Anthony Adverse, volume one

Chapter XX. APPLES AND ASHES

IT WAS a warm night. A faint streak of moonlight came through Anthony's window and fell across the foot of his bed, splashing itself against the wall. He lay with his eyes wide open in the darkness. An occasional shout from passers-by returning from the crowds that had followed the procession echoed in his vaulted chamber. These calls grew fewer and finally ceased at last to have individual significance. They blent themselves with the general, low, musical monotone of the city's life that murmured now as if mankind were at last getting what it desired under the full moon while the trees sighed about it doubtfully. On the wall at the foot of the bed, as the moon climbed higher, a faint outline of the shadow-play began. Anthony looked at it wearily and closed his eyes.

He had never felt so lonely. The realization of all that Angela meant to him grew upon him. He longed for her intensely. He wanted to have her now in his arms, to press her firm little breasts against his chest, to fondle and comfort her, to be boy and girl together. That was what "being in love" meant! But he had always kept putting that out of his mind about Angela,—because of Arnolfo, perhaps. But she was different. It would be right with her. He had seen her once when she went behind the fountain. There had seemed to be a light about her. He would like to see her that way again— now! He would make her come back by dreaming her into his room. He opened his eyes to find her. In the full gust of a now manly passion, strangely enough, his strong childhood faculty of evoking vivid visions returned.

For a minute he saw Angela lying beside him in the moonlight. There was a faint, tender smile on her parted lips. Her eyes looked at him wide, and solemnly, as they had sometimes done when she sat on the seat of the cart beside him. She loved him! Why had he not known that before? For an instant her whole form glimmered into a bright, ivory light, glistening. He trembled toward her, the light, quick fire of his youth's desire flowing so that it possessed him. He half sat up and stretched out his hands to touch her. A mist began to curl about her ankles. It seemed to rush up her limbs and vanished with her like smoke into the moonlight.

Suddenly on the other side of the room he saw the table clearly standing against the wall.

He felt as if he were falling and dropped back on the pillow. An agony of grief, disappointment, and insufferable sorrow filled him and overflowed from his eyes. And he had not even spoken to her the last time! "Good-bye, Anthony." It rang through his brain. He put his hands over his ears.

What a dolt of a boy he had been to let all that time go by without ... to let Toussaint persuade him by words out of a book what being in love meant! He tore at his clothes as he thought of that. He shifted uneasily. One thing though, the self, the thing that lived in his body was growing up. After tonight he was not a boy; the life inside him was not childish any more. How fierce and determined it was. How it would have its way. He could hardly imagine denying it now. How could you? It owned you. The voice seemed to have gone. He listened. It had nothing to say. Faintly, perhaps. So faintly you could not be sure. But what was it compared to this thing within him that demanded and clamoured and burned? Nothing! Something to be dismissed.

And he had thought he could tell Angela how to make love like Emile and Sophie! To tell her that! And so she had laughed at him. She had known. Had she ? How did she know ? Just as he did now. Now, after it was too late. She had known all along! He understood now why it was that he had been so happy with her when she had looked at him like that. That was being in love. They had been. They were! And he had thought it had something to do with words.

There was only one kind of words that could give him any satisfaction now—oaths. He had always shrunk from them a little when he heard them along the docks. They had secretly hurt him, the terrible, coarse ones particularly. Now he needed them. A string of them rolled out of his brain through his lips. He whispered them huskily in his throat. He cursed himself. It was a relief. He shifted his head onto his other arm. That cheek was not wet. It felt hot against his muscles. How cool and smooth his arm was.

Then he heard Faith coming down the hall. He forgot everything for a moment but her footsteps. Would she come in ? He hoped not. He did not want her to see that he had been in torment, weeping. She would understand. He knew she would. What was it she had whispered to Tony about the madonna? But how could she know those numbers would win, that Angela would have to go ? How could she ? But would she come in ? He hoped not.

Her footsteps passed down the corridor to Mr. Bonnyfeather's door. He heard her knock and give the merchant his hot, night drink. The door closed. Faith returned to the kitchen again. After all she might have come in. He might have liked to talk to her—in the dark. How hot it was! He was clammy. Even the bedclothes were drenched with perspiration. He began to throw off his clothes now. The thought of the tub of cool water in the room just across the hall occurred to him. Quick! He would run across and cool himself off before Faith returned. On noiseless, bare feet he sped through the door.

The reflection of the full moon from the courtyard turned the walls of Faith's apartment into a dull, silvery grey. The various familiar objects of her furniture seemed to be faintly luminous. What a night it was! He could see the disk of the water in the cask faintly gleaming around the edge. There seemed to be a film of quicksilver on it. He discarded his last garment to step in. At that instant a crisp rustling sound as if someone were drawing a silk drapery over stone, the very faintest of hisses, caused him to turn.

In a patch of moonlight near the door stood a naked woman. He was just in time to see the folds of her dress rustle down from her knees into coils about her feet. She stood poised there for a moment, with her head drawn back, before she stepped out of them. He saw she was beautiful. For some seconds he did not realize that it was Faith. Then he gasped.

In the moonlight she was another person. She continued to look at him. He could feel that and looked down. Then he looked at her again. He stood still, rooted. The faint aroma of her body floated to him. A sudden tide of passion dragged at his legs. He could not help it. He swayed slightly, away from her. Then he felt her arms wind around him in the dark. They were smooth and cool, smoother than his own. Her hand pressed his head onto her breast.

He was half blind, and speechless now. All his senses had merged into one feeling. She seemed to be carrying him somewhere. As he stepped through the moony darkness his legs had lost the sensation of weight. "I shall think it is Angela," he said to himself. But he soon forgot all about Angela. He could remember nothing but himself.

To lie face downward on smooth, soft water with warmth lapping you about, that had always been delightful. How easily your arms and legs moved in such an element. The whole surface of the body felt its soft, exquisite touch. To be supported and yet possessed by an ocean of unknown blue depths below you and to cease to think! Yes, it was something like swimming on a transcendent summer night.

Although his eyes were tightly closed, he was looking Into dim, moonlit depths where blue and green flashes of light and long silver shafts wavered down to the darker depths below him. On the subliminal floor of this ocean in which he was now submerged, the same shadow-play that had haunted the walls of his room seemed to be going on. Translucent monsters, giant growths dimly opaque, were alive and moving down there.

Now he began to rise and fall with the waves that washed over him and yet lifted and lowered him, carrying with them as they passed a tide of tingling feeling from his neck to his heels. After a while he was just drifting in a continuous, rippling current of ecstasy that penetrated him as if he were part of the current in which he lay. He was completely alone again, but happy, completely happy. "Are you?" something from beyond him seemed to ask. "Yes," he answered, "be quiet . . . not thinking now ... let me alone."

He drifted on with the current. Wherever it might be going he would go with it. It was moving fast now. He was being borne along more swiftly. Faster yet. The entire ocean was rushing down a slope. He was being whirled around and around, dying with a delicious giddiness that drew on his brain. He was in a whirlpool. He was being drawn into the centre of it.

There began to be something just a little terrifying in the pleasure of the descent. The sensation divided. "Be careful!" He opened his eyes and thrust up his head like one stretched on an exquisite rack. In the blur of moonlight and darkness a vision shaped itself. He saw he was not in the ocean but swimming in the pool under the tree. He was moving around with the water in it.

The water in the pool was bubbling and whirling at enormous speed. It was shrinking down into a funnel-shape toward the middle. He would be drawn into that. A curious, dim, white animal could be seen at play as the water shoaled toward the floor of the pool. He looked beneath himself. The monster with a pale, smooth belly lay looking up at him. Its eyes were terrible. He began to struggle to avoid it but his limbs were possessed by the lethargy of a dream. He saw that his own movements were reflected in every motion by the bronze boy that stood at the edge of the pool. There was a terrible, mad pleasure that convulsed that boy by more than pain.

There was something in the hollow statue causing that. He must get rid of it; fill up the hollow in the pool and rest again! The bronze boy grew still, trembled. Suddenly from the mouth of the beast below him a flood burst forth and filled up the pool. It overflowed gently now and washed Anthony clear over the brim.

He was lying on his back now looking up at the moonlight filtered through the leaves of the great tree. All was well.

He lay, for how long he did not know, in a timeless trance of relief and release. When he opened his eyes he saw that Faith Paleologus was lying beside him. Her bosom rose and fell softly. Then he remembered Angela.

He was sorry he had forgotten her. As the lethargy passed he made a little mourning within himself for the memory that had been Angela. But he saw that it was for a memory, an ideal, not for Angela herself. Perhaps after a few days that ideal would return. The desire would return and he would dream of it as Angela. He looked at Faith who lay there breathing as if she were asleep. He did not blame her. No feeling of rage overcame him as it had that day in the room with Arnolfo. Yet this was a much more important thing that had happened. It had merely happened to him, there could be no doubt of that. Yet not because of some person, not because of Faith. It was the blind, overpowering feeling that had come upon them both. That was what had done it. A slight noise from the courtyard disturbed his half-dreamful, easy reverie.

He began to become fully conscious of who and where he was. He had better not stay here any longer. He looked at the woman beside him again. She did not open her eyes. There was a blank look of relaxation on her face that the grey moonlight accentuated. Somehow it was a little funny to see a countenance completely the slave of feeling. A mouth should not register mere contentment; be so relaxed. Something inside should make the muscles behaye and hold it shut at least. He laughed silently.

Then he was completely aroused. He noticed he did not care whether he had any clothes on or not. What if she did see him now? There was no bravado about it. He simply did not care. It was purely a matter of indifference. Come, this was getting dull. It was over. What he wanted now was a wide bed to himself and a sleep. He stretched himself. He felt completely well and indifferent about things in general. What a relief it was not to be so sensitive about everything. Well, why should he care, or say anything to Faith ? She understood.

He got up quietly and walked across the hall into his own bedroom. Then he suddenly remembered he had left his clothes in Faith's room. Some of the possible practical implications of the affair now thrust themselves upon him. It would not always be dark and private as it was now. In the daytime people awoke. They went about seeing and saying things. His shirt was still lying by the water butt in the housekeeper's room. He stopped before his bed. He would like another bath, too, more than before. What should he do about it?

On her bed Faith stirred slightly and put out her arms in the semi-darkness. Her young lover was gone. The shock of the disappointment aroused her. She sat up. Her many experiences with men ashore after a long voyage had destroyed in her a certain subtlety of apprehension which she had once possessed. She now expected the comforting embraces of the aftermath of the first time to verge into the return of warmth of the second. She had forgotten it was not always so. For a moment a sense of loss overwhelmed her. To solace herself she began to think about what had just occurred. From this she derived comfort; over certain details an immense satisfaction.

He had, she felt, belonged to her completely for a few moments. It was the fruit of years of planning. As the boy had grown into a youth, blossomed into first manhood, his presence had obsessed her. He possessed that curious freshness, an aloof beauty that seemed to her to be the essence of innocence in itself, the very tag of it. He was like his mother in that. It was what she had always desired, needed. In Maria it had of course been unapproachable. It was that of which she had been jealous. Now she had possessed it, she felt; crawled within the circle that fenced it off, made it a part of her. She felt she had triumphed over the dead woman, too, the girl who had been carried off by Don Luis.

Ah, there would have been a mate for her! There was something hard, unbreakable, unconquerable about that man. She pressed her breasts back upon themselves, her virginal breasts, and trembled. They could bear a great weight. The thought of it possessed her. Her eyes narrowed in the moonlight. Just then a light footfall disturbed her. She looked up. Anthony was coming into the room again.

He passed her bed without a glance, and calmly and methodically, so as to make no noise, stepped into the water cask and immersed himself. Even his head went under. The water overflowed and ran sparkling in patches of moonlight over the floor. He emerged, dried himself, and picked up his clothes.

"Now," she thought, "he will come to me again." As though she did not exist he started for the door.

It was more than she could bear. Before he reached it her arms were about him again. He kept going. She threw herself down and clasped him about the knees. "Stay with me," she begged him, her mouth writhing in a whisper, "I will make you die with pleasure."

He reached down and seizing her by the wrists, unclasped her fingers with a strength that she had not suspected in him. His hands were like a man's. She fell forward on the floor with the palms of her hands on his feet. He withdrew them as if her touch hurt him. She lay there alone for a long time. When she finally looked up the full moon already grey with the opposing dawn was looking in at her. Its mouth seemed to be drawn down like her own.

It was some time before Anthony could orient himself to all that this experience implied. Most of his attitude about it was instinctive. For a long time he did not even care to look at the madonna. She was still in his room. He felt her there. But there was nothing to be said between them. He had trusted himself too far. He was essentially weak. That was plain. Yet he could not bring himself to ask for help.

Indeed, it was a curious kind of self-balance which he now attained. Mr. Bonnyfeather might be right after all. Perhaps he, Anthony, was essentially sinful, but in the light of that fact he would act with caution. He would not allow himself to be surprised again. With possible pitfalls revealed to him, he walked circumspectly, and yet more confidently and with a new completeness of knowledge. The swagger disappeared, but he stood upright like a man, looking around him, aware and beware. Into the life about him he entered as one initiated.

What indignation he came to feel over the occurrence was gradual rather than of sudden growth and quick ebb. He disliked Faith more and more as time went on. He would not let her come into his room any more, and he resented her eyes which he now felt upon him. That she had long lain in wait for him was plain. He shivered at that. There was something puma-like in her patience, he saw. Yet it was not entirely unpleasant to have been desired. Only he did not want her to desire him any longer. He did not belong to her. That was all. He could not. When he had been with her he had been left alone. He desired someone that he could share himself with. There must be two. The trouble with what Arnolfo had taught him was that when you did that you tore yourself apart. You became two, divided. You were trying to be you and yourself. You touched you. It was a strain, a rending of the person. What you should love, your own dear body, you ended by loathing. That he had found out would never do. You would end by hating yourself, be unhappy, desperate.

Even with Faith it had been better. Not entirely wrong, he thought. But he had still found himself alone. Then there was something too simply avid and sheerly physical about her. What lived inside of her you could not really meet. Was it there at all ? With Angela it would have been different. With her he felt he would not have been left alone. He longed for her more now. He continued to miss her as the full significance of his loss became apparent. It was on that account that he finally came to hate Faith. She, he felt in his bones, had arranged the departure of Angela. It was Faith who had put that idea of the numbers of the madonna into Tony's foolish head.

Even his madonna, he felt, had something to do with it. He was still unconsciously idolater enough to feel that. It was one of the reasons he delayed returning to her; why the voice was stilled for so long. A hush had fallen upon it. Sometimes at night he was frightened by this. Yes, it was all very complicated. He longed to talk to someone about it. Never could he approach Mr. Bonnyfeather about it all. His solution would be one of action, to dismiss Faith. That would accomplish nothing for Anthony.

And then, added to all this, was the knowledge that in what had happened he had not at all directed himself. He had not willed it. It had merely come upon him. The woman had known that. The male in him rebelled. He should have taken the lead. Yet he did not hold Faith directly responsible. She, he saw, had merely taken advantage of the way the world was arranged. She had merely caught him up in the force which she personified. That was what he must be careful of, the blind force. So he began to avoid her, even to avoid the house. The whole Casa da Bonnyfeather began to become irksome at times, dangerous through familiarity with what lurked there. He began to go out and to be about the town more and more.

For the first time the afternoons with Toussaint, and the lessons with various other people began to pall on him. He struck up a vivid friendship with young Vincent Nolte, the nephew of a Hamburg merchant at Livorno. A rather heedless round of gadding about and tasting life as it offered itself began. It was soon necessary to draw on some small savings from his clerk's salary. They were soon gone. McNab looked serious when he asked for a month's advance. "Gang and ask it o' the maister," he said.

Somewhat diffidently Anthony approached Mr. Bonnyfeather. In a rush of embarrassed confidence he explained the new turn his interests had taken. To Anthony's surprise Mr. Bonnyfeather not only took it as a matter of course but looked pleased. He refused to advance Anthony anything on his "salary." Instead he provided him with a generous allowance from his purse. Of this Anthony was to say nothing. The old man was glad to hear that Anthony was waking up, as he expressed it. He had even thought of hastening the process, it appeared. But he had let well enough alone. Anthony squirmed to think what that "well enough" had been. But he was able to obtain what leisure he desired.

"After the noon bell, then, your time will now be your own," said Mr. Bonnyfeather. "It is harder to spend time and get full value for it than for money," the old merchant continued somewhat sententiously. "You do not believe that now, but you will soon find it true. I shall expect you, however, to go on with your studies, particularly mathematics. You should by this time begin to be interested enough in some subject to begin to pursue it and to plan your work yourself. What would you think of going to England to complete your schooling as I did? To Exeter, say. I still have connections there. It would unify what you already know mighty well. You would also be acquiring the idiom which is your birthright." The old merchant stopped himself suddenly.

Anthony scarcely noticed his expression. He was thinking of the opera that night with Vincent and some companions. He only aroused himself sufficiently from the dream of affluence which his new allowance evoked to promise to consider Exeter.

How often afterwards he wondered with what a different die his life might have been stamped if he had really considered that offer seriously. How different would his path have been? As it was, he considered it only briefly, only with his lips.

Toussaint was hurt to find his pupil straying away. He had regarded him already as a silent convert to Rousseau and the new doctrines. It was especially important to hold him, he felt, now that the Revolution was about to descend upon Italy. Nevertheless, their afternoons together grew fewer although more intimate and intense. For Toussaint realized he was not talking to a boy any longer. He began to open his last reserve. As he looked at Anthony his heart beat with pride, his face glowed with affection. There was an emotion now about their meetings over the table or by the ruin as though each time were to be the last class.

But from Toussaint's intense monologues and exhortations Anthony would now break away with a feeling of relief as soon as he decently could. The little man's great enthusiasm was often funny to him now. Anthony could not share in this intense emotion over abstractions. Above all he disliked having his own feelings probed and made reasonable. The Revolution and the Rights of Man were all well enough, he supposed, but what did Toussaint think about a woman? How would he feel about Faith, for instance? Several times as he listened to some philosophical exhortation it was on the tip of his tongue to say something about Faith, or even about Angela. Toussaint might really know something important after all. At least it would be interesting to find out and to watch his expression. Yet from embarrassment he still refrained from asking. As time went on, however, the temptation grew.

If Toussaint would only let him say something sometimes! He wanted to explain but he got no chance. The other's voice went on. Anthony would fling out exasperated at last to find amusement and distraction where he could beyond the now irksome walls of the Casa da Bonnyfeather.

He took to fencing after a while with a little Spaniard who kept a place near the Porta Colonella. But he did not care much for it. The polite conventions of the art bored him. Then he and Vincent Nolte with some other youths hired a retired Austrian lieutenant to teach them the pistol. That went well for Anthony. But Vincent was awkward. He could never get over shying at the report. He finally dropped out while Anthony kept on. In six months Anthony developed into a fair shot with several types of handgun. He learned not only their use but how to care for them. Then the bottom fell out of pistol practice, too. Nothing was so pleasant at last as going about town with Vincent. The dandy state was upon them both. They idled magnificently in new clothes along the Corso. They patronized an English tailor and met other young bloods. A pistol, Anthony soon found, was the only thing that Vincent was shy about.

Vincent Nolte was, as McNab once remarked, "a little too large for his size." He had very light, curly, brown hair that he was conscious of as his chief attraction, and an open, rather sweet countenance. He had light-blue eyes and a firm chin under large, pink, sensual lips. His nose was keen and straight. But it flared out so much at the nostrils as to make the beak of it seem to be just about to recover from a flattening blow. His ears were very small, a little ridiculous, and somewhat porcine. But you seldom saw them. Indeed, if anything, it was their absence you felt.

It was only when Vincent turned his back to you that you saw that his neck and the back of his head formed one and the same plane. It was a racial peculiarity in Vincent accentuated that lent him a fascination. On the pivot of his spine, his head, a little bulging at the brows and crowned with its flaring mass of curls, turned with an unreasonable majesty. His was a pride that could scarcely be allowed in one so young. Still it was impossible to escape the keen, blue darts of his glances.

Yet despite the fact that nature seemed to have tried to make a masterpiece of Vincent Nolte and had then marred it and tweaked it out of proportion at every turn, despite that, the boy had an undeniable charm. There was, for instance, his warm, clear German voice, and there were the bright things and incidents with which he continually managed to surround himself. In their innumerable and unexpected combinations the delight of him lay.

He was the son of a Hamburg merchant, the same with whom Mr. Bonnyfeather and Francis Baring had wandered through Scotland years before. It was for that reason at first, and later on for himself, that the young man in spite of his harum-scarum escapades was constantly welcomed at the table of the Casa da Bonnyfeather. Besides, he was the nephew of Otto Frank, or rather of Otto Frank & Company, a most successful German firm in Livorno. At one time they had been a dangerous rival of the House of Bonnyfeather. But since Mr. Bonnyfeather had outdistanced them many years before he could now afford to look upon them complacently enough.

He could even be glad to see, as he secretly told himself, with an eye to possible future advantages and mutual understandings, the heirs of the two houses dining together and a friendship growing up between them. With the French army liable to swoop down at any time on the town it was quite possible that the business of all the English firms at Livorno might be wiped out at one stroke. In that case an intimate connection with the branch of a neutral Hamburg house might be invaluable.

In fact the canny old merchant was already pulling in his financial horns, transferring large credits to his friends the Barings in England and Holland, and trying to collect long outstanding debts. He was simply quietly putting his affairs in order in case the avalanche that had already slipped down into Lombardy should suddenly dam the rivers of trade in Tuscany.

Part of his policy consisted in shifting what business he still carried on overseas into the names of German merchants. Now and then he also began to employ a Yankee ship. The new gridiron ensign had lately begun to appear with a surprising frequency in the Mediterranean. He had sometimes even thought of transferring his still reluctant and purely practical allegiance to King George to the Grand Duke Francis and of flying the flag of Tuscany from the roof of his commercial stronghold. But his long connection with the English was notorious. The subterfuge would have been too transparent. There were not wanting in Livorno those who would have been base enough to point it out if the French did come. The presence of the British fleet near by still heartened the old man, and he continued to hoist the English flag every morning as of old, but more thoughtfully and prayerfully as the war clouds thickened about him.

He called in Signore Baldasseroni, by now the best commercial lawyer in Livorno, and made his will. He remitted to the marquis in Spain two years' rent, renewed his lease in advance, and registered it with a notary. Above all he feared being turned out of his beloved rooms in the Casa da Bonnyfeather in his old age. He desired to die there even if it were necessary to close out his business entirely. He kept the Unicorn and faithful Captain Bittern close by in case of emergencies, sending the vessel only on short coasting voyages that followed the movements of the British fleet and convoys.

In short, as might have been expected, Mr. Bonnyfeather acted wisely and circumspectly; secretly, and with great forethought. In this scheme an increased allowance conferred upon Anthony to enable him to go about with Vincent Nolte was only one item in his general fiscal policy. It was not, had Anthony only known it, conferred for purely sentimental reasons. None the less Anthony spent the money merrily. In this way the time went on well enough, it seemed; whole months of it.

For to all outward appearances the placid pool of Anthony's existence continued to reflect unbrokenly the animated but essentially unchanging scenes about him. Of the shifting shadows in its depths the surface at least showed nothing. Only the gentlest of winds seemed so far to have rippled it pleasantly. Perhaps it was this light, animated change playing over deeply troubled waters like breezes and sunlight on the surface of a geyser waiting to erupt that lent the latter days in Livorno all the diversity and fascination which they had. Suddenly, however, the smooth surface of the pool was broken as if by the plunge of a meteor. It was a long time before the rings of so violent a disturbance spread themselves out and calm reflections returned. The meteor was a quarrel with Toussaint. It came, instantly, as if out of the blue.

It all happened because he had overcome his reluctance to speak to Toussaint about Faith. In the little meadow, while they sat together looking down at the ruin one afternoon, the meteor fell.

It had been very warm. They had taken a bottle of light claret along and consumed it. Toussaint had talked for a long time about a perfect state. All Europe was to be included. How heavenly would it be in the halcyon future just ahead to withdraw to some earthly paradise with a beloved, with a perfect woman. In words that glowed with a faintly golden, poetic tinge through the soporific mist of their mutual afternoon laziness, and the wine, Toussaint painted the scenes of an ideal, platonic honeymoon on the shores of Lake Leman. No place was quite so beautiful as Lake Leman, he said.

". . . the reflections of snow peaks in water!—but do you hear me ?" he asked, looking at Anthony, who was leaning back against the trunk of a tree with his eyes closed.

"Yes," said Anthony. It was not exactly a lie. He had heard him over the chirp of the grasshoppers. He had even seen himself going out in a skiff on Toussaint's beautiful lake—with Angela. They would row out together to an island where no one could talk to them—no one! Be alone!

In the mind of Toussaint a woman with the conversational powers of Madame de Stael and the body of Faith Paleologus was gathering flowers with him in a meadow by Lake Leman. The white, cool mountains towered above them. They looked at the lake and talked. "If that Paleologus were only ... if she only would . . ."

"Yes," said Anthony, "I heard you."

Both their dreams were shattered. They looked at each other and laughed. Somehow they understood what each was thinking.

"Whom would you take with you?" said Toussaint, for the first time dropping completely his role of mentor and speaking man to man.

For an instant it was on the tip of Anthony's tongue to say "Angela." Yet he could not. Toussaint was laughing a little. Tous-saint evidently enjoyed the embarrassment of the lad before him who sat against the tree blushing. That was obvious. Then it occurred to Anthony that this was his opportunity. He would ask Toussaint about Faith. He would get the advice and comfort of a friend. He wanted that. He wanted to get it off his mind. He began in an awkward and blundering way. It was hard to break down his own reserve. Finally he blurted out the story baldly enough.

It seemed more terrible now that he had put it into sound. Perhaps it was a mistake after all to have let it slip into words. They sounded bad. During the misery of this recital he kept his eyes on the ground. Now he raised them to the face of his friend. There would be sympathy there at least—wouldn't there?

Over his tightly wound stock the face of Toussaint glared at him as if he were being choked by his own neckwear. It was convulsed and livid with fury. He put his fingers up to his neck. Suddenly he leaned forward and without an instant's warning struck Anthony in the face. A stroke of lightning could not have been more unexpected. For an instant Anthony put his hand to his cheek in a kind of dumb surprise. Then he felt the sharp smart of the insulting fingers. Blinding tears spurted from his eyes. With a roar of rage he threw himself upon the little Frenchman and shook him unmercifully.

Toussaint made no resistance. He seemed paralysed by what he had done. Anthony stopped after a while, frightened by his own strength. What was it that had happened? Why? He leaned back against the tree again, exhausted by rage.

"Mon Dieu!" said Toussaint, reassembling himself painfully on the ground, "vous m'avez tue," He groaned, weeping. Anthony looked at him now in silent misery.

"I love her," shouted Toussaint at him suddenly. "I love her—and it was you! You boy! Meldrun!" He began to get up. "Go away! Leave me!"

Anthony snatched his hat and ran. He got to the Casa da Bonnyfeather breathless. Toussaint came in later much the worse for wear. His coat was tattered. They said nothing. They passed each other and went on as strangers. They both hid it from all the others. They were outwardly polite. But both were heartsick at what had happened. There were no more meetings by the ruin now. In the afternoons Anthony went out. Faith, he saw, had guessed. Damn her! Her eyes smiled. The place was growing unbearable, especially at meal times. It was better at the Franks'.

So Anthony was often at Otto Frank's dining with Vincent Nolte.

The counting room and apartments of "Otto Franco," as he was called, were in the great house of the Franchetti on the Piazza della Comunita at the corner of the Piazza d'Arme. From the door of it and from its street windows there was an excellent view of the piazza, where the troops of the garrison occasionally paraded, and of the town hall or mayoralty close by. It was the official centre of both commercial and governmental activities of the town. Something was always going on there. There were sights to be seen, news, and rumours to be picked up. After several years of the life along the docks Anthony was intrigued by the piazza. It was the opposite face of the life of Livorno. To him a new one that he was glad to look upon. He began to go nearly every noon as soon as the work at the office was over to dine with Vincent Nolte.

He would make some purely formal excuse to Toussaint about not being able to spend that afternoon "as usual," hastily change into a new, bottle-green suit, dampen his curls, and dash out of the gate.

To the right of the Casa da Bonnyfeather a long alley led directly from the quays along the Darsena through a maze of high tenements to emerge finally on the wide Strada Ferdinanda. After threading his way over refuse piles, under flapping multi-coloured clothes, past goats, and long strings of spaghetti hung out to dry, Anthony would thus emerge suddenly as if coming out of a shadowed tunnel into the brilliant sunlight of the strada.

By this short cut he had left the world of ships and the sea behind him. By it he seemed to have become at once and at one stride the citizen of a more sophisticated world.

The Strada Ferdinanda ran in a direct line from the Porta Pisa to the Porta Colonella. Alone among the streets of the town at that time it was swept daily. A double line of poplars ran down the middle of it, and it was lined with white marble fronts and bright, stone houses where considerable brasswork twinkled in the sun.

Here the officers of the garrison exercised their horses. Governor Spanocchi was frequently to be glimpsed rolling along in his high-backed equipage of state with gilded harness, outriders, and an escort of cavalry. The landaus and phaetons of the well-to-do dashed back and forth. About noon the gigs of merchants brought them home for the day, the flower vendors from the country made their last desperate effort to dispose of their fast wilting wares, and a golden dust hung in the air from one gate of the city to the other. The flag could then be seen drooping on its staff at the castle. Exactly at a quarter after twelve the diligence from Pisa flashed down the long street with a tooting horn and four horses, to draw up on the piazza before the mayoralty. Here the passports of travellers were examined while a crowd gathered to view the arrivals of the day. The Pisa diligence was probably the only one in Italy that made a point of leaving and arriving on time. So far at least had the influence of English travellers prevailed over the native indifference to the clock. The entire city was nevertheless proud of this daily miracle of punctuality elsewhere unknown.

Anthony always timed himself by the infallible diligence. If it had arrived before he turned into the Strada he could consider himself late for the noon meal. If not, he was sure to find Vincent's uncle, "Otto Franco," at the corner of the Piazza d'Arme strutting up and down before his office entirely bareheaded.

The singular little man would be without a cravat, his linen shirt open so as to allow the breezes to wave the hair on his chest. His morning gown flapped in the breeze. In a pair of huge, red, crescent-shaped, Turkish slippers he slithered along the sidewalks while he gesticulated violently. He was followed by a train of goods and money-brokers and a few clerks from his own establishment ready to grab and carry the luggage of strangers. The reason for this bizarre show was to advertise the importance of the Capo della Casa to the strangers just dismounting from the diligence across the street. There a hired runner announced the merits of his master in several languages and pointed him out to travellers desirous of changing their money or of obtaining passage for themselves or their goods to other lands. And it was seldom that someone was not thus inveigled into his net. Nor did they ever have cause to regret it, for Otto Frank was both able and honest. He differed from his rivals only in not hiding his light under a bushel of dignity. Others who had tried his methods had failed. As he himself explained it, they lacked the courage of Turkish slippers and a naked breast.

When Anthony passed this personage he would invariably receive a loud invitation to dinner. The entire menu was always loudly rehearsed. He would hide his amusement and accept respectfully, going into the counting room where Vincent was usually to be found at his desk looking gloomy enough. For as long as Uncle Otto continued to drum trade in this manner the social aspirations of Signore Vincent Nolte as the representative of a dignified merchant firm were kept in dark eclipse. Vincent's father, Herr Johann Nolte of Hamburg, was, indeed, the head of the house and supplied the capital for Uncle Otto. The uncle's noisy advertising was therefore the more difficult for the son of a long line of Hanseatic merchants to swallow. Nevertheless, there were compensations. Vincent's position in the house gave him considerable freedom. As he grew older more and more of the business of the firm was being concentrated in his hands by Hamburg. Vincent was no fool. Even though his uncle was still consul for Hamburg at Livorno and wore the red coat with one silver epaulette, his nephew was already beginning" to rule the roast. In reality it was Vincent's invitation to dine which Anthony accepted.

Vincent would put his hand on his friend's shoulder and tow him upstairs to the long dining-room where the family ate. Although the windows gave onto the Piazza d'Arme the room was in Germany. There was a great Nuremberg stove at one end, a long rack with steins and cannikins against one wall and little, carved hanging-shelves on the other. The table was long and massive, supported by wooden Corinthian columns ending in claws. Set about it were dark, high-backed, Gothic chairs with a wealth of meticulous carving in which a frieze of bears pursued by men in medieval costume armed with crossbows predominated. For some reason or other the pursuit of the bears was not occasionally interrupted by an angel blowing a trumpet out of a wooden cloud.

The effect of this room and of the chairs in particular was peculiar. Anthony had never seen anything like it. It was astonishing to see a Corinthian column ending in claws. Evidently things beyond the Rhine rested upon a different pediment. It was somehow like the German language. His Latin, all the past he knew, did not help him much here. Also there was a peculiar cheerfulness and cleanliness about the apartment.

Under the windows, in which a hundred brilliant flowers bloomed in boxes, sat a pale-faced little girl in a kirtle, with straw-coloured hair peeping out under her white, starched cap. She was knitting, although she was only about eleven years old, like any Hausfrau. Beside her a doll sat looking at her with large china eyes. The name of the little Madchen was Anna. She was Vincent's cousin. When the two young men entered the room she would come forward, curtsy, and put up her cool little cheek to be kissed. Anthony was charmed with her. While the servants were laying the long, white table-cloth he would sit down on the floor beside her and listen to her talk. At first it was all in Italian but as time went on and he began to understand her she lapsed gradually into broad Hamburg Deutsch.

German, indeed, was the chief thing which Anthony acquired from his long intimacy with Vincent and the Franks. That he should pick up another language without thinking about it was merely a continuation of the normal order of his existence. Little else but German was spoken at the table in the Frank establishment and Anthony could soon join in boldly. Occasionally he aroused a good-natured laugh and Anna would correct him. From her he learned most of the German he knew, and he never heard it spoken without recalling the gentle tones of her voice.

While Vincent was donning some gorgeous attire for the afternoon sally, Anthony listened to stories of Hamburg from Anna; to tales of a never-to-be-forgotten visit to Helgoland in the company of one Tante Rachel Rickmers of Bremerhaven. White cliffs were there. How green the pastures were above them! The sea gnawed at the land like a bone! Vincent had once taken her to the Gymnasium of Professor Carl F. Hipp. She herself had actually sat on his august knee while he "with condescending illustrious eyeshine" talked to so small a girl. Ach, how beautiful were those days! When would they be going back to Germany ?

Meanwhile she was feeding her birds, and dressing her doll for dinner. Meanwhile Uncle Otto had appeared at the door, kicked off his Turkish slippers and roared for a stein of beer, which he drank at a gulp to cut the Italian dust out of his throat. "In hot countries the best brew lacks zest," he would exclaim, spit, and dive into his own chamber to change into bright raiment which like his nephew he particularly affected, or, if guests were expected, into his consular uniform of which he was inordinately proud.

After a short Lutheran grace, in which it seemed strange to Anthony that no one crossed himself, the meal began, usually with a buttermilk soup with boiled cherries floating in it of which Uncle Otto was very fond. The smell of beer and sauerkraut would always have penetrated the apartment. There were various pickled meats, Rhine wines, sausages and Pfannkuchen, boiled vegetables with vinegar on them, and, as a slight concession to the locality, always a smoking dish of spaghetti with liver sauce. There was about this German meal a certain acid tang which Anthony had not met elsewhere. At first he disliked it, but it was not long before both its quantity and its bitter-sweet flavours often rendered the food which he had been used to somewhat insipid. Still he could never really like sour things nor control his face when he met them. Anna laughed. For this her mother never failed to reprove her.

It was truly remarkable the quantity of beer which the firm of Otto Frank & Company, both uncle and nephew, could stow away. At least a shipload a year, thought Anthony. He looked at them with astonishment.

"The most profound difference between men on the continent of Europe," said Uncle Otto, wiping the foam from his lips, "is between wine drinkers and beer guzzlers. Religion is nothing to be compared to it. Religions change; beer and wine remain. Make up your mind before you are forty where you intend to spend your declining years, whether in a beer or in a wine land. It will make all the difference between a vivacious and a complacent old age."

"What are you going to do with that vivacious wardrobe of yours then. Uncle Otto, if you go back to Germany?" asked Vincent. "It would only be tolerated on an old man in a wine-drinking place. It is, I should say, decidedly a product of the joyous grape; to be conceived of only by an Italian tailor in his cups."

"Ach!" replied his uncle. "Herr Gott! I am not old yet, neither have I gone back to Germany already to beer alone. Besides, when that time comes it will be so distant as to make all these fine costumes out of date."

"Fine costumes, indeed!" continued Vincent who knew that the vainglory of his uncle's raiment was a weak point in his armour. "You should see them, Anthony, the glories of our Capo della Casa; six embroidered and laced coats from azure to sunset-glow, a bottle-green, gold-frogged wedding coat, satin breeches to match, rhinestone buckles in filigree, a sword with a snakeskin hilt and an emerald. Du Lieber! and all of French make, all out of fashion already."

Here his uncle fairly snarled at him.

"I told you so," continued the incorrigible nephew, "I told you that the English cut was coming in. H you had only taken my advice and had your tailor copy the wardrobes of some of the young milords who dine at your own table you would now be in the swim as I am."

Here he leaned back and displayed his London watch fob, his neat but gorgeous vest, the broad, double-breasted coat that was just coming into style. Herr Frank roared at him. All that Vincent had said was true.

It generally took the soft voice of Frau Elisabeth to smooth over these occasions. To her this mere ruffling of the surface of her husband's complacency was a stirring of her own depths. Her voice was like oil. Presently Uncle Otto would tell his one and only joke. Something about a Dutchman who swallowed peaches whole and complained that the stones hurt his throat. They would all laugh at him, and pleased at the success of his joke he would rise smiling.

A bell was struck, the servants cleared the remains of the meal rapidly. Another cover was laid. Frau Frank again took her place at the head of the table for the "second cover," and as Uncle Otto, Vincent, and Anthony walked out the paying guests of the establishment trooped in. Anthony would look back. The face of the German woman would be solemn with a silent grace, the heads of the travellers, mostly English, bowed, and little Anna would be sitting in her chair again knitting, with the birds hopping about above her.

Uncle Otto would lead the way to his desk. "Do, my good nephew, have a look at this correspondence," he would say. "I need your advice about it—and thine too, Herr Adverso, the Spanish is difficult." Then he would go away leaving Vincent to settle all the pressing problems of the day.

The two young men would work together over the letters. Vincent's trust in Anthony was absolute. There was no question here of the old rivalry of the two commercial houses. Knotty problems were discussed on their merits, as if confidences could never be betrayed, and in the process both of them learned respect for each other's experience and powers of decision. After the replies to the piles of correspondence had been written and various directions noted, they would look up at each other and laugh to think how helpless and pompous Uncle Otto was in the face of the simplest difficulties—and how able they were themselves. How pitiable was the vain old man! Vincent would shoot the ledgers back into their racks. Then they would both take up their hats and gloves, give each other a whisking, take a last reassuring glimpse into a small bit of mirror, and sally forth into the Strada Ferdinanda canes in hand.

Chapter XXI. ADVENTURES OF A SHEPHERDESS

IT WAS fashionable to walk in the strada from half past three to five o'clock. But you must appear to be going somewhere, about to make a call, or at least prepared to meet up with friends to make supper engagements and rendezvous for the evening. All the world made it a point to know just exactly where it was bound for while walking on the Strada Ferdinanda between half past three and five. Hence, if you did not have an engagement you assumed one.

At first Anthony would have had to assume one had it not been for Vincent. But with that popular young gentleman's arm linked in his own he was always sure of a supper engagement before the castle clock struck five. For there was no one more certain of getting a promising party of young bloods together for the evening than Vincent Nolte. At worst you could always turn up at the galleries of Signore Terrini, the painter, now grown prosperous and fat, surrounded by the phlegmatic portraits of the purse-proud or the originals of them eating cakes and sipping wine. Signore Terrini was now the only painter in Italy who could still make his nudes look absolutely naked. "True to life" in every particular. For that he was admired by the foreign merchants who composed his clientele, and his studio, which contrived to hint of naughtiness, with some canvases turned to the wall, yet remained at the hour of cake and claret, or gooseberry wine, "elegant." In Livorno it was even taken for a salon.

Here on any afternoon two well-dressed young men introduced by "the master" were sure of not being permitted to look forward to a lonely evening. This was an unfailing resource. But after a while it was unnecessary. Social prestige like any other ponderous body when once set in motion acquires momentum. Attracted into the orbit of Vincent, sometimes an eccentric one, Anthony was soon whirling by his own proper motion. It was pleasant, he found, thus to glide along.

Several of the impressive doorways along the strada were in a few months' time quite familiar. It was soon evident to both Vincent and Anthony that the daughters of bankers provided not only the most substantial collations but the most luxurious transportation to the opera. To call on anyone whose father did not at least keep a coach was soon, unless other attractions were unusual, voted beneath their mutual dignity. Theatre nights particularly were those upon which they chose to shine.

When there was a company at the opera or a band of actors in town, that afternoon they would only walk the length of the street once merely to be in good form. Then they would turn back to the piazza. There one of them would stand in line for a few minutes chatting with other young dandies while waiting for the half-blind clerk at the little booth like a sentry box to make out their opera tickets.

The old clerk wrote a beautiful hand but naturally very slowly. It was also necessary to mark down every assignment to the boxes in a book and to call out the name of the purchaser. Thus it was possible to take exception to anyone who was not qualified. There had at one time been duels over certain seats. But times were changing now. The old clerk merely carried out a ritual. A great many people now were vulgar and rich enough merely to send a footman for the pink slip. Knowing and ardent young gentlemen, however, still saw to it that they got a box due their rank.

"The Stall of the Angels, tonight, Signore Adverso." How it thrilled Anthony to be unexceptionable as he folded the long, pink slip three times precisely, counted his change into his tasselled purse, and stepped aside with a slight bow and flourish. Provided, of course, that the next in line was a gentleman. If it was a footman you held your place and permitted a gentleman to step up. Of late there had been a good deal of grumbling about that from the lackeys. Like a first rumbling of revolution among the lower orders there seemed to be some tendency among these fellows to combine. The gentlemen, of course, became even more punctilious. Buying a ticket was now like attending a Spanish levee. At last one afternoon a burly Swiss footman was positively insolent and required a touch of Vincent's cane to settle the matter while Anthony held his place. There was to be a double bill that night and the queue was a long one.

"The Revolution has not yet arrived here, my fine fellow," said Vincent.

"But soon," muttered the Swiss rubbing his arm. His fellow servants seemed about to make the prophecy come true. The young bucks gathered about Vincent. He laughed and stood the man off while Anthony coolly bought the tickets and handed his place over to Luigi Pontrovo, the bishop's secretary. After that there was no more trouble. But class feeling was already beginning to run high. The story of even so trivial an incident spread. That day the names of Anthony and Vincent were passed about from lip to lip on the Corso.

That evening they were pointed out in the Stall of the Angels sitting with Maddalena Strozzi, the daughter of a Florentine banker, and her friend Mile. He Rhan visiting her from Nantes. In the sconces at the side of the stall, and in the two high candelabra provided extra, burned the best French beeswax candles which the Casa da Bonnyfeather imported. It was considered by all present to be an extravagant and nice little attention to the young ladies. The tallow dips provided by the management in the other stalls guttered in drafts and dripped sadly. One had to be careful how one used one's fan with only a tallow dip just above. In the Stall of the Angels the fans fluttered merrily and carelessly as fans should, and from the front of the box shimmered a peculiarly clear, yellow light. Farther back in the shadows sat Donna Anna Montefeltro, the duenna of the banker's daughter. Her fat, powdered face like a white mask had a huge laced and ribboned coiffure above it that disappeared into the darkness of the box curtain. Her eyes, which never seemed to take time off even to wink, glittered like brown, polished wood.

The bill that night was a double one, La Veillee et la Matinee Villageoise out of compliment to the large number of French emigres in the audience, followed by Schroder's comedy of Die Ungluckliche Ehe aus Delicatessen. The latter was given at the request of a number of German merchants who had not often in Livorno the opportunity of hearing a play in their own tongue.

Vincent was forced to translate the German for the two girls and Donna Montefeltro. "From too much refinement come unhappy matches," he whispered, touching Maddalena on the arm when he thought no one was watching, and looking wise. She looked at him with mock surprise over her fan. The powder creases in Montefeltro's face assumed a conventional, shocked design.

"There is no chorus I hope to this German play with the revolting title, Signore Nolte," she said. "Maddalena is not permitted to view the ballet as yet. You promised me, you know." Vincent hastened to reassure her.

"There will be little or no dancing, signora. You know this is not the local staff on the stage this evening but the company which has been thrust out of Brussels and is on its travels. They will go by way of Vienna to Hamburg, avoiding Buonaparte. Nothing could be more genteel than that. In addition all the chief figures in the plays tonight are men. You see I have even been too careful. But Mees and Bergamis are both famous actors. The main event, indeed, is the fact that Debriille who acts Count Klingsberg in the German comedy has borrowed my uncle's uniform coat for the part and it will undoubtedly be recognized. My uncle and his wife are sitting just across from us there. Watch the fun." Vincent bowed to his uncle who somewhat pompously replied.

Uncle Otto was not aware that his coat had been "borrowed." He sat bored enough beside his frau through the rather short performance in French which came first. He looked somewhat puzzled at the polite applause which followed and from which he refrained. Not having been able to find his consul's uniform that evening had made him a bit glum. He sat waiting for the German play to begin, sullenly, dressed in his most gorgeous, pink, French costume.

Already he was conscious that what his nephew had said about his clothes was true. In the long, frogged paletot and knee-breeches he already felt somehow a little out-of-age. Secretly it was as if he were going about in a dressing gown and drawers. He looked over the audience for consolation. About half of it was still in wigs and velvets, the more distinguished half, of course! What was coming over the world? All these young men in their own hair, wide-breasted coats, and breeches half-way down their calves! And the women with those thin, Greek night-gowns, a tight ribbon under their breasts! Uncle Otto snorted.

A vague feeling of uneasiness, of unexpected and undesired change in all the ways of life and the familiar habiliments of things sent him suddenly cold. He wished he were back in Hamburg; that he had on his consul's uniform, the long, red coat with the gold buttons and the silver epaulette on one shoulder. In that he looked like a British general. The feeling of authority and position which it gave him would have warmed his heart. Where was it? He turned again to his wife, who was breathing heavily in her stays, to renew his reproaches. At least she might keep his wardrobe in order! The dispute grew loud enough to amuse those sitting near by. Across the theatre Uncle Otto could see young Vincent whispering into the ear of the banker's daughter. What did that young dog care in his high choker and loud, English watch fob. The thing flashed in your eyes clear across the pit. Wax candles for the madchens, moonstone cufflinks! He leaned back and fanned his purple cheeks. The curtain went up for the entr'acte.

For Anthony this proved to be the event of the evening. It was one of those little plotless pieces in which poetry, moonlight, sentiment, and music waked the old court tradition of shepherdesses and the sylvan village in the background to a brief charming life. Something just a little old-fashioned about it now gave it a hint of yearning. This was announced by the low, full-throated overture of the fiddles and the baritone singer Debriille. He, dressed as a shepherd, warbled a melodious reveille to his love still asleep in a village wrapped— behind a gauze curtain—in the mists of morning.

A low, happy reply of girls' voices, the high, feminine note of the violins, and the clever imitation of a cock's crowing brought a ripple of pleasure and amusement from the audience. Anthony had managed to secure Mile, de Rhan's hand and an electric thrill from the returned pressure of his fingers caused him to breathe deeply. The gauze curtain was withdrawn. A few more candles in rose-coloured lanterns contrived to throw on the painted, rustic village, now plainly revealed backstage, the illusion of sunrise. The music quickened into dance-time with the theme of a song emerging. Anthony leaned forward. The great apron of the stage swept out into the semi-darkness of the audience, ringed round by its half-mystic, mellow candle footlights. The little hood for the head of the leader of the orchestra cast a wide fan-like shadow across it. Down there you could dimly see the white, upturned faces of the audience, wigs, and the flutter of a fan, the twinkle of women's jewels. Debriille was standing in the middle of the stage with outstretched arms, pleading in a rich baritone for his love to

''Come forth, come forth.

Into the morning light.

The dew is on the rose.

The rose, the birds begin . . ."

when from the preposterously bucolic houses on each side of the grass-painted street emerged a troop of milkmaids in green stockings and red bodices. Half of them carried milking stools and the others bright, silver buckets. They advanced now, clicking their heels, and performing various evolutions with the stools and buckets in that kind of dance which it is well known that all milkmaids indulge in just at sunrise.

"The dew is on the rose,

The birds begin, begin,

The milkmaids rise . . ."

Insisted the now impatiently impassioned voice of the baritone—

"But where is she, the charm— The charming shepherdess My morning love . . ."

It seemed as if the music had reached the crest of yearning.

"Ah, where indeed?" thought Anthony. He had forgotten her for a moment. Where had she gone, his dear, little girl ? The very word "girl" sent a thrill through him. He lingered over it as if it tasted sweet. Would there never be any answer to all his useless inquiries? She had driven through the Porta Pisa—and disappeared into the great world beyond. Would he never see Angela, Angela, Angela again?

The trembling fibres of his fresh, boyish body stretched to the last, high, pathetic fall of the shop-worn chords.

How much greater his sorrow for her loss, his need of her, had been than he had ever known before! The music opened new depths in him. It was all dark and lonely there. The strange, pallid memory of Faith moved slipperily about there in the shadow-play. He shuddered. "Angela!" Angela could save him.

In a little village like that they might have had a house together; be happy forever. Why not ? He could forget everything there, even the madonna. He would have Angela. Have her! He choked. Unknown to him the poetry of his own longing had transposed the cheap little scene before him into the most exquisite art. How beautiful it was! "The dew is on the rose." He could smell it; feel it on his own bare feet as on the grass those lost, lovely mornings out on the road. In love with Angela! "Gone, gone, lost, lala, lata loa," the fiddles wailed. "O God, even a poor convent child can pray to you! Listen to me." There were tears in his eyes for himself. He could not see Uncle Otto over there any more. He dropped Mile, de Rhan's hand to dash them away furtively. Her lips curled in surprise.

Then the violins, as violins do, surpassed themselves. What had seemed the summit of ecstasy proved only an overture after all. They went up and up into a madrigal of pure happiness. The baritone paused.

The boy was beside himself now. The warm air and perfumes from the stalls below poured up and intoxicated him. Someone just underneath must be crushing lime leaves in her hand. His temples and wrists throbbed to the music. From behind the wings came a girl's voice, fresh, but rich and full-throated as a song from the orange groves of Sicily heard far up on the slopes in the early morning.

A little shepherdess with her crook, in red, high-heeled shoes and a short apron-skirt, now advanced down-stage answering with high thrilling notes the amative welcome of her swain. Their mutual warblings moved the audience to applause. But Anthony could only see that. In his own ears the blood was crackling. That voice, the way she pointed her toes, the movements of her limbs were deliciously familiar. Could it be ... ? He felt the sweat running down his back under his coat.

She was wearing an absurd little straw hat, wide-brimmed at one side, curved up archly at the other. As yet he could not see under it. Then she turned her face upward into the light. It was Angela.

He was afraid it was a dream. It would escape him. His knees fell apart and he leaned farther forward clear over the front of the box. He would have called out to her but his voice failed. Then he remembered where he was. Surely she would see him. She was looking directly at him now. He made his arm move. Someone else's hand on the end of it seemed to take out his handkerchief and shake it. Presently in the middle of the dream he became aware that Angela was lifting up her arms toward him and singing at the box. Oh, yes, he and Vincent—and the other girls were in it. It was real! He smiled and moved his lips in their old formula. He knew she would hear what he was saying. He laughed aloud.

Some of the faces in the audience now began to be turned toward the Stall of the Angels. It was plain that between the young shepherdess on the stage and the young man hanging over the railing with a trembling handkerchief in his hand there was an understanding. The baritone gladly took up the local lead and the song was finished off obviously addressed to the good-looking young folks in the box with the clear wax candles.

Anthony sat back dizzy with happiness and lax with relief. She had come back to him out of the country where she had been for a while. In that delightful little village. ... Of course! How could he have ever doubted it ? He had found her again. Angela had come back! Far down on the stage he saw two white hands toss him a kiss. The handkerchief replied. The curtain fell on a round of laughter and applause. People kept looking up. Now for the first time Anthony felt terribly embarrassed.

Across the pit Mrs. Udney raised her glasses to examine the box which had been receiving so much attention. She was sitting with her husband the English consul, her daughter Florence, and a young Scotch merchant, David Parish, the scion of a rising commercial house at Antwerp. David, she hoped, was the young man to be. Mrs. Udney smiled as she watched the obviously fluttered party opposite and started somewhat as her focus finally fixed upon Anthony. She thought she had never seen a face so completely happy. And yet where had she seen it before? Just then Anthony happened to look up, a streak of light gilding his hair. Mrs. Udney suddenly remembered him looking up at her from under a priest's hat while she stood at her library window years before.

"My dear," she exclaimed giggling with excitement, "look who is in the box there!" She handed her glasses to Florence. "Do you recognize your prince of the church? An old sweetheart of Florence's," she continued, smiling on David Parish and touching him on the arm with her fan. It suited her plans quite well to claim a fashionably dressed young man in a box with two bankers' daughters as her own daughter's first conquest. Florence looked. Her small chin took on a serious angle for a minute under the binoculars. She blushed.

"Yes, I remember." She might have said more, her mother thought.

Mr. Parish and Mr. Udney had each his turn. The former smiled complacently.

"My word!" exclaimed Mr. Udney, "Father Xavier and I made no mistake. Mr. Bonnyfeather has certainly done well by his appren—" a tight squeeze from his wife stopped him—"ahem, by his ward."

"Decidedly," chimed in Mrs. Udney. "We must have him in to tea again," she looked sidewise at Parish. "What do you think, Florence ?"

"Certainly, mother. Will he sleep in the spare bedroom this time?" asked Florence seemingly out of a reverie. Her mother could have pinched her. The consul chuckled. Mr. Parish looked at him a little uncomfortably. The curtains went up on Too Much Refinement Makes UnHappy Matches —in German.

Anthony sat in a trance through the comedy. He had even forgotten that Mile, de Rhan had a hand, that she existed. Mademoiselle felt her throat tighten a little with jealous chagrin. She would scarcely have credited the young creature in mouse-grey who sat next to her with having known an actress. He was deeper than she had supposed. Donna Montefeltro was outwardly scandalized and inwardly pleased. The box of her charges had been pleasantly prominent that night. It might pay to cultivate this young Englishman. How innocent he looked. She grinned over her fan, remembering.

With Vincent, Anthony's stock had soared. The young dog! and never to say a word about it! He pawed his friend excitedly but was only shaken off. Presently he and Signorina Strozzi were leaning forward breathlessly waiting for the cue when Uncle Otto's coat should appear. Presently "Count Klingsberg" strutted out. For a few minutes nothing happened. Then someone giggled. A whisper began to run about. "The coat of El Signore Consolino di Amburgo, ah!" Then Uncle Otto became aware of it. He snorted and shook his stick. His nephew bowed back. Even those who could not understand German could understand this. Gusts of applause shook the house. The actor played up to it. The curtain went down on a great hit—and the audience filed out laughing and talking,

Vincent's friends waved at him. The boy's little ears tingled with excitement. He and Anthony had contrived to be the most popular young men in Livorno that night. The girls fluttered their fans in the gay light of public approval and looked pleased and excited, even a little impressed.

As they filed out Anthony looked down on the crowd surging toward the door below, A long poke bonnet with a prim, black bow was for a second turned up toward him. At the bottom of it, as if at the end of a shadowed tunnel, he saw the face of Faith. It was pale, he noticed. Always she seemed to be looking out from shadows. He went cold for an instant. Too bad she had to spoil an otherwise perfect evening! But how wonderful it had been. Angela!

On the way out he forgot Faith. The Udneys stopped him. He saw Florence standing behind her mother. How lovely and fragile she had grown! Only the brown, golden hair and the deep grey eyes of the plump little girl remained. "Anthony, mother is asking you to tea." She laughed as she withdrew her hand. It was true. And she had called him by his first name. He drew himself together to reply in almost too perfect English. Vincent was now included in the invitation. "This is Mr. David Parish," said Florence.

"How do you do, Mr. David Parish?" said Anthony. Everybody laughed except Parish. "Yes, indeed, they would both come."

"Delighted," added Vincent, telling the literal truth and looking with rapturous approval at Anthony. His friend seemed to know everybody. The English consul's daughter! Vincent whistled under his breath as he drew on his gloves.

They went out and bowed Maddalena and Mile, de Rhan into their carriage. Donna Anna was by this time completely persuaded of the eligibility of the two young men. The English consul's wife was impeccable. Yes, they might call on the two signorinas tomorrow. The carriage rolled away.

Anthony and Vincent turned to join the crowd of young men standing behind them. There was considerable chaffing to be endured. "Who was she?" "How did Anthony know her?" After some minutes of hearty German backslapping and heavy jokes, they managed to put them off. The two were left alone at last standing on the curb.

Anthony clutched Vincent's sleeve. "How can I speak to her— now?" he cried. Vincent laughed. After all there were some things this English friend of his did not know.

"That's easy enough," he exclaimed, "follow me." He led the way toward the dim lantern over the stage door. Moonlight pricked out the pictures and messages scrawled upon the bricks of the old theatre. It was a warm, calm night. The noise of carriage wheels died away through the streets. By this time everybody would be taking the air on the Corso.

Vincent would have liked to be walking there, too. By this time the news of the doings of the theatre would be noised about and it would be pleasant to be greeted knowingly by acquaintances. But this adventure of Anthony's was also alluring, worth following up just to see what would happen. Anthony was proving to be somewhat mysterious he felt. Nevertheless, one would like to walk on the Corso, be in two places at the same time. Besides it would never do to go home till Uncle Otto had cooled down about the coat. No, he would have to make a night of it.

They gave a small coin to the man at the door and went in. Behind the curtain the theatre seemed vast and dark. A few lanterns hung here and there in the wings lighting up bits of stacked scenery like autumnal glimpses of a valley seen through the clouds. The wreck of the little village lay strewn about. They stumbled over a pile of the milkmaids' buckets, making a ferocious din. Finally someone emerged from the wings shouting, "This way, this way, messieurs," and led the way down narrow, brick stairs in the wall to the cell-like dressing-rooms. A door opened letting out a wash of light and revealing a man standing there stripped to the waist and washing the grease paint off his face with a coarse towel. It was Debriille himself.

"Come in," he half shouted, "I thought you would come for it." He handed Vincent his uncle's coat with the silver epaulette. "I am a thousand times obliged to you, my dear fellow," he hurried on, "it was the hit of the evening. Ah, your friend! The young man in the box." The actor murmured his pleasure. "We are also greatly indebted to you, signore,—I suppose," he added seemingly not so enthusiastic over Anthony's part as he was over the coat. He continued to address himself to Vincent. A flat, stale smell of old cigars, sloe gin, and damp cellar permeated everything.

"Can you tell me, sir, where I can find Angela?" said Anthony after a while, unable to refrain any longer.

"Angela? Ah! the little shepherdess, I suppose?" said Debriille. "No," he continued dubiously, "she has gone to her lodgings by this time. We are a very genteel company, very strict, you know." He winked at Vincent. Anthony could not hide his disappointment. So she had not left him any message and it would not do to inquire. "They were very strict." Presently Vincent rose to leave. Debriille shook hands with Anthony with an amused gleam in his eyes.

"It was a great pleasure, sir, to hear you sing tonight," the young man gasped. He was sincere enough in this and he had to say something.

The face of the actor lit up radiantly. "I am glad to hear you say so, my dear boy," said he. "It is not often we receive a compliment so genuine, after teasing our admirers—and so well deserved," he added laughing again. "Of course, she left something for you. Unless the girls go home early, you know, they are bothered to death. Here it is." He rustled about among his paint pots and cigar stubs and produced a small red card. Anthony grasped it blushing.

They stumbled up the bricks steps together. Uncle Otto's coat on Vincent's arm. There was a ripping sound. "Heavens!" said Debriille striking a spark, "you have tramped off the epaulette." It was true. Vincent turned a little pale. "Gott! I shall be sued by your uncle, the consul, now. I do not envy you either." Debriille went on up, laughing, his voice rumbling through the wings. At the door he stopped under the smoking lantern and scribbled something on a card.

"There," he said, handing it to Vincent, "come to the matinee tomorrow. Thanks again! I wish you both luck. You with your uncle and the coat, and you, monsieur, with—a happy pastoral night!" He flourished his gold-headed stick and went clicking down the sidewalk toward the Corso. A stave of the song to the shepherdess drifted back through the moonlight. The gin made him place his feet carefully. He stopped to look back once and raised his hand. It looked like a blessing. They both laughed.

Chez Signora Bovino

"But what am I going to do about it?" asked Vincent, anxiously examining the coat from the shoulder of which the epaulette drooped disconsolately. To Anthony the predicament of his friend seemed trivial. He went close to the lantern and by its smoky light examined the little red card.

Signora Bovino

Explains the Past

and

Elucidates the Future,

Casts Horoscopes, and Reads Palms.

Her Art is Invulnerable

on the Fifth Floor

Strada Calypso

Satisfactory Amatory Entertainment on the First.

Underneath was a dainty sketch of a small shepherdess with angel's wings and a ribboned crook. Anthony laughed. He thought of the longitude machine on the roof at Signora Bovino's. Well, he would take care not to waken Mr. Williams. Doubtless he would be taking the moon. Let him. His pupil would have a different use for it tonight "on the first floor." A recklessness and warmth intoxicated the boy as he stood looking at the card. It was his first adventure— all his own. A faint haze came between the card and his eyes. He felt suddenly competent, by "the art of Madame Bovino," to foretell the immediate future. He grasped Vincent by the arm.

"Come on," he said. "Forget that small trouble." Vincent kept fingering the rent in the coat. "I'll tell you what we'll do. Tomorrow we will take it to a tailor and have two epaulettes sewed on it. You can tell your uncle it is a compliment from his friend the actor who knows what the uniform of a consul ought to be." He linked his arm in Vincent's sweeping him along by his own recklessness. In the moonlight it was as if they were both a little drunk. Anything seemed possible. Vincent felt his friend to be inspired. Recklessness was always the mood most contagious for Vincent.

"I think there might be someone waiting for you, too," whispered Anthony excitedly as they swept along. "I know it!" He had completely taken the lead now. Vincent gave a low whistle. He felt the warmth and tenseness of his friend's arm. The two hastened even faster.

As they turned into the street, of high, narrow houses with flat roofs where Anthony had so often come by day to work out his problems with the stertorous ex-mate, he looked upward by habit. Sure enough, on the house of Signora Bovino the outline of the old sailor could be seen against the skyline "shooting the moon." Anthony cautioned Vincent and they began to walk softly. It would never do to have that enormous voice hail them from the roof. They crossed the street quietly, and keeping close to the wall arrived safely at the door. A few lights glimmered from the lower shutters, but the door was barred and the house was silent. It would not do to arouse the mate by using the bell pull. He would be peering over the parapet instantly. Vincent tapped at the lowest shutter. He was beginning to take the lead again. After another tap it was opened. A white hand came forth. Vincent slipped something into it. "The signora," he said.

"Have you been here before?" asked Anthony feeling indignant.

"No, no, it is always the way, you know," answered his friend offhand while tossing the consul's uniform over his shoulder nonchalantly. "When you see a hand, put something in it." A mischievous smile pre-empted Vincent's lips. "I have a notion to put Uncle Otto's coat on."

"Oh, don't, Vincent, you are in trouble enough with your uncle," whispered Anthony.

Just then the door swung back noiselessly, revealing Signora Bovino in a loose, linen wrapper. She started to laugh, but Anthony put his finger on his lips, and pointed upward. She nodded and beckoned them in.

"So you have come for a lesson in navigation, Meester Adverso. No! What can it be, then ?"

Anthony looked so confused that she laid her hand on his arm. A senile giggle escaped her. "Come, I know. She has told me. Madre Maria! I do not blame you. She is a dear piece, and in the best front chamber. Clean linen! And she will let no one else come up now these two nights since she came. A lady! But your friend here. Is he with you ?"

"Yes, oh, no!" said Anthony seeing what she meant. "I thought perhaps you could ... at least . . ."

"But yes! The whole troupe is staying here. You know, signore, I do not keep a regular house, though." A look of fierce respectability stiffened her. "Only transients. They usually have their own gentlemen." She held up the candle inspecting Vincent. The epaulette caught her eye. She looked pleased. "Ah, of the military I see." Vincent swaggered. "You do not need to be afraid, sir, and hide it. Everything here is of the greatest discretion. I merely tell fortunes." She winked. They went upstairs very quietly. A smell of garlic and perfume permeated the passage. Presently the old woman swung her candle up.

"Her room," she said to Anthony. "Good night, Meester—" she laid her finger on her lips and laughed. In the dying candlelight as she led Vincent down the corridor Anthony could see there was no paint on the panels. Could this be the door to happiness? It was dark now in the hall, but there was moonlight flowing under the threshold. He leaned against the door-post, a lump in his throat. How long it had been! He took a deep breath.

"Angela!"

There was the sound of someone stirring but no answer. Silence. He tapped lightly on the door. The sound of padding feet.

"Who is it?—you?"

He leaned close to the panel whispering, "Arnolfo, Maria, Nicolo, Beatrice, Claudia—Angela Maea." Someone caught her breath. The door opened suddenly. He stumbled forward into the moonlight and found himself in her arms.

"Oh, I thought I had lost you, Angela Maea!"

"Then you did care, you never forgot me," she cried low, clinging to him. "Anthony, how you are trembling! Let me see you," She led him to the window. "Oh, yes, it is you, you. I thought I might never see you again." She looked up at him in the moonlight with a half-doubt and trouble in her face.

"What is it?" he whispered. "Aren't you really glad to see me?"

"I am only half as happy as I expected to be," she said, hiding her face against his shoulder, "I cannot see you for the tears." Her thin night-gown fluttered about her and he wrapped her closer.

They went over to the bed and sat down. She lay back, breathing dreamfully and contentedly with her hands under her head, looking up at him. In the moony twilight of the room it was like a dream to both of them.

"Let me come behind the fountain to you, Angela. I saw you that way once. Did you know? Both of us that way now! There is no one else but you and me now."

"No one," she sighed. "You are all that is left of those days. They are all gone but you, did you know that?" He felt her tears again. "Only Anthony' and Angela.' There is no use saying the other names any more. No one will answer."

"Angela!"

He felt himself overcome by an access of pity for her. It merged into passive tenderness, then into a kind of wild weeping passion for what he did not know, something he felt through her. Presently they were utterly quiet. A deep, pagan peace slowly and surely enveloped them. He closed his eyes.

Down an immense vista as if a poke bonnet had been elongated into a straw telescope he saw the gloomy face of Faith Paleologus looking at him hungrily out of the shadows. It was an immense shock, the reverberations of which echoed through Angela.

"Tell me, tell me! Anthony, what is it?"

He raised his head from her breast. "That woman, Faith! She is here in the room. The night after you left. Angela!" He was crying to her for help. She soothed him, smoothing the disturbing vision away with her soft hands, putting her mouth to his. Her breath permeated him. It was well again. Only Angela could do that, he knew, only Angela. With her he could forget everything. And she was his now, forever. His strength flooded back at the thought. An undisturbed and perfect pleasure of both the inner life and the body perfectly shared, all else forgotten, rest, and comfort as of a divine blessing freely imparted and necessarily given engulfed them both. Outside the moonlight died from the street and slowly paled into day. On the bed the youth and the young girl slept as one in being, their curls and legs tangled together as if they lay on an island beach washed by the ocean of Nirvana. Towards morning he began to dream.

He saw a wave run up a beach, leaving a faint, lacy trace on the sand. Then another, and another. Each destroyed the trace of the one preceding and left its own. All the outlines they left on the sand were different. Yet they were all the same, all pictures of the wave of waves. It went on forever.

Then the noise of the waves merged slowly into the murmur of the leaves on the great plane tree in the court of the convent. He was lying in the pool of that place, looking up into the moonlit branches of the tree. The pigeons were faintly awake. Like the blood murmuring in his ears he could hear their sleepy love-making. He lay and floated, happy in an ecstasy of calm. The waters were troubled no more.

Then in the shadows he saw that both the bronze boy and his lost brother were there. The lost twin had come back! Their limbs seemed to melt into the roots of the tree in a quiescent embrace. The madonna was there, too. She emerged slowly out of the light of the tree. It was the woman of the statue he knew so well, her features and her grace, but much younger, naked. Her hair seemed caught in the net of leaves and of the stars behind them, and the smile on her lips was without sorrow. There was no child in her arms. Slowly she merged herself in the pool. The water rose and he felt himself washed over the brink. But he could still see himself there. He looked down upon himself over the brim as he had when a child. His own utterly happy face came up to meet him as it used to do—the eyes wide with a dream, the hair burning and golden, laughing, dazzling.

He opened his eyes to see the vision better. The sun was streaming in through a chink in the shutter. Angela lay beside him brown and rosy, covered with little glints of the dawn as if the sun were shining on her through the leaves of the great tree. He drew her even more closely to him. She looked at him out of innumerable centuries with his own completely happy smile. For an hour they lay so. Then the noise in the streets began.

Someone in the room below them began to stir. They could hear the mumble of talk, movings around, slaps, small outcries, and laughter. Presently the door banged and a man with heavy boots departed. A bed creaked once again and all was silent. Then there were funny little snores.

They laughed themselves, and began to talk in low voices. How easy it was to talk to Angela, like having thoughts with another self. Half of the things you said were already answered. She asked eagerly about the Casa da Bonnyfeather. He told her all that had happened, also about Faith.

"I knew last night," she said.

The quarrel with Toussaint, Mr. Bonnyfeather, the new friend Vincent, the life about town—^how clear and meaningful it all seemed now as he told it to her.

"But you, Angela, where have you been? Here I have been telling you all about myself." She tossed her curls at him.

"Even you, Anthony. They always do."

"They, who are they?" he asked.

"Men," she said whimsically, "all of them."

It was the first shock of disillusion after the dream. So she had known others before him then! His mouth went hard ...

"But you had Faith," she said.

"No," he replied indignantly, "she had me. I . . ." he stopped, colouring and ashamed. It was true. She drew him down to her again.

"Listen, I will tell you," she whispered. "Do not blame me. 1 loved you. But I thought I would never see you again when we drove through the Porta Pisa that night. You remember! We had not gone five miles before the carriages stopped in a lonely place. It was dark by then. One of the soldiers came back and took all of us children up to the front carriage. They had dragged father out on the grass and he was lying there shivering and singing. Then they began to take out the money bags and divide them up. Mother tried to fight them but they tied her hands behind her back, and a rag around her face. We were too frightened to say anything. She sat by father, rolling her eyes. Some of the soldiers and drivers started to quarrel over the money but the sergeant drew his pistol and made them take what he gave them.

" 'If you come back to Livorno,' the sergeant said, 'you will get this.' He gave Arnolfo a terrible kick and pointed his pistol at mother's head! 'The guards at the gate understand. Do you see!' He threw one small purse in mother's lap. Then he herded us all into one carriage and made that man drive off with us toward Pisa, swearing he would cut our throats if we made a noise.

"After about an hour the new coachman stopped and made us all get out again. He took the small purse from mother that the sergeant had given her. She begged and held up Luigi, but he only laughed. 'Pisa is there, not far,' he said, and whipped up his horses back to Livorno. Father was dead drunk.

"We got mother's hands untied and waited till morning. We started toward Pisa. Arnolfo and I tried to carry father. He became violent. We could see he was not drunk now but out of his mind. He cursed mother for hours. Finally some men with hay carts came along and took us into the market at Pisa. They had to tie father. We arrived at the door of my grandparents weeping, hungry, and without a scudo. They are very poor. My father who still thought he was rich had to be locked in the cellar. A few days later some men with staves and irons came for him. He shrieked and called out. We did not see him again. He is always going to be mad.

"My grandmother went to her priest about it. After a while he told us that word had come back from Livorno that our story wasn't true. It was the governor, I guess. He and the sergeant. We could do nothing and we were very hungry."

Angela put her hands over her face as if to shut out the memory. He saw tears trickle through her fingers.

"There is more yet. Shall I go on?" He nodded. She waited a while before she could begin.

"At Pisa the smallpox came. Luigi, all the younger ones, died. They would not let us leave the house and there was nothing to eat. One goat. After a while we ate her. Big Angela—her loose skin hung around her like rags! Arnolfo got out one night and ran away.

"At last no one but my grandmother and two of the girls were there. One day the old woman took a broom and beat me with it! 'Go out, big girl, and bring us some money,' she said. 'We starve!' I could not give myself to the soldiers. I was afraid. I begged only enough to keep us alive. My grandmother continued to give me many blows. At last one day I was sitting on the steps of the Duomo when Debriille, the singer, came along. I went with him. Do you see how it was ?"

Anthony lay stretched out, going hot and cold. He was dry-eyed now. So it had been that big German with the baritone voice. "I hate him," he said simply.

"Do not. He has been very kind to me. He took me to Milan with him, bought me some clothes, put me on the stage with his company as a flower girl. He taught me to sing. Anthony, I have a lovely voice, they say. I am the shepherdess now. I shall be a great actress some day. The lights, the people! I shall have beautiful clothes, jewels, and see the world. No, he is very good to me, Debriille, he has been like a father."

"Do you love him?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Not like that, you know. He, he is not with me often," she whispered. "I bear him."

"Then you will not marry me, Angela?" he said. He looked at her with a terrified determination and drew her to him.

"Once," she said, "but not now. It is too late."

"But what are you going to do?" he cried.

"I am going on," she said. "Now I have had you, I am going on." A smile of triumph and tenderness lit her face.

He pleaded with her, but she merely turned her head away and closed her eyes. "Come," she said after a while, "lie on my breast again." Thus they strove to forget together.

Later in the morning the signora knocked at their door. She finally put her head inside the room. "Pardon, last night I forgot to bring you the napkins of pleasure. Here they are now. When you dress yourselves come up to my room. There is a charming breakfast there. Your friend, the man with the great voice, has had it brought in. And you are to come, too, Meester Adverso. Ah! how generous is the noble singer to his shepherdess! Yes, I have heard about you both from his lips. It is true love then. You will bring luck to my house.

Come, I will tell your fortunes for nothing. Jesu! how beautiful you are." Her eyes rested on them burning with admiration and regret "Do not be ashamed," she said. "I was young once. Now there is nothing left but the pleasure of the eyes." She closed the door reluctantly and went upstairs sighing.

They lingered for a while but presently from upstairs the full-chested tones of Debriille rolled down to them:

"The dew is on the rose. The birds begin, begin. The milkmaids rise, But where is she, the charm— The charming shepherdess. My morning love?"

And there was something so whole-hearted and good-natured about those tones that they hastened in spite of themselves to rise and dress.

"You will like him, you see if you don't!" said Angela. Anthony shook his head.

"Yes, yes, you will. For my sake anyway, promise!" She pouted and kissed him. They moved toward the door and opened it. A great pencil of sunlight washed down the stairs. The smell of German coffee and frying sausages rolled down to them. They heard a gay laugh and a cork popped loudly in the apartment of Signora Bovino. The colour heightened in her cheeks. They stood for a minute at the threshold. He caught her to him madly.

"Good-bye, Angela, my own Angela Maea. Oh, you do not know how I love you!"

"But where is she, the charm— The charming . . . my morning love ?"

trolled from upstairs. It was from that voice that he would hold her fast forever.

"You do not know."

"But I do, Anthony, dear, I know. I have found out. I love you. I thank the Virgin I found you again. And now we shall always be like this." She flung her arms around him choking, giving him a long kiss. "Boy, mine, dearest always, some time you will know, too."

"But where is she . . ." began the voice again up>stairs.

"Coming, coming, papa mio," she cried; dashed the tears out of her eyes and dragged Anthony over the threshold. The wind banged the door behind them. She ran laughing up the stairs to Debriille.

She had thanked the Virgin. Well, so would he, the beautiful young Virgin without the child who had come to him last night in the dream. To her then! He stretched out his hands to her. A great peace and calm of completion was on him. He could have, or be, no more than that no matter how long he lived. With or without Angela then! He blew a kiss back at the closed door. Then he went up the stairs.

The apartment of Signora Bovino was a great surprise. It was awash with sunlight that fell through a skylight now wide open. Bright, blooming plants waved in the windows and a far door led out onto the roof where there were tubbed flowers. A great yellow cat lay spread-eagled in the sun out there. And there was a table set with a snowy cloth that flapped lazily. In one corner the signora busied herself over a small charcoal stove. In the other sat Vincent looking happy and foolish with a large German girl on his knees. Debriille was doing some dance steps and humming to Angela as she copied him, one foot after the other, daintily. The whole room hailed Anthony with a shout. It was impossible not to accept such a welcome. The last bit of ice left for Debriille thawed under his ardent captivating humour. He clapped Anthony on the back with an undeniable affection.

"You, my prince charming, and your shepherdess have nearly starved us. Didn't you hear me singing to you? In another moment the sausages would have been in flames. Come now, not a minute longer. Herr Nolte, Fraulein . . . ? ahem."

"Anthony, Anthony, it is to be our breakfast," cried Angela, dancing up. "You and I are to sit at the head of the table." Her eyes were still shining like skies after a rain. She led them all out and they sat down. The old woman beaming and grinning, rapidly set the dishes.

"When you have finished, signora, be pleased to sit down with us," Debriille said. "Thou, too, wast once a lady I see." From somewhere in the past she summoned a grand curtsy. They all applauded.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Debriille, pausing and looking around for anybody who might dare to contradict him, "Ladies and gentlemen —This is a kind of impromptu and unofficial wedding breakfast for the charming couple at the head of the table. It is the best under the circumstances," he continued, looking at Anthony significantly, "that we can do. May they always be as happy as they were last night. Always," he added as if by an afterthought—"wherever they are."

They drank with a shout. Over his steaming bowl of coffee Debriille broke into a German love song that clutched them all by the heart. At the second chorus Vincent chimed in, carried away by the sheer, rank sentiment of it.

"One night at least a wandering knight may have, Though disinherited from all the past, And bear the memory of that burning love— And bear that memory with him to the last."

The high, clear voice of Angela trilled in. The boy next to her felt his breath pause as if that moment were too poignant and clear to require an earthly atmosphere to live it.

"And bear that memory with him to the last."

All their voices blent in a long, sentimental, drawn out, dying chord that left them sitting astonished with their own harmony. Indeed, it seemed as if they had not made it themselves. It had been drawn upon an unexpectedly rich account of pleasure, a draft that left happiness undiminished.

Debriille now opened small brown jugs of Asti Spumante that foamed like Normandy cider. It was clearer and lighter than champagne, a noble morning drink, bringing a glow of joy without heat or thirst. Anthony could see by the way he looked at Angela that Debriille loved her; loved her with a kind of fatherly pity as if care of her happiness had been conferred on him as his part in life. Anthony understood now the expression on the actor's face the night before in the dressing-room. It was his greater knowledge and his pity, a wise generosity beyond a purely possessive male instinct that had allowed Debriille to let Angela have her young lover. And this gayety now? It was partly to drown regret, regret that Debriille was not the same age, was not Anthony. And yet there was wine and music and happiness this morning! It was as if Debriille had shared in the joy of the night before by some occult transference. Angela and Anthony would have to take him in. He was there. How strange! How could he have ever imagined an association like this ?

Anthony shook his head. He had possessed her completely, and she him, yet somehow he was going to lose her again. He looked at her now beside him putting a little flower into her hair, joyous and cool. He thought of the young madonna in the dream who had slowly blent herself with the cool water. Perhaps Angela was like that— something that overflowed, that ran away like cool, clear water, a natural thing that one could not possess by clutching with hands. One could only be in it a while and be washed over the brink when it overflowed—and look back upon one's own happy face, glorious like the sun beating across the parapet through the green cool leaves of Signora Bovino's plants. He walked over to them a minute to be alone.

The calm and deep joy of the night before leaving his blood cool and his limbs relaxed in well-being, the present gayety and sunny happiness, the harmony of dear voices searching his soul, the strange premonitory loneliness of the days to come without Angela,—all blent and existed simultaneously within him in a mood so far beyond thought that he stood for a minute like a god among the leaves lost in an indescribable flood of bright, imageless feeling. Then they called him back.

The instinct of aloofness on his part made the occasion become even a little gayer if possible. It was as if the others in order to confirm their own mood became more abandoned so as to take him along. Not the least element of a spectator could be tolerated. Nor was it now hard for them to prevail. Now that he understood it all; had thrust it down past words and argument and resolved it into pure feeling, he let himself go. The wine helped.

Presently he was singing too, whenever he could, with a better voice than he ever had thought he had. After even the professional repertoire of Debriille was exhausted, Vincent's girl proved to be able to make convulsing faces. All the past was forgotten now. Only the present existed. Then Signora Bovino began to tell fortunes.

She cast their horoscopes and they bent breathless over her books and queer charts where zodiacal animals swarmed amid the stars.

"You have an immense fortune in diamonds coming to you," she promised Angela. Debriille would never have any children. He clapped his hand tragically to his forehead. Vincent would be rich but would die poor. A long life but a merry one! A hard dark man with a huge beard was to be the lot of the Fraulein. " 'Kiiche, kochen, und Kinder.' Ach!" The Fraulein sulked. For some reason the signora had left Anthony to the last. She now turned her piercing eyes upon him and began her formula again.

"What day and hour were you born?"

He had sat suddenly frozen when she began to ask the others that. The mood of the morning passed. The wine died in him. A look of embarrassed misery now crept into his features.

"I do not know, signora, I—you see . . ."

He coloured to the brows. In the name of God, who was he?

There was a moment of silence. Then the kindly Debriille stepped in. He sneezed and made them laugh. "Doubtless the illustrious signora," he went on with the tears of the sneeze still in his eyes, "has other methods of foretelling the future."

"Oh, yes, holy saints and angels!" There were other ways. "Yes indeed!"

How much did Debriille know? Anthony wondered. How much had Angela told him ?

The signora opened an old, black box and took out the ancient shoulder blades of sheep, and a black veil embroidered with faded stars. She sat down at the table and throwing the veil over her head began to click the sheep bones mysteriously behind it. An ancient Tuscan chant with gibberish come down from the days of Etruria mumbled from her gums. They looked at her, awed in spite of themselves. The dark veiled head now had the outlines of a sibyl and the power to stir something in them, they knew not what. Click, click, went the bones. A voice began.

"You were born at midnight between a lucky and an unlucky day. I see many ships. A crucifix is speaking. You will see the King of the World and serve him. There is a great fire by night. I cannot make this out. There is a veiled woman, a mountain very far away, a great tree, stars." She threw off the veil and looked at Anthony with interest and surprise. "I am only sure of two things," she said "you will travel far, the earth turned under you; and you must beware of cold steel. You will not always be very happy, my son." She looked at his palm and nodded confirmingly. "Now," she said, "put something in mine."

It occurred to Anthony, as he felt in his pocket, that Signora Bovino might be performing a function which the world could not do without and yet would never acknowledge. One should pay well for that. He would owe her a great memory.

"And bear that memory with him to the last."

The stave seemed to sing itself for him. He gave her his best gold coin. Debriille and Vincent pressed forward. The old woman soon had cause to be pleased and showed it. Seeing her auspicious expression the Fraulein thrust her palm under the signora's nose.

"Have you nothing better to tell me?" she asked wistfully.

A long line extended right across the girl's hand like the hinge of a leather box. Her fingers closed on her wrist like a lid. There were no vertical lines from the wrist. The old woman looked at it.

"Go along with you," she said, throwing the girl's hand aside like an object. "You are not one of us. Your grandfather must have been a Chinaman."

It was true, the whole room burst into laughter. They had not noticed it before, but there was something Mongolian about this girl ; an almond creep to her eyes.

Debriille rose and took his cape. Angela hurriedly got her things together. "The matinee, you know," he said, and held out his hand. Anthony took it and paused. He owed the man much. "Thank you, I know, now. Thank you! Take care of Angela," he whispered.

The man caught both his hands and squeezed them hard. "By God, I will." He went out first.

With a low cry Angela ran across the room and flung her arms about Anthony. For one instant he felt her warm cheek beating against his. He crushed her lips with a cry. Then she had gone.

He was left standing in a universe deserted, alone beyond all sounds, undone. He could see nothing. "Madonna, sweet Mother of God, come to me now!"

As if his inner life were a plant that flourished in the soil of his body he felt it sicken down to the most remote and delicate roots. The nerve tips which are always in motion bathed by the rich liquor of the blood upon which they draw for nourishment and warmth ceased for a moment to move and became numb. He felt them dimly loosen. He grew cold. Then the heart throbbed again overcoming the shock as if by sheer energy. But living was for a little a great misery.

Another aspect of life had confronted Anthony. Existence might be painful! For the first time the thought flashed upon him that escape from it might be a relief. There was a gate out of this. How dark the garden of the world could suddenly become, how scentless the flowers. The clear, sheer joyous morning light was over. What would hot noon be like? Thus the man's soul was first torn loose within him. He stood leaning on the table with one hand. He tottered a little. The figures of things had become confused. A cool sweat burst out just above his eyebrows. He looked ill.

The old woman, mumbling something kindly, thrust him into a chair and gave him a fiery drink. When he could see clearly again the German girl was projected before him just across the table, sitting there with tears in her eyes still looking hopelessly at her palm. Poor soul! Life was sad for her, too! Something had happened to her before she was born. A pity overflowed the boy, warming him again. For the first time he understood what it was to be a simple child, a lost angel caught in a body without hope. A look of understanding passed between them. There was comfort in it.

"Come, come," said Vincent, who did not understand exactly what had happened, but could see that his friend looked white. "If you are ill, I will go home with )^u. It is time to leave anyway, I guess." He picked up his uncle's torn coat. They went out onto the landing. A door opened across the hall.

"Ahoy there," said a voice in a tone that was just now to Anthony ghastly with heartiness. "Do you think you can get away from me like that? I have been listening to you all morning." It was the navigating Mr. Williams. They both stopped helplessly. He came down to them with his sextant in a bag. "I'll go over to the casa with you now," he roared. "We can work out that new way of plotting the longitude this afternoon." He followed them like fate.

"Oh, my God!" said Vincent, "he's coming!"

Anthony felt too far-off to resist. They turned up the street together. The immense voice boomed on, causing cart drivers to stare. It was warm and sticky outside after the cool breezes of the roof.

"I tell you the stars cannot lie . . . they . . ."

Yes, it was true. That was the worst of it. If you could only decide these things for yourself. Then . . . then Debriille would not go off with Angela, for instance. But there was something else, something beyond your own will and desire, that did the deciding. All your plans were as nothing to that. He, Anthony, had felt it at work this morning, fate, something beyond appeal. Things had happened. The little cottage with the garden around it would never rise from Toussaint's old ruin as he had pictured to himself. Never I It would remain a heap of stones.

Toussaint was a fool, a fool! Mentally Anthony took out his grief that now lapsed into anger on that little man. It was foolish and sentimental, he knew. But he had been hurt, sickened. Someone must be at fault. Would that great ass of an ex-mate never stop roaring at him? He was sick of them all. Of every one of them. Of the casa, of Mr. Bonnyfeather, of Faith. Damn her! He couldn't stand her any more. To take his boy's body that night I

"The admiralty is right after all. They will have to agree on a line of longitude and keep one clock to that time. Then you will have another clock that . . ."

"Christ deliver us!"

They turned into the vaulted archway of the Casa da Bonnyfeather. The three pairs of feet echoed hollowly. The bell rang releasing the clerks for luncheon. They streamed across the yard, glad to escape. So would he be, he thought. He was tired of it all, the whole familiar scene. There was no one by the fountain either. Angela! After a while as though at a distance he saw they were all sitting down to lunch. Vincent was trying to be merry as usual. Toussaint was still looking sorry. Mr. Williams rumbled. The old merchant sat more quietly than usual as if there was something troubling him. It all went on. How hot the day was. Suddenly he felt someone's hand under the table laid on his knee. Even through silk it felt cool, but it trembled slightly. With her other hand Faith was fingering a spoon.

"Let me alone," he cried leaping up so that they all stared at him.

"What is it?" said Faith.

"You . . ." He turned and ran to his room.

"Anthony is a bit ill today," said Vincent after an awkward pause, "We had . . . ar, a rather—somewhat of a go last night."

"Does he need a leech, do you think?" asked Mr, Bonnyfeather.

"I'm thinkin' ye can spare yoursel' the expanse," said McNab, looking at Faith. So was Toussaint. For the first time she turned slightly pale.

Once in his room Anthony locked himself in. He paid no attention when Vincent came to the door later. He was dry-eyed now. He wished only to be left alone. He walked up and down. Then at last he cast himself down on the bed before the madonna. Of what good was the outside world ? It intruded upon your own only to give pain. It had taken years, but now, now at last he could open his heart up to the madonna again. She and he were left alone as they had been when he first came there.

Chapter XXII. ICONS AND ICONOCLASTS

IN TIMES of great change it is a question whether the restlessness of the human heart is due more to individual dissatisfaction with experience than to the drag and flux of the age. The two play upon each other, reverberate, and are inextricably intermingled. In this interplay there is no rest to be found anywhere. No adjustment suffices. Few can attain equilibrium. The pendulum of the time is felt trembling at one extreme, high above all heads, and threatening them. Men dash about underneath it like disturbed ants.

Yet every rational being desires a "home" of some kind for body and mind. Men cannot act spasmodically for ever. They finally gather together about some standard bearer and press in some definite direction always labelled "Forward." No matter what the vista ahead may be they must come to some decision at some place, be it a battlefield marked by graves. Here at least is a rest, an end. Perhaps, who knows, a beginning. The normal symptom of such times is the feeling of the approach of war. Usual things, moods, modes, interests, and passions, even lusts, lose their zest. The familiar becomes unreal. Foundations hitherto taken as eternal begin to crumble.

In the last days which Anthony spent in Livorno he was intensely possessed by, if not wholly conscious of, the sensation of something new impending. Remembering it afterwards, his attitudes and actions —which then and for some time later seemed inexplicable—^became plainer to him. He could see that along with the vast majority he had unconsciously temporarily suspended his own will in order to drift with a new tide in the affairs of men. Whither he did not seem to care. It was a relief; easier just to watch and see what would happen to him. Who could expect to direct, control, or even understand so titanic a thing as the European current? The frantic outbreak of gambling in society everywhere, which overflowed into the very streets of the town and obstructed the gutters with card players and dicers, was one expression of this. "Let fate decide." The universe was thrown back to its original state. The Guessippis had been merely some of the first lambs to be shorn. The crowds roared now every night before the lottery. The governor became ridiculously rich and the government bankrupt.

Against this background the patient habits of mercantile industry as a gainful occupation began to appear silly and to disintegrate. Minor firms began to close their doors as if by premonition.

Almost alone, in a scene that was already trembling toward chaos, the sedate Mr. Bonnyfeather continued calmly to hang his hat on the horns of the satyr every morning. The counting house hummed. To some plan, to which he and McNab alone were privy, the store-rooms began to empty themselves. At Nantes, Hamburg, Rotterdam, and London the accounts of "John Bonnyfeather, merchant," began to show snug balances. The grim Captain Bittern came and went with the Unicorn upon mysterious errands under the protecting guns of Nelson's fleet.

Anthony worked over a flood of papers, which seemed to him to have lost all vital interest. He made his eyes and hands do things. He answered and filed mechanically only to escape at noon with Vincent Nolte. Sometimes he looked at Toussaint working beside him. They no longer exchanged anything but necessary words. He too was feeling the electric weather of the time.

The face of Toussaint Clairveaux had become a military and political barometer. As the news of the successes of the French continued to arrive, as he felt the "glorious revolution" approaching, his countenance became more and more radiant. He seemed to have secret sources of information. At the thought of seeing the personification of all his hopes and ideals, the invincible Buonaparte in the streets of Livorno, he glowed with an almost ethereal enthusiasm. Even Faith was temporarily forgotten. He thought he did not care what might become of himself or her when Mr, Bonnyfeather should no longer hang his hat on the horns of the satyr. The new age would have arrived before it was too late.

He looked at the satyr. A small remnant of gilding still glimmered on its horns. It might not be too late after all. Anthony he now regarded as lost. Rousseau, Toussaint now saw, was merely a John the Baptist. The messiah of the age was about to enter Jerusalem in the person of Buonaparte, on a war horse. Anthony had been worshipping Venus. He would not be among the elect. His one favourite pupil! How he yearned over him. "Ah, he had failed there —^that woman again!" He sighed. He longed to talk with Anthony. He was utterly alone.

The French emigres who had settled at Milan and Florence now began to troop through Livorno, lingering a little before going elsewhere. English families came and embarked. Otto Franco did a roaring business. Some of the beaten Austrian battalions hustled onto transports with the grand duke's treasure. The town throbbed with drums. In the night the garrison departed. License revelled by moonlight while the watch tactfully proclaimed that all was well. Provided with letters of marque from Mr. Udney, the Unicorn departed from the now empty quay before the Casa da Bonnyfeather, "bound for Gibraltar." The dray mules were sold at public auction. On the old courtyard a strange silence had fallen. The clerks soon wondered what they were going to do.

It was now that Mr. Bonnyfeather began to employ Anthony on constant trips to Mr. Udney for the execution of various documents. Among these was a copy of his will which had been carefully drawn just before the final departure of the Unicorn. It was witnessed by McNab and Captain Bittern. It was the old merchant's care to register it with both the local and British authorities.

Had Anthony known the contents of the document the sudden renewed cordiality of the British consul might not have caused him so much personal satisfaction as it did. Mr. Udney was a practical man. The prospect of property in a young man's future by no means darkened it for the Englishman. After the will was filed a slight shade of deference crept into his attitude toward Anthony, which, if inexplicable to that young gentleman, was none the less flattering.

He and Vincent had of course long ago availed themselves of the invitation to come to tea at the Udneys'. It was not at the old villa but at the consul's rooms over his case. The flag of England on a staff and the gilded royal arms over the door gave it a certain "dash." Upstairs, due to the participation of the consul in the recent satisfactory condemnations of certain prizes, the apartment was furnished in the latest Parisian style. Amid the heavy travesties of Greece and Rome, shining brass wreaths and republican fasces, Mrs. Udney's old English spinet remained with both the voice and the appearance of a charming ghost. Here, seated on a great "X"-shaped chair that might have supported the bulk of Tully, from a huge urn surmounted by a Roman eagle she poured tea.

It was the first almost English tea that Anthony had seen, or drunk. David Parish, who still remained constant and took Miss Florence driving every day with her mother, passed the gingerbread, Mrs. Udney's specialty after a youthful sojourn in Jamaica. She talked of the island often. It and Nevis were the nicest places in the world. Florence argued for the country about Totnes in Devon while Mr. Udney, consuming bowls of hyson from the bottom of the urn, nodded his approval.

He loved his moors. Please God, he would soon see them again! He was fifty-three and all his teeth were out. It was time Florence was marrying. This chap Parish was attentive enough, good prospects, too. Yet there was something about Anthony that attracted him. Evidently the boy had crept into old Bonnyfeather's heart. To a good tune at that! Unknown origin, of course. But good stuff, look at him. Well, well, things would have to take their own way, he supposed—or his wife's. Unconsciously she and fate had become for him, in his domestic affairs at least, synonymous.

They had never had a son. He had given it up. It made him too tired now. He remembered that day at the villa years ago when Florence had brought Anthony. How the boy had moved his heart— and that priest's, poor fellow! They had both done well by the boy. It was those secret impulses that counted. They shaped the world; made plans. He looked at Florence talking to Anthony with a mixture of pride and happiness. Oh, well, let her have a son. He turned to his wife. "My dear, another cup of tea, from the lees, strong."

"Why, Mr. Udney, since when did you start to take it off the lees?"

"A long time since," he replied firmly with the immense capacity for self-pity of the older male in his voice.

Florence was all of girlhood that Anthony had missed. The kind of person from the kind of family that he felt somehow he belonged to and had been robbed of. How easy it was to talk to her. It was something like talking that night to Angela but less intense, more assured, more casually satisfactory. Her frocks were so fashionable— neat and clean, not like Angela's—softly unusual he thought. She was wearing a white, high-waisted gown of the new Greek cut with a cross-ribbon binding in her waist under her breasts. There were little ribboned puffs on the sleeves which covered her arms just halfway to the elbow. She was not too plump any more. Long, and slim, and cool with firm legs. Those white sandals! One could see her pink toes through the thin net stockings and straps.

Florence was "Miss Udney," too. Someone to be proud of knowing. One's equal—or more? A new, a right, and a nice experience, safe from the dark magic of Faith. His kind!

In addition, unbelievable as it might seem. Miss Udney had eyes, nose, and lips. And it was probable that she continued under her dress. But he did not care to think of that just now. She used a faint violet perfume. From her emanated a fragrant coolness as of a lush spot about a thawing spring in early April. It was that which caused him to lean near her and to talk in a hushed way. And it was difficult, he felt, for both of them not to keep on looking at each other's eyes. Parish evidently did not care much for this. He kept passing the gingerbread a little too frequently.

They talked of England, mostly. Florence had been home to school for several years since she had seen Anthony. Her description of Devon made him "homesick." He felt the same way about Florence's country as Mr. Bonnyfeather felt about the valley of the Moselle. It was dreamland and Utopia, only real. England was on the map. He and Florence were often there together, alone. It was a comfort to know that Angela could not come there. No one could disturb them as they played under the huge stones of the bridge at Post Bridge, or looked for white heather where the moor ponies fed above Widdecombe and watched the rabbits playing about the tors. Florence was more graphic than she knew. He could see it all. Together they lingered over it in conversational dreams. Florence found it pleasant and effortless to talk with such a listener. With Anthony she talked about what interested her; with Parish about what was supposed to be interesting. She sighed. Yet she had come to make herself like Parish. He was touchingly attentive, generous, and in love. Her mother liked him too, she felt.

Mrs. Udney was secretly a little alarmed now over the arrival of Anthony. She almost wished she had not brought him around. Parish was getting too restive. She had merely meant to spur him on. He might shy off. She wished Anthony would join in the talk more generally. Finally she would go to the spinet and looking back at them both, touch the chords of "Malbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre." That tune always brought the colour to Anthony's face. He felt a boy again and awkward. Yet it touched a chord of sympathy. Florence remembered, too. So for a good many afternoons it went on.

Vincent had dropped out entirely. The plump, Florentine banker's daughter was more to his mind. She had surrendered to him furtively. Taking tea to Vincent now seemed a waste of time. Anthony had gone to the Strozzi's once or twice, too. He found Mile, de Rhan quite intriguing. But she had soon gone back to Nantes. He had promised to write and he did so once. Vincent's intimate details about Maddalena began to revolt him. One did not care to think of Vincent that way. There was something between the pig and the rabbit about the German. He was kin to Arnolfo, Anthony thought. Smooth! He remembered the big blonde at Signora Bovino's crying. So they saw less of each other. Vincent was troubled about this separation. What had happened ?—he wondered. He intended to speak to Anthony about it.

But upon all this stirring about of tea leaves In cups, and drifting of rose petals in casual breezes blew the strong wind of war.

One afternoon Florence had seemed particularly gay and attractive. Her face shone from some inner excitement. Mrs. Udney had been careful to thump the spinet more than usual. She gathered them all around her and made them sing. As Anthony left Mr. Udney entered suddenly and beckoned to him.

"Give this to your guardian," he said. It was a sealed letter. "Be sure not to forget," he called. "It is urgently important, hurry home !''

That was the last Saturday of June 1796 when Mr. Udney's letter apparently began to act as a solvent on the world which Anthony had known as "Livorno" and the "Casa da Bonnyfeather."

Mr. Bonnyfeather opened the letter with his carving knife when Anthony came in late to supper. "As I expected," he muttered. He sent the waiter out and leaned forward a little pale. McNab, Toussaint, Faith, and Anthony sat waiting,

"The French are at Florence, the consul informs me," he finally said. "Buonaparte will certainly be here by Tuesday if not sooner. That gives us about forty-eight hours to close this factory." He paused painfully. The happy excitement on the face of Toussaint died out. They were all looking at the old merchant with pity now. A slight flush tinged his high cheek bones as he went on.

"Not a word of this to anyone. I shall want you, Mr, McNab, Toussaint, and Anthony, with me in my own quarters tonight. The clerks must all be gone by Monday. Everyone—but those present," said Mr. Bonnyfeather. "Keep the cook and one porter. Make your arrangements accordingly, Faith, and no delay."

They ate hurriedly.

"May I tell Vincent and the Franks ?" asked Anthony as they rose.

"That is well thought of. They should know," said Mr. Bonnyfeather. "But hurry back." The Franks were enormously grateful for the tip.

By the time Anthony returned the lights were burning in the old merchant's room. Piles of papers and cash bags were on the table with McNab and Toussaint hard at work. They made out a discharge and a letter of recommendation for each employee, counted out the total due each clerk plus a quarter's pay, and made a pile of the coin. Mr. Bonnyfeather answered any queries while he burned correspondence steadily. They worked all night.

Early next morning rioting broke out in the piazza. The lottery was closed and the money gone. Rumours of the French advance flew about. The town throbbed. At noon the British fleet anchored off the molo under Commodore Nelson, Save for the now frantic activity of English departure along the docks of the Darsena the town lay quiet under the British guns. In the court of the Casa da Bonnyfeather all hands gathered after lunch looking rather glum. Mr. Bonnyfeather appeared on the steps. The little crowd below him uncovered. He began haltingly but then went on gallantly enough.

"Gentlemen, Buonaparte will be in this town in a few hours. Although England and France have quarrelled for purely spiritual reasons, all British property will undoubtedly be confiscated. Trade is at an end. The gates of this establishment will never be opened again in my time for business. The Casa da Bonnyfeather has ceased to exist. I have retired," He paused with all eyes upon him.

"I have not forgot any of you. You will receive immediately from Mr. McNab your full pay plus a quarter's salary gratis, also letters of recommendation to other mercantile firms, and your passports. Those of you who are British subjects had best go aboard the fleet tonight. Do not on any pretext delay. There are many things I would say now but cannot. This sudden decision is due to the act of a tyrant who comes proclaiming liberty. I have done all I can for you who have served me faithfully. Receive my thanks, and may God be with you!"

There was a moment's dead silence. Then the English gave a cheer. There was a rush to pack belongings. In a few hours the place was as quiet as the courtyard of a ruined castle. Outside only the slap of a brush on the front of the establishment as a sailor white-washed carefully over the legend "Casa da Bonnyfeather" disturbed the silence of its now deserted quay. Mr. Bonnyfeather beckoned to Anthony. They went up on the roof and hauled down both the flags together.

"My son," said he with emotion as they locked them in the chest, "if anyone ever raises them again it must be you." He snapped the lock. Anthony stood by feeling a lump in his throat.

"And what shall we do now?" he asked.

"I shall talk about that with you later," the old man replied. "Just now—" He broke off and went to his room.

For some moments Anthony stood there. The past seemed locked in the chest. Then he remembered the present and hastened over to the Udneys'. The consulate downstairs was in an uproar but Mrs. Udney, Florence, and Parish were upstairs.

"Oh, I am so glad you came," Florence cried. "We are leaving tomorrow with the fleet." She checked herself suddenly colouring to the eyes. "I did want to say good-bye, you know."

Of course, they would be going! He knew that, and yet until the last moment he had hoped not. How much he had hoped he was aware of only now as he looked at her standing so near him. So Florence was going away, too.

"All the world is going away!" he blurted out looking miserable and depressed before he could recollect himself. "I wish you were staying. Is it England?"

Her eyes suffused with tears. "No," she said, "Rotterdam!"

"Rotterdam!" he mumbled.

"I think you had better tell Mr. Adverse, my dear," broke in her mother. "Florence, don't turn your back on us that way. It isn't polite."

"Good-bye," said the lips of Florence to Anthony though no sound was heard. When she turned to her mother and Parish she was gay again with bright colour in her cheeks.

"Isn't she a little goose about it, David?" said Mrs. Udney. "Florence wants to tell you, Anthony, that she and Mr. Parish are engaged. It will be announced shortly." She looked at him keenly. But his face did not change now.

"Rather wooden," thought Mrs. Udney.

"I hope you will like Rotterdam as well as Totnes, Miss Florence," he managed to say.

"Believe me, she will," said Parish sitting down beside her with the air of a proprietor. "It is a fine town with lots of English and Scotch merchants."

Anthony nodded. He sat on his chair with his knees straight out before him and drank his tea alone. For the life of him he could not think of anything to say. He felt unaccountably sad. Parish talked on confidently. As soon as he could Anthony bade them all good-bye. On the way down he met Mr. Udney coming up. Anthony was surprised by the heartiness of his good-bye. "Good luck, my boy, write us. I want to hear from you!" He caught him by the arm as if to keep him.

"Mr. Udney, I have a great deal to thank you for. I ... I shall miss you sadly. It will be very lonely . . . with all the English gone . . . very . . . I "

"Cheer up, my boy, we English always come back, you know. You are staying on with your guardian I suppose?"

"No, I am leaving!" said Anthony, and looked shocked. It seemed as if someone else had made the decision. But he was sure of it, sure!

"Hadn't you better consider your . . ." began the consul.

"No, sir, I am leaving Livorno!" He flung out of the door.

"Humph!" said Mr. Udney and went upstairs to his wife, who was alone now.

"Our young friend seems to be badly cut up over the recent trend of events here."

"Does he ?" she said doubtfully.

"Yes, he is going to leave. I should think he would stay on and look after Mr. Bonnyfeather's interests—and his own."

"His own?" She put down the teacup.

"Yes, didn't you know he is Bonnyfeather's heir?"

"Henry!" she cried. "Why didn't you tell me? Oh, you . . . you old fool!"

She turned and began to play violently on the spinet.

"Well, I'll be damned!" muttered Mr. Udney.

Just as Anthony turned the corner of the street the strains of "Malbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre" reached him faintly like an echo from a past life. He winced and clenched his fist. Mrs. Udney might have spared him that. That settled it. He was going.

With a heave of his shoulders as if he had cast off a load, he raced to Otto Frank's. They had a merry supper there. That night they watched the post-chaises and carriages dashing away southward. Everybody, everybody was going.

About one o'clock there was a ringing bugle call at the Porta Pisa. A few minutes later the high, clear, thrilling strain burst out at the end of the long street. Down the Strada Ferdinanda with a clicking of sabres, sparks streaming from under their horses' hoofs, and the wind whipping in their pennons streamed a squadron of French cavalry. The old days were done. Only the English finished loading goods under the guns of the fleet.

In the great hall of the mayoralty the French major swore. Cavalry was no good on the sea. That had not occurred to the major before. He was a cavalryman. He could do nothing to stop the British. But he began to arrest people right and left as a relief to his own feelings and as a proof of his zeal.

Uncle Otto was led off protesting, in his uniform coat despite the two epaulettes now sewed on it. Thus was the neutrality of Hamburg wantonly outraged. With many other important merchants of Livorno Uncle Otto spent a miserable night locked up in an old banquet hall at the mayoralty. But on the lists of merchants taxable, which the French officer conveniently used for arrests, the name of John Bonnyfeather no longer appeared. He had retired and was now listed as "widower tenant of the Marquis da Vincitata, age 76, one female housekeeper, and four servants." The French were not arresting "widower tenants." Mr. Bonnyfeather slept at home.

He and Anthony lingered long over their breakfast next morning. It was pleasant in the cool of the summer morning with the great door wide open, with the long shadows in the court and the murmur of the fountain now plainly audible in the strange quiet. Everyone but him and Anthony had left earlier to watch for the aVrival of the main body of the French.

Mr. Bonnyfeather was pleased to find himself contented and relieved at having "retired." He would never have been able to do so himself without the aid of circumstances. He would have died in harness. Now he would have the beds in the court planted with flowers, keep a carriage and pair and drive out when the French departed. He would rest his soul and die in peace here. He had plenty, well secured. He would have in a few old friends to very, very special little dinners and play chess. Ah, he had never permitted himself the time for that. He must get out his notes on combinations again. McNab and Toussaint could stay on a little and look after the few loose ends of things that remained, discreetly of course. The faintest premonitions of physical and spiritual lethargy were pleasant this first, lovely summer morning of his retirement. He relaxed, stretching, with his feet under the table and musing. A rooster in the old mule stables crowed dreamfully. Mr. Bonnyfeather looked at Anthony.

The lad was musing, too, but with a troubled face. "What a strong, lithe, young blade he had grown to be," thought the old man. "And how much, how much he still looked like Maria! Ah, he would forget that now, it was long ago. Let the dead bury their dead." He started. With his business gone this youth was the only vital concern he still had. Well, he would not have to conceal that any longer, now that he was alone. He put his hand gently on Anthony's.

"You look troubled, my son."

"Yes," said Anthony looking up with the expression of frank affection and confidence that had long been customary between them in privacy, "I am greatly troubled. I do not seem to be able to find any comfort anywhere."

"At your age I was restless, too. It is in the blood."

"No, it is not exactly that. I hardly know how to begin to tell you. I have been thinking ... I have been troubled by things that have been happening to me. I do not know just what I should do, where I should go. You see ..."

"If it is about the future you need not be greatly troubled about that. I have made sure provision for you there, and in the meanwhile. This has been your home since . . ."

"Do you know anything before that?" Anthony asked by an impulse he could no longer restrain. "Who am I, where did I come from? I do not even know my birthday! My father!"

The old man withdrew his hand suddenly.

"Oh, do not think me ungrateful, please, sir, do not think It. It can never be told you in words what I feel. I know I was a miserable orphan, a— You have been my father. I have read those convent records, the day I got my last name, you remember. But is that all? Don't you know—anything?" His voice trailed off. Mr. Bonnyfeather sat looking into the distance.

"I have been thinking about it a great deal lately," Anthony plunged on. "I didn't used to, but now lately. I will tell you why."

Before he knew it he had plunged into the story of the horoscope at Signora Bovino's, the whole story of Angela, the loss of Florence, his decision to leave Livorno, even the quarrel with Toussaint. The world seemed crumbling about him. If he did not know who he was be must go out and become somebody. He even spoke of his comfort in the madonna that seemed to link him with a past. "To give me some roots as if I had not just happened, been an original creation. I have never told anybody all this. No one, only you. I needed to tell you. Don't you see? That is all. There is nobody else who would understand me, man or woman." He then remembered Faith and stopped.

How did he instinctively know that she would understand ? He had not thought of that before. The thought reminded him that he not only disliked her but feared her. She knew, evilly! No, he could not speak to her, or of her. No one should ever know about that, only himself and the madonna. Toussaint! Too many knew already. He looked at the old man anxiously. What they saw in each other's faces now made them both pale.

Mr. Bonnyfeather leaned forward, pondering long. At last he spoke.

"I will show you something," said he. Then after another long pause—"but you must promise me on the honour of your soul, as a gentleman—you must know what I mean by that now—never to ask me any more questions or to try to inquire further. Nay, I must ask you something more, for my own sake. If you are grateful to me and love my honour, do not, even if in the future you should accidentally find out more than I can tell you, permit your discovery to be known. Keep it close. Die with it safe." An expression of fiery pride, that for a few seconds made Mr. Bonnyfeather look years younger, quickened him.

"Will honour be equal to the fundamental curiosity I have aroused? Do you understand what you promise, Anthony? Give me your hand." They looked at each other steadily.

"I promise you," said Anthony.

"Come," said the old merchant, and rising from the table he gravely led the way to his room.

Under the picture of the exiled James he opened the little casket with some difficulty. It was years now since he had looked there, he reflected. In fact not since that night when Anthony had been brought to him. He took out the miniature of his daughter and holding it cupped in his hands looked at it again. It was almost like having her come back from the dead. A tremor shook him.

Whatever might come now, he reflected, he had protected her memory. Even her son, if son of hers he was, should never know, should never try to find out. Perhaps it was a cruel promise to exact from the boy, but he had exacted it of himself, and kept his promise even in secret thought. The Bonnyfeathers had preferred ruin to disloyalty, always. This boy— The boy owed him much. This should be the price, the test of loyal gratitude. And he had tried to teach him what "honour" was—the honour of a Bonnyfeather.

He gazed with avid eyes on the face of his child and bowed to kiss the picture as sometimes in the night, when he knelt by the dying ashes of his fire, he kissed the crucifix. And by the rigid code of his feudal soul he had no doubt but that he was doing right, now, and to the past. The name of Bonnyfeather was going out. Let it die in honour—and rest. He turned with his icon in his hand.

"My son," he said, "come here. I am putting our honour in your hands."

He laid the picture in Anthony's palms.

"I believe," said he, "that she was your mother. I am not certain, but I think so. That is all I can say."

Looking up at him from the locket Anthony beheld the same face that he had seen reflected from the fountain of his dreams. It seemed to him as if he were peering down again as a child upon his other self. It was the same face that had gazed back at him that night with Angela when the young madonna came to bathe in the pool, his own face, and yet more lovely, tender and hazily radiant. That was the way his soul thought of itself, if the world would only let it be. As if a shadow had fallen on the water the image glimmered away from him still laughing innocently through his tears.

"Mother, beautiful mother. I know what I am like now. Let me not forget."

It was for that reason that he did not turn with an inevitable and instinctive, "Who was she?" on his lips, despite his promise. It seemed to him that he already knew her as he knew himself.

He gave the picture back again, silently.

"Wait for me outside," said Mr. Bonnyfeather. "I wish to be alone for a little."

From the ashes he began to rake together a few bits of unconsumed branches to make a small fire. Presently by the aid of the bellows the coals became white hot. He did not look at the picture again. "Farewell, Maria, may it be soon." He stooped low and half closed his eyes. The bellows sighed; the gold melted.

When Mr. Bonnyfeather returned to the old ballroom the only material likeness of Maria which existed was that which was still traceable to a knowing eye in Anthony's face. The eyes which could best trace it there were already growing dim.

"So much for the past," said the old gentleman gallantly. "Have I answered your question?"

"You have given me your best gift, I know it," said Anthony. Mr. Bonnyfeather felt his old blood warm him again.

"That was understandingly said, I think," he replied. "I am repaid. We are even! In the future you will remember that whatever you may do for me will be in your own interest as well. Do you understand me?"

"It has always been so before, sir!"

"It is a little more certain now." Yet some shreds of his long reticence were so firmly rooted in precaution that Mr. Bonnyfeather could not bring himself to mention his will. He preferred to delegate the bald mention of it to another.

"Ahem ... if I were you I would not let these youthful love affairs make me melancholy," he went on. "It is very seldom that one finds happiness that way. Our loves are both our joy and our undoing. Remember, it is that way life is evoked, and life is both happy and full of sorrow. In youth we think only of the pleasure. I did. I was undeceived. Do not think that these first light shades can darken your soul. You are restless, too. The times are disturbed. I have thought of that. You need to change this place for another, to go out and prove yourself on the world."

"I should not care to go to England, to college, just now," said Anthony—thinking that Florence would not be there.

"No, I have thought of a better school than that for you. I mean the age itself. Also I need you now. It so happens that you are the only one left who may be able to carry out a certain plan of mine successfully. Neither McNab nor Toussaint will do. It is the collection of a large sum of money long due me, about nine thousand pounds. It will take you to Cuba. What do you think ?"

Anthony leaned forward too eagerly to permit his interest to be doubted.

"It is like this," continued the merchant, "you may have noticed from our Spanish correspondence that with the firm of Don Carlos Gallego & Son in Havana we have long had extensive dealings. Owing to the nature of our transactions, which was somewhat peculiar, their payments have been in kind as well as in cash. We would ship them, for instance, cargoes of brass wire, calicoes, toys, millinery, Brummagem muskets, chain shot and handcuffs, together with horse-beans, German beads, Manchester cottons, gewgaws, and kegs of Austrian thalers coined under Maria Theresa. It is that last item in particular which has been costly. Such things, you are aware, are eventually destined for trade in Africa, and there can be no doubt but that the firm of Gallego conducts slave operations, both hunting and selling, on a large scale. They in their turn send us cargoes of palm oil, ivory, various fine woods, and so forth. They also remit at various times bills to our credit. Thus, although we were forced to extend a large credit to these people and to carry them for long terms, the profits in the end were so high as to warrant even the risk of the loss of an entire cargo by pirates or guarda costas.

"As matters now stand it so happens that we have in the last three years shipped them three cargoes and received only one in return. A debt of an unusual amount is therefore due us, the largest remaining on our books. With the disturbed conditions now existing on the high seas, and this port in the hands of the French, it will be impossible for the Gallegos to ship us any more ivory. We must collect from them in cash or by bills on France or Spain, or not at all.

"Furthermore, for over a year we have had no answer to our correspondence, although I know our letters were delivered at Havana. The old Señor Gallego is honest by long proof. He is very old, and it is possible that he may have lately died. Of his son I know nothing, nor of the present condition of the firm. There is no way at present in Havana to collect this large debt legally. Spain forbids all direct trade with her colonies. Everything, therefore, depends on the attitude of the colonial officials, frankly upon our finesse in bribery, if we are to realize even our own outlay. You will therefore have to act as a private diplomat on a ticklish mission rather than as an aggrieved creditor. But you speak and write Spanish, you have been instructed carefully in the ways of trade according to my own plans, and I think I do not flatter myself in having confidence in your intelligence, ability, and eventual success. A reasonable accommodation would do. I should expect to dispatch you with funds, and letters to my agent in Havana. He is an Italian, one Carlo Cibo, amply capable of instructing you in all the villainous indirections necessary to conduct honest business in a Spanish colonial capital. The temptations of the place are said to be curious—" Mr. Bonnyfeather then added as if by afterthought, raising his eyebrows and twinkling—"something like Livorno it would seem. Do you care to hazard yourself in the enterprise?"

"It will be a dream coming true, sir. I could not imagine anything more to my mind."

"Perhaps?" said the old man. "Well, well, prepare yourself for the journey. Consult McNab about what you will take. He knows Havana from old times. We shall take the first opportunity of getting you off. A neutral ship would be best now if one happens along. The neutrals will profit by these troubles. But we shall see. Here comes your friend Vincent bubbling with news."

Vincent was indeed afire with excitement. The French were entering the town in full force now.

"They expect Buonaparte directly. I thought you might both like to come over and watch from our windows when he arrived. Uncle Otto has been released but he has been badly scared and is in bed."

Mr. Bonnyfeather would not go, however.

"I shall not go so far as to imitate your uncle but it will be wisest for me to stay here. You go, Anthony." He waved them out and remained sitting in his chair while Vincent and Anthony hastened to Otto Franco's. The streets and the piazza were thronged.

Mr. Bonnyfeather took a book from the sleeve of his wadded dressing gown and began to read.

Britannia Rediviva

A Poem on the Birth of the Prince, Born on the tenth of June, 1688.

How different it would have been for John Bonnyfeather, for instance, if that prince had reigned. The old Jacobite, a compound of feudal sentimentality and commercial acumen, read on, allowing his dreams of what might have been to warm his heart with ghostly comfort in the silence of the deserted house. Suddenly the pomp of the courtly verse seemed to take on for him a peculiarly personal meaning. A good omen for Anthony's voyage, he thought, a light on the past. He lingered over the lines:

Departing spring could only stay to shed Her blooming beauties on her genial bed. But left the manly Summer in her stead, With timely fruit the longing land to cheer, And to fulfil the promise of the year. Betwixt the seasons came the auspicious heir, This age to blossom, and the next to bear.

Well, he had seen the blossom. And he would not have to bear the next age. Thanks to the Virgin that would rest on other, younger shoulders! "Anthony, my son, my son."

The thunder of the cannon of the departing British fleet saluting the Tuscan flag still flying on the castle startled him and made him drop Dryden to the floor. So they were going! All safe. The pulse of the French drums could be heard answering coming through the Porta Pisa.

Half an hour later there was a roar from the crowd. The tricolour had taken the place of the grand duke's ensign. But John Bonnyfeather had not heard that. He was sleeping peacefully an old man's nap in the afternoon sun. Only the echoes of the outside world whispered in the Casa da Bonnyfeather. On the shadowed wall behind the merchant a faded Sisyphus was trying to roll a huge rock up an impossible hill while various imps were laughing at him. About two o'clock the gate clicked and Faith came stealthily across the court in her bonnet. She looked down at the old merchant sardonically, smiled, and passed on to her room noiselessly.

Meanwhile from the upper windows of the Casa da Franco Anthony, Vincent, Toussaint, and the Franks, with the exception of Uncle Otto, were watching the arrival of the French. When the castle was seized Governor Spanocchi had been found there and was now brought to the mayoralty at his own urgent request under guard. The crowd howled at him for its lottery money, which he was shrewdly enough thought to have shipped off with the town treasure chests. About two o'clock the cannon from the castle were heard firing vainly at a few English ships just steering out of the roads.

Shortly afterwards a column of French cavalry came galloping down the Strada Ferdinanda with a magnificent horseman at their head. He was at first taken for General Buonaparte and was cheered by a radical mob. It was Murat. He dismounted and began to arrange a fitting reception for the conqueror.

The governor and his staff were forced to get into gala uniform. The various foreign consuls were assembled. Uncle Otto was made to get out of bed and put on his official coat. His pallor was extreme. It took a great deal of beer and the reassurances of both Vincent and Anthony to get him across the narrow street. Amid the crestfallen group of city officials and important merchants dragged out for the occasion and standing uneasily on the steps of the mayoralty just opposite, his shoulders sloped most disconsolately. His nephew waved to him from the window, but in vain.

As usual with all military occasions an interminable delay now took place. The crowd grew restive, insolent, and was squeezed against the walls by the French horses for its trouble. Cries and curses arose, the screams of a child. Presently a little girl was carried away gasping and moaning. She had been trampled by a horse. Toussaint looked down pale and shocked. He could not bear the noise the child had made. Just then the police knocked at the door ordering every house to illuminate that night. "Liberty" had officially arrived. One must rejoice now or go to prison.

Anthony laughed and began to quote Rousseau at Toussaint. Then he was ashamed of himself for his thoughtless cruelty. The face of his old tutor was haggard with disappointment. For the first time in months Anthony took him by the hand and with quiet remorse begged his pardon. He could see that it was a real crisis for the idealistic little Frenchman,

"Toussaint, mon maitre, you who were so sweet to me when I was a little boy—^how could I be so cruel! Do you not know I love you ? What has just happened, do not think of it. The child! It was a cruel accident. The hero is yet to arrive. Be yourself, a philosopher as always."

The little man looked up at him with so great a thankfulness in his face as to touch Anthony infinitely. He could never forget that bland, sweet look. How foolish their misunderstanding had been. About what? About Faith!

"You forgive me that blow, then, mon vieux?" Toussaint asked.

Anthony reached over and rumpled the short curls on the little man's head.

"There," he said, "an insult for an insult! Now we are even." They walked back to the window again arm in arm.

The drums in the piazza had begun to roll. A sharp command could be heard. As they looked out together a thousand sabres flashed out as one. In the late afternoon sunlight it seemed as if the arrival of Jove were being announced by a steel lightning and thunder. A noise of galloping horses and wheels was heard in the distance. The world craned its neck.

Down the Strada Ferdinanda a plain carriage drawn by grey horses and followed by a few mud-splashed guards careened into sight. It was moving at great speed. A small, hatless, pale man with his lank hair blowing in the wind was leaning back in the middle of the rear seat reading a book. He paid no attention whatever to the roars of the crowd. As the carriage turned into the piazza the heavy, rear artillery wheels with which it had been fitted described a quarter circle on the cobbles, grating hideously. The man in the carriage sat up at the same instant and tossed his book out into the street. Some urchins scrambled for a treatise on ballistics which fluttered and fell among them like a hurt butterfly. Another flash of lightning, the sabres came to salute. The carriage stopped with a jerk before the mayoralty.

The pale young man, who now seemed as he sat bolt upright to occupy not only the entire carriage but the piazza as well, put on his hat and saluted. Flash, flash, and the sabres grated back in their scabbards. The men sat at attention like ragged, equestrian statues with bronze faces. Murat came down the steps to meet Buonaparte.

"Well, general," said a high clear voice which would have been feminine had it not been so crisp and accusatory. "So you were too late!"

"The ships had already gone, mon general . . ." began Murat when he was cut short.

From the carriage an accusatory finger pointed at the group on the steps. It was fixed on Uncle Otto.

"Is that an English uniform I see?"

"No, padrone," moaned the terrified little German. "No! Questa e I'uniforma di Amburgo!"

Even the troopers grinned with their general. "Padrone!"

"Hamburg" said Buonaparte as if he had already abolished the place, and got out of the carriage. He ran up the steps and took the governor's sword which was held out to him like a bodkin.

"I shall expect you to provide my troops with ration, fodder, clothing and shoes, especially shoes," shouted the little man looking at Spanocchi like a small eagle. "That is what you exist for now. See to it that the requisitions are filled."

"The dearth is extreme, Highess," faltered the poor man used only to addressing Austrian superiors. "The prices . . ."

"Tut, tut! Omelettes are inflated due to the extreme scarcity of eggs. You talk like a merchant, now go! Hullin," said he turning to a tall major of grenadiers, "I appoint you city major. Comb out the place. Do not be such a simpleton as you were at Pisa. If they have let the English go, make them pay. Money! Take the shoes off their feet. Court-martial the governor. Act as if you were taking the Bastille again."

He swept his eyes about the piazza as though noting who was there to see and hear. For ten seconds or more he seemed to be looking directly into the Franks' window at Anthony and at Toussaint whose face worked with emotion. He whispered something to Hullin, who glanced up and shook his head.

"A fine welcome you give me here," he continued turning now on the quaking merchants. From the window across the narrow street Anthony and Vincent could see him clearly and hear every word. His voice rose to a high pitch.

"Do not doubt it. I shall give the English a final lesson. I march on Vienna and then northwards. Hamburg, every hiding place of these water rats shall be ferreted out, swept clean. Then their island next." He beat his left leg with his gauntlets. The leg trembled. Livorno was a bitter disappointment. He had seen the sails of Nelson glimmering away as he entered. Beckoning to an adjutant he reseated himself in the carriage.

To Toussaint it seemed as if Buonaparte had turned on the crowd the unseeing glance of a mummy. There was no speculation in those eyes. Only dull flashes as from the fires of Stromboli over the horizon at night. He was pallid, yellow. His long, sleek, jet-black hair dangled around his face like the locks of a Seminole Indian threading the swamp. He sat there diminutive, youthful, in a worn simple uniform with gloom on his brow.

"No light," thought Toussaint. "Bon Dieu! no light!"

The sabres flashed only lightning once more. Hullin stood on the carriage steps in an attitude of profound respect listening to some last muttered admonitions. Then as suddenly as he had come, and with the same ominous rumble of wheels, Buonaparte was gone.

To Anthony looking down from the window, watching all this, there had come that inexplicable feeling that his own fate had somehow been laid in the hands of the little man whom he had watched getting in and out of his carriage. How and why? Out of what immense ramifications of events had the threads of his own existence been laid in those hands ? One thin thread to be sure, but it was bound up and woven into that thick rope of Europe, those millions of other gossamers tangled into a strong strand by which the world was to be towed along for a while; towed out of stagnant waters into new.

It was a curious thing, but of all the thousands of eyes that had looked on Buonaparte that day in Livorno there was scarcely a pair but took this for granted. For a few moments Anthony had actually watched a section of that strand running through those nervous, white hands. It was a relief to have them gone. He felt as if he had to recapture the skein of his own life again. He did not know where it might lead, but at least he could follow it now himself, even if blindly. "To Havana," Mr. Bonnyfeather said. Anywhere, as long as it led away from Livorno.

For months past all the threads in the town had been warped out of the normal blocks and pulleys through which they ran. All the world now seemed out of gear. His own thread had slipped clear off the familiar pulley where it had been running in what might have become a ceaseless round. Now it flapped free, was hurtling off into the unknown. He was glad of that. It would not be his hands only that would rig it to the tackle of life again. No, there was a strong mysterious drag on it, he felt. He would see the world now. Never could he see enough of it. The void of his first ten years was still deep as a well. One lifetime was not sufficient to fill it. He turned from the window with an unconscious gesture of hail and farewell to find himself in the Franks' room with Toussaint sitting on the sill beside him. The little man sighed.

"It was the gloomy face of a tyrant, Anthony," he said.

Uncle Otto came in trying to recover face and exclaiming "Birbante!" His wife and the little girl and Vincent did their best to soothe him. The small ego of Uncle Otto had met something so cosmic that he looked shattered.

Anthony and Toussaint walked home together, the latter gloomy. But that night at supper Faith began to talk with Toussaint and actually smiled at him. Sunlight burst in upon the little man and shone again from his face. To Anthony there was something sinister about it all. Yet he was surprised to find that much as he disliked Faith he did not care to have her kind to Toussaint. He was enraged with himself at this. What strange unknown depths were in him? Actually he could not tell himself what kind of person he was. What would he do under new circumstances in other worlds? Who and what was he?

He sat half-undressed on the edge of his bed pondering. Now he knew why Mr. Bonnyfeather had said, "God keep you." You did not even know who you were yourself. The face in the miniature came back to him now with comfort. That was what he wanted to be like. Only this morning he had felt he was like that, his mother! Part of him. Who and what was the other part? He wondered. But he could never ask now. His father!

"Father, mother, father, mother," he kept saying the words over again trying to give them some reality, shape, and memory. He was somebody's son. He would some day be a father. Angela might have a child! He had not thought of that. What did it all mean? These human words had always had a sound of prayer about them, still had.

"Mother, son, father—Holy mother," he turned to the Madonna on the wall. The old formulas sprang to his lips full of new meanings. It was a relief to be able to pray that way again! He had not been able to do so for so long. Not until the other day. Whatever he might do he was not to be left alone. The misery, restlessness, and youthful despairs of the past hectic months rushed from his lips in a whispered confession to the Virgin. All doubt had vanished with the blessed relief. Was she not there, on the wall, in heaven, as always! Had she not come to him in his dream with Angela, young and beautiful? He and the Virgin were very old, very old together. He had seen her that night as his soul remembered her, looking back through ancient doors of birth and death made transparent by the light of eternal passion breaking through them. Before, now, and forever, he had seen her merging with the waters at the root of the great tree as he remembered her in the springtime of the world.

"Ah, they called her mother, mother of sorrows. But she was mother of joy as well. Yes, he believed that. She was sitting there now, as always, with the child in her arms. But in the dream there were two of them. The other heavenly twin had come back. Who was he, that lost one ? Was he like Anthony lost for a while on earth ? Was he Anthony ? Anthony who could return to her knees, In dreams ? Ah God! if he could only lay his head on her breast! Be rocked to sleep there as he never had been, forget and forget, already he would forget."

He drew near to her in a dreamful mood in which the life within him seemed to leave his body sitting breathing, while he drew closer to her against the wall. He laid his head there and kneeled looking at her head lost among the stars. Silence and peace and silence. To be and not to think, only to know and feel. Ecstasy.

At last he opened his eyes again and found that he really was kneeling against the wall. By the dim light that burned before her, very dim, except about the little shrine, he seemed to see her now more clearly than ever before. His eyes were wide awake and rested. They were made to peer into far spaces. It was not necessary even to wink. He looked steadily and easily at the statue.

It seemed to him that he saw her there now as the madonna of his dreams, but older, sweeter, with something more tender, more human, the mystic woman of the fountain touched and wafted by some ineffable experience into a being far more beautiful, sympathetic, and divine. And it seemed now to him, too, that for the first time he saw she was holding the child out to him as if he should draw near and touch it. He had been like that once. Was he now? Partly perhaps. The child was her son. Father Xavier had told him the story. Born in the rocky stable amid the oxen under the stars. And there had been more to that story. It was about the babe after he became a man. He had thought very little about that. Perhaps he should think more. Why did she hold him out that way ? Should he really draw near and touch him? He put out his hand. Then he saw that the child was still sleeping on her breast. He dared not awaken him. Not yet. "After a while," he thought. It was as though his lips went on speaking another's words. "After a while when you find him again."

Late in the night he awakened cold. He was still leaning against the wall, but the light had gone out. It was dark now. He slipped, half-dressed as he was, under the covers and slept exhausted. Next morning the room for the first time for months seemed washed with a happy light as he woke.

"There will not be many more mornings here," he thought. How quiet and how home-like it was. He pressed his cheek against the pillow, enjoying it and whistling softly. How wonderful, and after all how happy his days had been here! A light tap sounded on his door.

"Anthony, are you awake yet, my boy?" said the kindly voice of Mr. Bonnyfeather. "Get up and dress yourself. I have news for you."

Anthony smoothed out the dent on the pillow where his head had been and put on his clothes. In the big room they were already at breakfast. The court lay quiet and serene in the morning sun with the shadows withdrawing from it as if by magic.

Chapter XXIII. FAREWELLS AND EPITAPHS

YOUR ship has come in, Anthony," said Mr. Bonnyfeather. "At least I hope it has," he added hastily, smiling at the involuntarily prophetic nature of the remark.

"Nolte sent word this morning. It is an American brig and he and his precious uncle will be taking advantage of this neutral to get rid of some of their anxious travellers. Frau Frank must have had her hands full feeding a dozen or more at once. You and McNab go down and look her over. H it is necessary you might ask her captain to supper tonight. I might persuade him to make your voyage direct. But be careful, arrange everything if you can, yourselves. We do not want to attract notice here just now. So far the French have ignored us. You will have to avoid all clearance papers."

The old man turned to his latest London newspaper which he scanned anxiously. A month ago victory was inevitable, he noted ironically— over his chop.

Anthony and McNab hurried through breakfast and went down to the quay at the lower end of the Darsena. A trim little brig was warped in close to the dock but not into the slip. She had springs on her cables, and running his eye aloft McNab noted that, while to an unprofessional glance the canvas might seem snugly furled, it was stowed so as to be let go if necessary with a run.

Anthony liked the ship. He had never met anything quite like her. She appeared a little more frail and bird-like than any other craft he had seen. From her sharp bows blew back the carved eagle feathers of an Indian chief's head-dress. His hooked nose seemed to snuff the surges. The masts raked aft at a sharp angle and were stayed so tautly that the standing rigging hummed in the morning breeze. Her deck was spotless. Between the two masts was a "long tom" carefully covered with canvas. Aft, the box over the captain's cabin rose above the quarter-deck. Even in port her hatches were battened down. Except for these, and her polished wheel and hooded binnacle, there seemed nothing else on deck.

"All a-tanto and not a soul aboard?" grunted McNab.

They walked down past the brig a little farther, giving their eyes a sailor's treat. The wind whipped the ensign out over the water. It flowed out into the breeze, curling with long tiger streaks. On a blue field a circle of stars seemed whirling about nothing. It was the first time Anthony had seen the Stars and Stripes. Then, just around the corner of the galley, they saw what ever afterwards he thought of as the spirit of the ship.

Seated in a sea-chair lashed to two large wooden half-moons sat rocking contentedly, and with an air of self-possession that only she herself could convey, a prim, bony woman with extraordinarily pointed lips. She was knitting a positively gigantic stocking with the heaviest yarn imaginable, and for every stitch and click of her needles she twisted the extreme tips of her lips. It looked as if she silently whistled. At the distance of a few yards they stood looking at her over the water as at an apparition. On McNab and Anthony she did not bestow a glance. For a while they watched time being destroyed while the stocking grew.

"Ahoy, the brig there," said McNab at last tentatively.

"Ee-lisha," said the woman without missing a stitch and continuing to rock, "Ee-lisha!"

"Comin' on deck," said a deep voice from the cabin with a restraint so abject as to make McNab grin. A red-faced man with an iron-grey beard and cold blue eyes stuck his head through the aft sliding hatch and looked at them.

"Ahoy, the brig," said McNab again.

"Ahoy, the dock there," said the man and glowered. The woman continued to knit. It seemed to Anthony as if they had reached an impasse. McNab cleared his throat.

"If you'll waft us a wee bit o' a skiff, captain," said he, "I'll put that in your lug will belike warm your pocket."

''Ye?'' said the man. "Philly!"

A darky stuck his head out of the galley.

"Fetch the gentlemen."

"The crew are ashore," he bawled. "Ye won't mind having the cook get ye, I hope," he continued, evidently to Anthony, who was dressed like a merchant's clerk.

"Not at all," said Anthony, "if he's a good cook.''

"Best 'tween here and Boston," replied the captain.

"He ain't," said the woman.

The little boat sculled by the negro danced to them over the few yards of harbour.

"It's na miracle the French hae no seized yon brig," said McNab as they were ferried across. "Yon carline wi' her knittin' needles would stand off Buonaparte I'm thinkin'."

WAMPANOAG Providence, R. I. gleamed across the duck-like stern as they passed. They climbed up the dangling ladder and found themselves on deck in the tremendous white light that beat about the rocking chair.

"Good morning, ma'm," said McNab touching his hat, despite himself a little sneakily.

The woman missed one stitch, "Ee-lisha" she said.

"Come below," roared the captain.

At the foot of the ladder they found themselves standing in the most peculiar captain's cabin imaginable. It was neither a ship's cabin nor a New England parlour. It was both. There were four bunks built into the ribs of the ship. Two of these like Dutch beds were provided with folding shutters. The two, round stern windows were curtained with an effeminate lace. Under each of these eyes was a chest painted pure white, labelled respectively "Jane" and "Elisha." Between the two chests the great keel beam of the ship curved out like a nose and widened toward the floor as if it were trying to expand its bolted nostrils.

The effect of all this was to give the aft end of the cabin with its half-curtained eyes the appearance of a peculiarly bestial face trying to be coquettish in a lace night-cap. As he looked at the two chests standing out like white, bared tusks from the cheeks of this sinister countenance, Anthony felt as Red Riding-hood must have when she first began to realize that her grandmother was a wolf.

But if the cabin was sinister toward the stern it made up for it by being safely domestic forward. Lashed to the ship's ribs by a perverse puzzle of beautifully intricate knots was a mahogany sideboard of undoubtedly genteel lineage. Its gracefully curved limbs seemed straining outward. The lady was plainly being held there against her will— facing the wolf. A sturdy, manly sea-desk near by watched this perpetual crisis indifferently. It was stuffed with ship's papers to the point of self-importance and it wore a plume pen in its inkstand hat with an air of "business or nothing."

Anthony and McNab sat down upon two chairs spiked to the deck while the captain seemed to preside from the chest labelled "Elisha."

"Captain Ee-lisha Adonijah Jorham of Providence Plantations, New England," said the red-faced man looking at them with level eyes. "Gentlemen, at yer service. She," he continued jabbing upward with one thumb, "is my wife, Mrs. Jorham. She was a Putnam— once." He lowered his voice slightly.

Having no means of controverting this McNab and Anthony introduced themselves. It was not long before the captain and McNab had taken each other's measure. Yankee had met Scot. Both were interested in each other and fenced carefully. Ten minutes went by and neither had learned anything.

"I'm thinkin'," said McNab, "that the deil will soon be dizzy gangin' aroond the bush. Let's talk till the point."

Captain Elisha opened his chest and took out a bottle of rum. As he did so, as if by prearrangement, his wife came down the ladder and stood knitting. She would not sit down. The captain sighed. Nevertheless, the discussion went on.

After an hour it appeared that the captain would be glad to consider a voyage to Havana on charter terms, provided he was allowed to make certain ports of call on the way. Yes, he knew of course of Mr. Bonnyfeather, and of the conditions at Livorno. On their mutual dislike of the French he and McNab almost clinched the bargain. Then the captain sheered off. He would prefer to sign with Mr. Bonnyfeather himself.

But there were to be no papers, reminded McNab. It would not do now. Mr. Bonnyfeather was no longer in business. It might compromise him. This was to be a purely private affair. Merely to take the young gentleman to Havana. It could all be arranged verbally.

All the more reason then for seeing the merchant personally, said the captain. It was McNab's turn to sigh. Mr. Bonnyfeather, he knew, would not drive so close a bargain as might be. Nevertheless, he was forced to play his last card and invite the captain that night to dinner. In the presence of the lady Anthony thoughtfully added her to the invitation.

"What do you say, Mrs. Jorham?" asked the captain. All realized it was a final appeal.

"I won't mind some shore fixin's—if they're turned out right," she added non-committally. "Ye might send Philadelphy along with that Bank tartle to help out. I'm plum worn our watchin' the critter tryin' to get away."

"Like the sideboard, ma'm?" said Anthony unable to restrain himself. The captain laughed.

"Young man," said she icily, "where might ye be expectin' to spend etarnity?" Her mouth pointed.

"Wall, wall," cried the captain trying to move them out before the threatened gale could break. "At eight then, after dark. I'll mind the patrols. So long now." He looked with an approving but anxious eye at Anthony. The knitting had stopped and his wife was watching.

"I don't care if I do," said McNab pouring himself a drink from the square bottle and tossing it off. "A wee doch-an-dorris, noo . . ."

But no sooner had his hand left the bottle the first time than it was seized by Mrs. Jorham and deposited in the chest marked "Jane." It was the first drop that had passed, and the last for any of them. A parched twinge wrinkled the lips of Captain Elisha, but he waved them out as his wife locked the chest. They went.

"A watched bottle never gurgles," said McNab as they went down the ship's side. In the cabin the typhoon had burst.

"It was an ill jest o' yours, laddie. If you sail in yon ship you're no like to hae heard the last o' it. Losh!"

The captain, his face more fiery than before, was hailing them.

"I'll send the nigger with the tartle," he shouted at the dock. Then he must have heard the voice of his mate calling him, for he dived below.

The dinner for the Jorhams was to be an unusual feast; one not for business alone. Indeed, McNab had been instructed to return to the brig and to arrange for Anthony's passage on the captain's terms. He had done so. He and Philadelphia had returned with the turtle which was killed in the courtyard amidst immense curiosity. Dinner was to be a memorable, final feast.

Mr. Bonnyfeather had planned it with a double motive. As a farewell to Anthony it was to be a merry one. He would spare Anthony the sadness of a sorrowful parting and he would also spare himself the lonely, private agony of a good-bye that he scarce dared to face. "The last, the dear last of us all," he thought looking at the boy's golden head. They sat in his room together talking, making last arrangements, pausing, and reverting to familiar topics as one goes back to look at something for the last time.

Faith was very busy outside packing Anthony's chests. They could hear her moving about in the hall.

"I suppose you will be taking the madonna with you, Mr. Anthony," she said coming in suddenly.

"Oh," said he getting up. He had almost forgotten her. "Yes, wrap her up carefully. Put her in the big chest."

Faith nodded. So she would see the last of that, she thought. She turned the thing face downward and closed the lid. "Farewell to the bad luck of a Paleologus!"

In the room Anthony and Mr. Bonnyfeather sounded very merry. But it seemed to both of them at times that the misty landscapes on the wall were hazier than usual. The old man lighted his candles. He wiped his spectacles and put them on again several times. Thus they both talked through the long twilight as if they would always be able to do so till evenings were no more. At eight o'clock the guests arrived.

It fell to Anthony that evening to do the honours. He found Captain Elisha and Mrs. Jorham, the latter assisted gingerly by Philadelphia, climbing down in the court from a high-wheeled cab. The captain was dressed in a homespun suit so tight that it gave him the cherubic outlines of an overgrown cupid. Mrs. Jorham trailed behind her a long sea-green skirt of a mid-century, colonial vintage. Into this ocean of faded velvet a pointed bodice thrust violently like the bow of a ship. Above it her head rose like a teak figurehead. She carried a canvas umbrella with whalebone ribs and what appeared to be a spar for a handle. On the end of the spar was a yellow ivory ball like a doll's head. The whole affair, which had a belligerent air about it, flapped about the point, bulged in the middle, where its hips might have been, and was tied about the waist with a rope. As Mrs. Jorham stood in the court holding it maternally close to the folds of her skirt it appeared to be her bashful replica in miniature and might have been her female child.

"Philly," said she, "take my umbreller." The captain laid his pea-jacket over the darky's other arm. Holding these objects majestically before him, Philadelphia ushered them up the steps.

The Americans seemed to have learned from the Indians the savage custom of shaking hands. They shook hands with Mr. Bonnyfeather, with Anthony, with McNab, with Faith, solemnly and with malice of forethought. It looked as if Captain Elisha would shake hands with himself when his eye fell upon the dinner-table already set with many glasses. He and Mr. Bonnyfeather disappeared to talk business while Anthony was left alone with Mrs. Jorham and the umbrella.

They sat facing each other on two heavy gilt chairs. Seemingly at a vast distance from them in the great apartment the white round of the table, much enlarged for the occasion, lay in a cheerful glow. But by contrast all the rest of the room was in darkness. The folds of the angular woman's skirt swept around her and into the shadows. Above them in the twilight gleamed the bony ribs and the pale ivory knob of the umbrella. She seemed to emanate a kind of masterful, yet maternally-virtuous disapproval of everything, whose only softening influence was a touch of lugubrious woe. Having said "how" to this chieftainess in whalebone, Anthony was now at a loss. He could not shake hands again. At the very thought he started to smile. The woman's lips pointed indignantly.

"I trust," said she, "that ye haven't spent the artemoon jokin'. Ye seemed in an idle mood this mornin'. It was not that I object to what ye said about my sideboard! It was yer levity in comparin' it to a woman."

"I have been getting ready to leave home all afternoon, Mrs. Jorham. I can assure you there was not much levity in that, and I was not idle."

Mrs. Jorham looked somewhat mollified but nevertheless shook her head doubtfully. "Mere earthly consarns are not sufficient. You should cast your eyes above." Anthony looked surprised. "Unless you have devoted some time during the day to prayer you may consider it wasted, you know." She laid her umbrella across her knees and folded her hands in her lap.

Embarked thus on the pursuit of her favourite quarry, the soul, she began to feel more congenial. In the semi-darkness her outline lost much of its rigidity. She cuddled the umbrella. It no longer seemed likely that she might open it in the twilight and flit off on the wings of a bat. There might even be shelter under it for two. Anthony wondered about the captain.

"Whenever I'm fixin' to make a v'y'ge," snapped Mrs. Jorham, "I go in for extensive prayer. V'y'ges are solemn things. Ye can never tell. I pack my duds in the mornin', all but the scriptures, and I usually goes to the ta-own churchyards in the arternoon and takes the good book along.for reference. There's nothing like a few chice epitaphs and a little solemn scripture to put you in a frame of mind fit to go to sea. It makes your petitions gin-uine, the kind that goes straight through to the marcy seat. I tell ye I know it. Have ye any clever graveyards here?" she inquired suggestively.

"Several," said Anthony, "but most of the clever epitaphs are in Latin."

"That's the way in heathen parts," she went on. "I am glad to tell that it's dyin' out at home. I must say Latin's Greek to me, although I was a Putnam."

"Do the Putnams speak Latin like the Jesuits?" asked Anthony. He wondered if they were tonsured, too,

"Nope, they don't need it to git along in Bosting, and most of my family round Nuburyport went in for rum and ile. But all of 'em got fine epitaphs. Granite stones, too. Not a soapstone in the lot. No, siree." The lady paused triumphantly.

"Ye ever been to my pa-arts?"

Anthony shook his head regretfully.

"Well, sir, there's a fine parcel o' ta-owns in New England. A feast for Christian eyes with white churches and neat houses. The snow comes regular and kills off the roaches. We don't have critters except what comes in ships from Jamaiky and other foreign pa-arts. But the best thing about the ta-owns is the clever graveyards. I've seen a sight of 'em all up and da-own the cyoast. But they Southern planters sleeps too proud o' their own private plots! You'd think Gabriel was goln' to call ra-ound and give some souls a separate toot. No, sir, there'll be just one long, common blast, and them that sleeps late'll fry. One o' the slickest churchyards I ever see was at Bridgewater, Mass. I spent a hull week there. Visitin'! I got them inscriptions pat. Some of 'em was poetry. Here's one: 'Here lies buried Mrs. Martha Alden, the wife of Mr. Eleazer Alden, who died 6 January, 1769, aged 69 years.' " Mrs. Jorham broke into song.

"The resurrection day will come, And Christ's strong voice will burst the tume; The sleeping dead, we trust, will rise With joy and pleasure in her eyes. And ever shine among the wise.

A-men."

The nasal tune twanged its way about the mouldering frescoes. It seemed to curl up among the clouds that had once been rosy with a false dawn but were now like rolling billows of blue and grey smoke through which the chariots of the gods plunged in a growing twilight.

"It'll do the heathens good," said Mrs. Jorham rolling her eyes aloft and askance. "And that naked man rolling his barrel in hell. Well, I cala-late their clothes would singe off, but it don't seem right. I wouldn't allow even the damned to expose themselves."

Anthony sat silent in sheer amazement. The woman was evidently having a good time. He remembered having read about persons like this in Mr. Bonnyfeather's Protestant books. There was, for instance, "The female Saint of Wimbledon." What was it, that phrase the old author used, a classical scholar, he was, oh, yes, "That chaste Diana of endangered souls,"—something, something, rolls—

"The heat of pious ardour lit her face As through the wood of error roared the chase, Acteon-like the heretic was torn While scornfully she wound her Christian horn.''

And so on ad infinitum.

O lord! he wished Vincent would come. He could hear the snatch of harmony at Signora Bovino's ringing out now as if his mind were defending itself automatically. Undoubtedly he was being chased.

"In memory of Capt. Seth Alden— The corpse in silent darkness lies Our friend is gone, the captain dies . . .''

"Thar she spa-outs, and thar she bla-ows," roared the voice of Captain Elisha who emerged just then from the corridor with Mr. Bonnyfeather. They had clinched their bargain over a bottle of rum, at least the captain had, and he was not what might be termed his better self.

"Has that old cachalot been spa-outin' dirges to ye, young man? I'm sorry for ye, plum sorry!" He clapped Anthony on the back. "A little sea-vility, a little sea-vility is what you Putnams need to larn, Jane. I allers said so. I'm the man to larn yer. The idear. I kin smell them tumes right through the tartle soup."

"Ee-lisha, ye've been drinkin'," said his wife sniffing something else than turtle soup.

"I hev. And what's more I'm goin' right on for the rest of the evenin' and ye can belay yer temperance drip and wo-lasses." He looked approvingly at the table. 'Thilly, is that potage perfected?"

"Itair,suh!"

The captain made a gesture which in its generous expansiveness included the more remote members of the solar system. "Come on," said he, and led Mr. Bonnyfeather by the arm to his own table.

"Mr. Adverse," said Mrs. Jorham in a voice now so subdued that Anthony felt sorry for her, "don't forget what I have been tellin' ye. Do a graveyard or two, before . . ."

"Belay them sepelchrees, Jane," called her husband.

But Anthony promised and saw that he had made a friend. Slipping her arm in his they advanced to the table.

"Madame," said Mr. Bonnyfeather escaping, "you will also permit me to do some of the honours." He seated her on his right. AH the gentlemen now took their chairs, and with this display of manners Mrs. Jorham was obviously touched. She permitted herself a dab at her eyes.

"Ye make me feel at home," she said to Mr. Bonnyfeather.

"I regard that," said he, "as a touching compliment."

Mrs. Jorham began to rally and to remember who she had once been. "I do miss the fixin's sometimes," she sighed running her eye over the glass and silver and fingering the table-cloth. "And land's sake the napkins! We do live like Injuns on the Wampanoag! I often says to Elisha, says I..." but the captain was looking at her. "Anyway it's nice to be settin' with gentlemen and a respectable female again!"

"I'll say it is," slipped in the captain, also looking with approval at Faith.

Suddenly an electric thrill ran through him. He had seen Faith flutter her eye at him. There could be no doubt of it. It hadn't happened to him for years.

"Woman," said he, tossing off a glass of wine to her with a loud smack, "it's a tarnation wonder someone didn't marry ye years ago. Years ago! I say." He banged his fist on the table so that the soup jumped.

Mrs, Jorham's eyes narrowed. The landscape did not seem so respectable as she had thought a moment before.

"There's some things a woman can wait too long to change her mind about," she said dryly. Faith's throat rippled. There was an awkward pause. Toussaint jumped into the breach gallantly.

"Madame, I can assure you it has not been for lack of opportunities, or want of a philosopher to persuade mademoiselle that she remains a... er, single. Monsieur," said he catching Mr. Bonnyfeather's eye, "may I be the first to propose a toast— To the Ladies."

"Gaud bless 'em," added McNab with a sardonic twist looking at the two women glaring at each other. "What would we do without them?" The crisis might have continued but just then Vincent dashed in late shaking the rain off his curls.

"Well! Elisha, I told ye it would rain," said Mrs. Jorham.

"Aye, ye're a clever barometer, I'll give ye that," said the captain.

"Vera sansitive to dampness in any form," muttered McNab to Faith. But Faith was proposing the return toast.

"I propose something we can all drink to," she said smiling at Mrs. Jorham, "and I with as much hope as any of you, perhaps more, who knows? 'The future.' "

"But not without faith," amended Mr. Bonnyfeather who could not avoid the obvious.

Mrs. Jorham hesitated. She had been trapped.

"Come on, Jane," said Captain Elisha appreciating the housekeeper's finesse.

"I'm a temperance woman," she snapped.

"Madame," said Mr. Bonnyfeather, "allow me. A very light wine, a remedy for the climate, never intoxicating, in small doses. The custom of the country." He bowed, his eyes twinkling, and from a decanter filled Mrs. Jorham's glass with a fiery burgundy. He stood waiting.

Mrs. Jorham arose with a stiff yet coy reluctance. She hesitated but finally clinked her glass against Mr. Bonnyfeather's as if she had already been seduced and nothing could be done about it.

"The future," she murmured, her cheeks tingling at her inconceivable abandon. Then she swallowed the burgundy with a gulp.

"The auld deil," whispered McNab to Anthony.

She sat down slowly. Her hands remained spread out on the table as if placed on a faintly pleasant electric contact.

"Well, darn my mother's socks!" said the captain.

Everybody laughed and broke out talking at once. The ice had been broken.

Anthony glanced at Mr. Bonnyfeather. He was sitting with a look of great satisfaction at the success of his ruse. As for Mrs. Jorham there was no doubt that she was wrapt in a deep spiritual experience. The end of her nose was slowly beginning to glow,

Vincent was as full of news and as merry as ever. "Have you heard the new song the gamins are singing? It throws the French out of step when they pass." He broke out with his full tenor.

"lo cledevo di veder fla pochino, Che se n'andasser via questi blicconi: Dia Saglata! ne vien ogni tantino Quasi, quasi dilei, Dio mi peldoni! O che anche Clisto polta il palticcino, O che i Soplani son tanti minchioni!"

The happy, careless voice transported Anthony again to the molten hours they had wasted delightfully together along the Corso. In the gay mocking lilt was concentrated the life of the streets of Livorno. How he loved it all. Now that he was going, how homesick for it he was already. Could it, could it be possible that so much happiness, and dear sorrow, could pass? "The future?" What was it? Let them always sit listening about a table like this. The voice ceased. The silence seemed unbearable.

"Sing again, Vincent, sing again. The song we sang that morning together, do you remember?"

Vincent burst out with it. Anthony joined in. On the surge of his own notes he recovered himself. His voice rang out clearly. He could blend it with Vincent's beautifully. For another moment he was gayly happy. But this time with a new poignance.

He looked at Mr. Bonnyfeather. With the music and the words he poured out his boundless gratitude and at the end reached over and filled his glass to the old man. They all understood and drank with a shout. The table rose. Captain Jorham grunting.

The bright red flush appeared on the merchant's cheek bones. He was much moved. The young voices had gone home. He rose slowly and held out his glass with an air that the world had already forgotten.

"Anthony, my dear boy, God bless you."

They drank it silently. Anthony caught Faith's eye. He was aware that behind her serious expression she was amused at all this. A minute ago he could almost have forgiven her. But not now, not ever. It would be war between them to the last. Poor Toussaint! He wished Faith would make up her mind to leave Leghorn. They were sitting down now. He would have to reply.

Heavens, what was that strange noise?

Captain Jorham had also been moved by the occasion, and his potations, to the point of song. His face glowed like a bonfire. A husky roar proceeded from his chest.

"Yankee skipper comin' down the river

Yankee skipper, HO . . ."

He had forgotten the rest of the words. He hummed the tune, rumbling like a cart going downhill. Then a look of inspiration came into his eyes. He had remembered the last line just in time.

"Yankee skipper comin' down the river."

He ended triumphantly, gurgling. Then he filled his glass till it spilled and slopped over as he raised it.

"To the v'y'ge-!"

The success of the toast was disturbed by a sound as of dry sticks crackling. It proceeded from Mrs. Jorham. Mr. Bonnyfeather was about to pat her on the back when it became evident that she was laughing.

"Why, Jane," said her husband, "ye ain't gorn off that way since ye was a Putnam."

"Ain't I?" she spat back. "How do ye know?"

For some reason, perhaps because a small bright bead seemed about to leave the fiery tip of Mrs. Jorham's nose but miraculously did not, they all laughed. She joined in heartily. A whole brush-fire seemed to be alight, crackling and snapping. Suddenly in the middle of it a hen was disturbed and went off cackling. Wine is a marvellous playfellow. They all lay back and roared. McNab nearly split his tight waistcoat. At this he suddenly looked serious and they went off again. Captain Jorham was still standing like a nonplussed colossus with his glass poised questioningly. He glanced at his buttons uneasily. They were all right.

"Whar's the joke?" he rumbled.

Then they all wondered. Something, something that nobody could quite remember now had been so funny. Anthony still wheezed but it was purely physical. His stomach seemed to have collapsed with the joke. A cold voice stilled them all.

"Elisha, be ye fixin' to go to Havaner?" demanded Mrs. Jorham. She seemed to have accused him of a crime. They all looked at him. How would he defend himself? He put his glass down defiantly.

"I be," he said.

"Then," said she, "who's goin' to do the navigatin' ? That's what I want to know."

She looked at them all appealingly.

"The last time we come over we started for London. Do ye know where we fetched up at? Lisbon!" she shouted. "Lisbon!"

"Woman," he said sitting down heavily, "I forbid ye."

She had touched him to the quick. For the past two years something terribly wrong had overtaken the navigation of Captain Elisha Jorham. He could not fathom it. Secretly he had taken to coasting from port to port picking up what he called "cargoes of notions." He had turned many a lucky penny. But the cargoes of the Wampanoag had become as eccentric as her course when she took to the high seas. He had hoped to conceal his difficulties. Only Mr. Bonnyfeather's exceptional offer of an hour before had finally screwed his resolution to the point of heading for deep blue water again. That Lisbon landfall had shaken him terribly, and now his wife had betrayed him.

He sat looking crushed, shaking his head at her.

"Ye've taken the bread out of yer own mouth," he muttered, "I know the way back."

"I'm sure you do, captain," said Mr. Bonnyfeather, "besides Mr. Adverse here is by now an excellent navigator in theory. All he needs is some actual practice. You and he can work your reckoning together. You can give him his final polish in the art. Just what he needs."

Captain Jorham looked much mollified and relieved.

"When do you plan to get under way?" continued the merchant.

"Thar's a strong land breeze usually picks up about dawn on these coasts," said the captain in his own element again. "If Mr. Adverse can come aboard at about two bells we'll leave first thing in the morn-in'. Better not delay and risk trouble with the authorities."

Mr. Bonnyfeather looked at Anthony. A glance of understanding passed between them.

"Get your chests down while it's dark and then keep below till you are out of the Darsena. Your passports might be an awkward question now with Mr. Udney's visa.

"Vincent," he added, "I regret to interfere with any of your uncle's plans, but I'm afraid your aunt will have to entertain some of her refugees a few days longer. I have engaged Captain Jorham to take Anthony to Havana. He goes north to Genoa first to pick up cargo. There is nothing for him here, as you know. If Genoa suits any of your travellers' plans, they will have to be aboard tonight."

"I'm only sorry for one thing, sir," said Vincent.

He put his arm around Anthony.

"Aye," said the old man, "we're a grieten sair o'er that! And noo let's hae a stirrup cup tigether for the last time, and no more goodbyes, for I canna bide them."

All their cups touched. Anthony felt very proud and tall and straight. Excitement he knew would now lend him wings to clear the threshold. He thought of his old friend Mercury taking off from the cloud with the banquet behind him.

They broke away from the table. Anthony looked up just in time to see Mr. Bonnyfeather vanish into the door of his corridor. He did not look back. The door closed.

"Faith," said Anthony, "will you do me a favour?"

"Yes, Signore Adverso," she said trying to look through him it seemed. He met her glance. "Certainly."

"Fetch my hat and cape and the small bag on the table from my room. I do not care to go back there any more."

"I'll take care o' the chests," said McNab.

"Good night. Captain Jorham, I'll see you directly," he called after him. It helped thus to be doing ordinary things. Vincent still sat at the table turning a glass about in his hand. Their eyes met affectionately.

"Good night," bellowed the captain from the court. "Two bells, mind ye. The tide won't wait. A clever evenin' it was, fine and dandy. Philly."

"Yes, suh."

"On them chests !''

"I'll swan if it ain't rainin'!" said Mrs. Jorham. She raised the immense umbrella over them. They disappeared under it.

"Yankee skipper comin' down the river," trilled the captain. The echoes awoke in the old court in a kind of jargon.

"Land's sake, 'Lisha, ye'll wake the dead," they heard his wife say.

"Anthony," said Vincent turning to him. "Is it all right between us? Lately I have thought, sometimes, you know ... I didn't want you to leave without being sure. I . . ." he choked.

All that was best in his nature shone in his face.

Anthony grasped his hands.

"Yes, yes, all right for always, Vincent."

"Let's swear it," said the German looking dramatic and sentimental but earnest as ever.

"The same old Vincent," said Anthony laughing. Then he grew silent. "But we'll call it an oath." They exchanged grips again.

Just then Faith returned. She also smiled. The little bag was very heavy and as she gave it to Anthony she said, "I see you are leaving with more than you brought."

"Are you sorry ?" he asked.

"No," she said. She brought her hands up half-way to her breast tensely and then let them fall.

"No, I'll tell you something. It belongs to you!" Then she turned and began to gather the silver together on the table. It bore the Bonnyfeather mark.

He saw his chests go out. "Did you put the madonna in, Faith?" he asked just to be sure. She had always looked after his things. His voice suddenly sounded boyish again.

"In the big one with the books."

For an instant he caught her eyes burning at him over the table like wells of night. Then she blew out the candles.

He and Vincent stumbled down the steps together. The rain was over but clouds were still scudding across the moon. The courtyard was awash with writhing shadows. He stood looking at it for the last time. The fountain dripped musically like a faint bell. As he and Vincent turned into the street the only light in all the harbour was on the Wampanoag. It moved very quietly. They were bringing her up to her anchor.

Anthony remembered the Darsena that day that he and Father Xavier had first come to the Casa da Bonnyfeather. All the busy life of the place, the bells, the voices, and the ships had departed. Something had dragged them away as if upon an invisible tide. The tide was ebbing from these shores. He, too, felt it tonight. It clutched him strongly. He was going out with it. He would not remain here looking at the past. It and Mr. Bonnyfeather would remain closed up together in the room with the misty walls.

Here just on this corner he had stood as a little boy first looking at the bright, new world. Right here Father Xavier had caught the orange that he had shared with him. How sweet it had tasted then. Now he would catch the whole orange for himself, the whole round world of it, press it to his lips and drain it dry. It was only the rind of it that was bitter. "Golden fruit of the Hesperides growing in the west, I shall find the bough." On the quay he parted with Vincent.

Two bearded Yankee sailors rowed him out to the Wampanoag, They looked at him curiously, sitting in the stern sheets with a coat-of-many-capes falling over his shoulders. He had bought a knitted cap for the voyage and under this his hair, now just beginning to turn brown, struggled out about his cheeks. His eyes looked widely into the darkness and his lips were parted with happy expectation. He had seemed very tall and straight as he stood for a moment on the thwart. There was something pleasant and strong about him. Something of the sweetness that had been Maria and the passionate strength of Denis Moore, a wide, clear, Scotch forehead and a provoking Irish smile. The man at the stroke oar winked at him as they shoved off.

"Be you the young gentleman we're takin' to Havaner?" he asked.

"Yes, do you want to go there?"

The man laughed and spat over the side.

"Not that we're ever axed. But westward bound is homeward bound, and that suits me." He brought the boat around with a long sweep under the stern.

"Ho, it does, does it?" said Captain Jorham looking over the taffrail and lowering a lantern so that it cast a smudge of light on the black water. "Wall then, lay forward with ye, and bring the anchor to the peak. Stand by to cast loose on the jibs. Did ye slush them blocks like I told ye? Belay your jaw tackle now, and no stampin' and cater-waulin' round the capstan. Pipe down and a quiet getaway. Pass the word for that again. Mind ye, Collins."

"Aye, aye," muttered the sailor, and went forward.

"Ye'd best go below now for a while," said the captain to Anthony. "Yer dunnage hez been stowed in the cabin and Jane's made the starboard bunk up for ye. Ye'll be snug enough. Don't mind her. She do snore."

Anthony went below. A lantern was burning and cast a dim radiance over the place. His chests were already neatly lashed to the stanchions. He started to hang up some things. Just then over the chest marked "Jane" one panel of the closed bunk opened and the head of Mrs. Jorham in a night-cap looked out. She pointed her lips.

"That's right," she said, "that's yours. Elisha sleeps over there behind tother shutters. This is mine. But don't mind me. I'm used to it. I'm glad to have you with us." She beamed on him, pointed her lips, and closed the panel.

He sat down and laughed silently. She reminded him of a picture of a toucan he had once seen, "extraordinary female bird walled in." What a beak it was! The thought of Elisha and Jane billing and cooing through that panel sent him off again. He lay back and enjoyed himself thoroughly. He felt the anchor thump gently. Ropes dragged on deck. Then through the side of the ship came mysteriously the low laughter of ripples as she began to glide. He laid his ear to the planks rejoicing in that hushed, half-merry and semi-sad chantey of farewell. "Good-bye, Livorno." Feet stamped over his head.

Half an hour later his now sleepy reverie was disturbed by Captain Jorham's lighting a rank pipe at the lantern.

"Ye can come on deck now. We're out o' the Darsena and passin' the molo. Now's the rub." He stumped on deck with Anthony. The brig was slipping along very quietly in a following wind with nothing but her jibs set.

"They don't stand out like a squaresail against the sky," said the captain, eyeing the molo with its row of cannon and the flagstaff still bare before sunrise. "In ten minutes we'll be by. The tide's with us."

Suddenly Philadelphia emerged from the galley beating a pan. "Breakfus is re-ady!"

"God dang ye!" howled the captain plunging at him and smothering the pan. They watched the shore breathlessly. There was a spurt of fire on the sea wall by the molo...

"One, two, three, four, five, six," counted the captain.

Bang, drifted to them the report of the sentry's musket.

"Make sail," he ordered. "Over two thousand yards. We'll make it, Mr. Adverse."

The Wampanoag surged forward. Both her masts were now blossoming out sail after sail. As yet there was nothing more from the fort. Then they saw some lanterns glimmer behind the embrasures in the morning twilight. The captain gave the ship a sudden wide yaw to port.

Flash, flash, flash. Along the molo smoke and thunder. The round shot smacked just to starboard and astern. Captain Elisha whistled as he twisted the spokes of the big wheel again and brought the Wampanoag back on her course.

"The trick is not to spill more'n half your wind," said he calmly.

"They are old Spanish pieces, captain," said Anthony.

"Aye, aye," said he, "and sleepy gunners behind 'em."

Flash, bang, smack.

"Kind o' vicious about it, be'n't they ? But the stern of a ship ain't much to hit at nigh a mile in the glimmerin' dawn. Tide hasn't half ebbed yet and we'll keep our backside pinted at 'em clear over the bar."

"Lay aloft and douse them sails down, all hands. Philly, God dang ye, buckets, buckets!"

"The canvas is still wet from the rain last night, sir, isn't it?" asked Anthony.

"Yep," said the captain looking not too pleased. Then he laughed. "By God, ye're right, young man, ye're a cool one! . . . Belay that," he bellowed. "Collins, h'ist the grand old gridiron, let 'em see what they're shootin' at."

Well out from the lee of the land, the ship gathered way rapidly as she flashed down the roads with a bone in her teeth and the morning light tingeing her topsails. It was a long and lucky shot that would catch her now! But the French were evidently annoyed and continued to burn powder.

Thus with the fort thundering behind her and the Stars and Stripes snapping at her peak the Wampanoag rushed forward into the open sea.