
 fers and set aburning dim flames in colored lamps. 
 The air that filled the room was the thrice-blessed 
 air of heaven, perfumed with the breath of violets 
 and bay ; but the Lady of Art soon had it thick 
 ened with pungent exhalations from jewelled cen 
 sers. A cruse of pure water stood hard by ; the 
 imperious visitant tinctured it with some sweet 
 essence or other, and sent one of her maids to per 
 form a like office at the well itself. A wolfskin 
 was nailed upon the wall, just above the weapon 
 that had won it. Our Lady ordered it torn down. 
 
 " No ! " cried Eocco, casting aside his brocades, 
 and asserting the pride of manhood in its own 
 prowess. 
 
 " Yes ! " cried Our Lady. And for Rocco s 
 honest trophy she substituted a stand of arms 
 corselets, lances and the like, stripped from the 
 train behind her. 
 
 She advanced to the cradle to wrap the sleeping 
 child in voluminous cloth of gold, stiff and bris 
 tling with embroidery. 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 275 
 
 " No, no ! " cried Barbara, fearful of scratches 
 on tiny nose and hands. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " returned the Lady of Art ; for 
 even the very infant in his cradle must suffer from 
 the over-refinements of a civilization pushed too 
 far. 
 
 Our Lady regained the threshold and sank 
 laughing upon a bench close against the outside 
 wall. Her stateliness fell from her like a gar 
 ment, her face was illumined by a rare and mis 
 chievous smile, and her laughing eyes challenged 
 recognition from the company crowding round. 
 
 Bruno was the earliest to recognize her. " It is 
 Lucetta ! " he murmured. " It is the Marchesina I " 
 he proclaimed to the whole assembly. 
 
 " He was the first to know her ! " moaned Vio- 
 lante, from the window-sill of her own rude little 
 room. 
 
 " My poor, poor child ! " crooned Monna Clo- 
 tilde, at her side. " Look no longer. Come away; 
 come away ! " 
 
 Bruno and Lucetta were walking gayly up and 
 down the terrace beneath Yiolante s window. Lu 
 cetta still trailed the strange habiliments of the 
 Lady of Art, and she had caused Bruno to put on 
 the rich robe that Rocco had disdained. The false 
 gipsies were refreshing themselves after their ex 
 ertions ; the real gipsies, whose caravan they had 
 
276 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 surprised and appropriated, were busy dismantling 
 their booth and packing their carts. Filippo still 
 clung to his great gold earrings, and knocked his 
 heavy glass upon the table with the heartiest aban 
 don. 
 
 " Surely," said the Freiherr, " you are the most 
 ingenious fellow in the world ! But your ingenuity 
 has involved you once : I can only trust that it 
 may not do so again." 
 
 " Ho ! " cried Filippo, banging his glass again, 
 as if loth to leave his part ; " no one shall be glum, 
 no one shall be morose, if I can help it ! To hear 
 of your plight was to rescue you from it." 
 
 " You may have put us in another," said von 
 Kaltenau, gravely. " If " 
 
 " Theodor, my dear Theodor," cried Capoameno, 
 drowning the Freiherr s voice with a succession of 
 resounding thumps, " not a word more ! " And 
 young Cervel-Balzano, a good second, added his 
 own noise to the rest from a table close by. 
 
 Meanwhile, Bruno and Lucetta paraded up and 
 down the terrace together. She knew, now, his 
 quality, and the solid ground upon which it was 
 based. All embarrassment between them was 
 over. He was now host, or fancied himself such, 
 and she a new-come guest ; never could he expect 
 a better occasion to make full and chivalrous 
 amends for his shabby treatment of her at Belri- 
 guardo. He rose to the moment with the great 
 est gallantry, and Donna Violante, at her window- 
 above, burned with indignation and wounded pride. 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 277 
 
 " I get my dues, finally I " laughed Lucetta, who 
 had an open fondness for attentions. 
 
 " In spite of yourself ! " declared Bruno. " No 
 one ever knows how to take you or where to have 
 you. You mystify us, and then chide us for the 
 slowness of our wits ! You lure us into the morass, 
 like a will-o -the-wisp, and then twinkle derision at 
 us for our folly ! " 
 
 The Marchesina, in propria persona, had been 
 very gracious and winning with every one, save 
 Donna Violante, for whom she had a peculiar look 
 and air that cut the poor girl to the quick. " Still 
 roaming ? " Lucetta s eyes seemed to ask. " No 
 nearer an understanding ? " was the query con 
 stantly in her manner. Violante felt keenly the 
 cruel difference in their respective situations. The 
 Marchesina, suitably attended, could safely indulge 
 herself to the full in all kinds of whims and vaga 
 ries ; she herself, in a position lamentably anoma 
 lous, was scarcely on a footing secure enough to 
 ask her own just dues. Surely, too, Lucetta, be 
 low on Bruno s arm, glanced up now and then at 
 her window as if adding taunt to question . . . 
 
 " Look no longer," counselled Monna Clotilde. 
 " Come away ; come away." 
 
 But Violante looked a moment more. Bruno, 
 about to relinquish the Marchesina to others, was 
 stooping with great gallantry to kiss her hand. 
 
 " Poor child, poor child ! " moaned Monna Clo 
 tilde, and set a commiserative kiss on Violante s 
 own despairing face. 
 
278 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 Violante descended to the garden and sought 
 out Theodor von Kaltenau. " Take me home," 
 she said, like a beseeching child. " Take me down 
 to my mother." 
 
 The Freiherr was greatly moved. The last 
 words of Malevento flew straight to his mind. 
 Was this an expression of final preference ? Was 
 it a claim upon an assured devotion ? Had his 
 own uncertainty, his own blindness driven the girl 
 to such a confession as this ? But the point was 
 soon made clear. Donna Violante, in the shelter 
 of an opportune syringa, dropped her head upon his 
 shoulder and sobbed out her heart upon his breast. 
 He was but a friend, then only an adviser and 
 helper, after all. Never had he felt older. 
 
 He sought out Bruno. 
 
 " Donna Violante is ready to return to her 
 home. Go with her, and go at once ! " He still 
 felt the girl s head upon his shoulder. " Take her 
 and go," cried the Freiherr, in a voice vibrant 
 with passion ; " go, I beg you, in Heaven s name, 
 without an hour s delay ! " 
 
 Bruno grasped von Kaltenau s hand. " One 
 kindness the more ! You have done this too for 
 me, and I find no words to thank you ! " 
 
 " Find a coach, a cart, a cab ! " 
 
 " A cab ! Where is Mam zelle Hedwig s ? " 
 
 " Dismissed. A few francs saved. But there 
 are coaches in the stable. I will ask for one." 
 
 Von Kaltenau sought the Lady of Quality. 
 
 Madama Sophonisba sympathized, but was re- 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 279 
 
 luctant to assist. " Ah, that foolish, impulsive 
 offer of mine ! I thought you had indulgently 
 consented to overlook it, and now it returns to 
 plague me ! What follies one may commit to 
 paper ! Release me ; I will not be the means 
 of sending this dear girl down into that dreadful 
 city. Scarcely do I dispatch my letter to Monte- 
 grif one, when my own niece, fleeing from this same 
 town" Madama Sophonisba pressed her hands 
 to her eyes and shuddered. 
 
 " Ha ! " thought the Freiherr ; " you, then, were 
 the writer of that letter, and this is what you 
 wrote ! " Then, aloud, and very gravely : " We 
 hold you to your promise, madam." 
 
 " Release me ! " cried the Lady of Quality. 
 
 " We hold you to your promise ! " 
 
 " But do you realize what you ask ? Think ! 
 An innocent young girl, almost my own daughter, 
 abused, tormented, despoiled " 
 
 " The cases are different. Donna Violante re 
 turns to her own birthplace and, I suppose, to her 
 own home." 
 
 The Lady of Quality pondered. " You may be 
 right"- 
 
 " I know I am right. Not an hour longer must 
 she remain among us and all our doubts and fears. 
 Not an hour longer shall she suffer the ruinous 
 companionship of that misanthropic Clotilde. I 
 should have had a cab for her, but that the " 
 
 " A cab ? A cab for such an adventure as this ? 
 No, no ; she shall have one of my coaches. She 
 
280 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 shall have the best and biggest of them ! She shall 
 go down in my own ! " 
 
 XI 
 
 Violante paused before the open door of the 
 coach and turned to take the helping hand of 
 Theodor von Kaltenau. 
 
 All the occupants of the villa were gathered 
 round her a wide participation undreamt of in 
 the Freiherr s original plan. Monna Clotilde wore 
 her darkest frown ; Madama Sophonisba was smil 
 ing through her tears. The painter and the novel 
 ist, ravenous for " life," lent their intent senses to 
 every move. Lucetta and Donna Ortenzia showed 
 the highest interest, if no great depth of sympathy. 
 Rocco and Barbara let the action drift by them, 
 open-mouthed in wonder. The gipsies, loading 
 their last cart, paused, a ragged wide-eyed group, 
 in the background. 
 
 The Freiherr cowered beside Dottore Balanzoni. 
 After all, it was the final sacrifice ; and who, more 
 over, could assure him in view of an auditory 
 so unexpectedly numerous of the success of his 
 bold device? Donna Violante searched him out 
 with inquiring eyes and once more extended her 
 hand. 
 
 Bruno stepped forward and took it or at 
 tempted to. Violante drew back haughtily. 
 
 " How dare you touch me ? " she demanded. 
 " How dare you face me ? " 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 281 
 
 Bruno fixed her firmly with his eye, and again 
 put out his hand. " It is with me that you are to 
 go," he said. 
 
 Violante cast a look upon the Freiherr a look 
 of doubt, wonder, indignation. 
 
 The Freiherr bowed, without a word. 
 
 Protest. Rebellion. Nay, rather the noble 
 wrath of a sovereign lady duped by her chancel 
 lor. " Another ruse ! " cried Violante ; " another 
 plot ! One last deception, from you, too," 
 with a look of cutting accusal at the Freiherr, 
 44 you, whom I trusted to the very end, you, in 
 whom I confided when I doubted all else ! " She 
 felt the world crumbling about her. 
 
 44 Go," said the Freiherr ; " and go with him. 
 It is fit. It is right." 
 
 44 Fit and right," repeated Bruno. " Nothing 
 else is. You are to go with me, and you are to 
 stay with me." 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 " Always ! " 
 
 4 I will not listen to such words of high-handed 
 mastery," she said. " I will not be hectored, I 
 will not be coerced, I will not be dragooned. No 
 one shall take that tone with Violante Astrofiam- 
 mante ! " 
 
 44 No one but me ! " 
 
 44 Go," repeated the Freiherr. 4 Leave this place 
 of doubts. Learn once more to trust. The world, 
 we have been taught, is but a reflection of our 
 selves. Yield. Trust. Go." 
 
282 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 " Stay," croaked Monna Clotilde, " or live to 
 repent it ! " 
 
 "Go," cried Filippo; "and godspeed on your 
 way!" 
 
 " Stay ! " implored Sophonisba s niece. " Listen 
 to one who has herself overstepped the line of race, 
 of speech, of creed." 
 
 " Go ! " cried Mam zelle Hedwig. " What bars 
 of race, of speech, of creed must be surmounted 
 here ? " She looked with marked significance at 
 Theodor von Kaltenau. 
 
 " Stay," said the madman. " Wait till you can 
 place a wreath upon my tomb." 
 
 " Go ; go ! " called the dumb poet. " Be brave ; 
 be brave ! " 
 
 He reached out his own hand that hand pre 
 servative to help her into the coach. Still 
 Donna Violante refused. 
 
 The painter and the romancer were delighting 
 in the changing phases of the contest. The latter 
 now resolved that he too, finally, would participate 
 in life at least to the extent of handing a hero 
 ine into her carriage. No matter that others had 
 failed. 
 
 " Yes, go," he said, stepping forward. " Live 
 life in its fulness. Taste its joys, Its sorrows, its 
 endless vicissitudes." 
 
 Violante struck his hand away. " Fall back, 
 you foolish meddler ! " 
 
 Balanzoni advanced. " Go," he said. " Enter 
 the Last Refuge." 
 
THE CITY OF HAPPINESS 283 
 
 Still Violante held her ground. She cast her 
 eyes, tearful, troubled, yet indomitably proud, over 
 all the motley and clamorous company. 
 
 " I will not go ! " she said. " The whole world 
 has combined to dupe me, to flout me, to outrage 
 me. From such a fate I know of but one Last 
 Refuge, and that is death ! " 
 
 " No, no ! " cried Bruno, firmly seizing both her 
 hands. " No ; a thousand times no ! Your Last 
 Refuge is here ! it is I, and I alone ; refuge and 
 sanctuary alike ! " He threw wide his arms. " The 
 sanctuary stands open for you ; enter." 
 
 Rocco shouldered his mattock and trudged away. 
 " The Last Refuge is work," he said ; "the Last 
 Refuge is duty." 
 
 " Come," said Bruno, with a noble determination 
 firing his dark eyes. " It is a sanctuary where no 
 other image is worshipped, a sanctuary that no 
 alien ritual has ever profaned. The world, they 
 tell us, is what we make it, what we think it. Be 
 that as it may, we must take its good and its evil 
 together. I will give you what I can of the one 
 and keep you as far as I may from the other. I 
 am wholly yours. Come." 
 
 Donna Violante yielded at last, a convert to 
 the true faith, and willing to overlook the fact 
 that Bruno s tone had far less of entreaty than 
 of command. She entered the coach. Bruno 
 quickly followed. Theodor von Kaltenau closed 
 the door. 
 
 The ancient man of Metapontum breathed a 
 
284 THE LAST REFUGE 
 
 wistful sigh. " Ah ! two of us, at least, are des 
 tined to enter the City of Happiness ! " 
 
 " We are destined," returned Bruno, through 
 the open window, " for whatever place I choose." 
 The will of his wild ancestors was his to the full. 
 
 The coach drove away. It took, not the high 
 way, but the road that doubled on the slope below 
 the terrace a road that might lead to the City of 
 Happiness, or elsewhere. 
 
 The company leaned over the balustrade and fol 
 lowed its descent. Donna Violante s face showed 
 now from one side and then from the other. None 
 could say whether or no she were content. The 
 Freiherr, immovably pensive, followed every mo 
 ment of her course youth was taking its final 
 flight. Mam zelle Hedwig, standing close beside 
 him, fluttered her handkerchief at intervals. As 
 the coach made its last turn, far below, the face of 
 Donna Violante, looking upward, showed once 
 more, and they saw that she was smiling. 
 
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