[BOOK I]
[BOOK II]
[BOOK III]
[Transcriber’s Notes]

“THERE MAY BE SOME DIFFERENCE IN MEN, BUT ALL HUSBANDS ARE ALIKE”

THE SPELL

BY
WILLIAM DANA ORCUTT
AUTHOR OF
“THE FLOWER OF DESTINY” “ROBERT CAVELIER”
“THE PRINCESS KALLISTO” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY
GERTRUDE DEMAIN HAMMOND, R. I.

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MCMIX

Copyright, 1909, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.
Published January, 1909.

TO
MY FRIEND
GUIDO BIAGI OF FLORENCE
MODERN HUMANIST
NEITHER MASTER OF FATE NOR VICTIM OF FATE
BUT CO-PARTNER WITH NATURE IN SOLVING
HIS OWN PERSONAL PROBLEM, THIS BOOK IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

ILLUSTRATIONS

BOOK I
MASTER OF FATE

THE SPELL

I

“Now, Jack, here is a chance to put your knowledge of the classics to some practical use.”

Helen Armstrong paused for a moment before a Latin inscription cut in the upper stones of the boundary wall, and leaned gratefully upon her companion’s arm after the steep ascent. “What does it mean?”

Her husband smiled. “That is an easy test. The ancient legend conveys the cheering intelligence that ‘from this spot Florence and Fiesole, mother and daughter, are equi-distant.’”

The girl released her hold upon the man’s arm and, pushing back a few stray locks which the wind had loosened, turned to regard the panorama behind her. It was a charmingly picturesque and characteristic Italian roadway which they had chosen for their day’s excursion. On either side stood plastered stone walls, which bore curious marks and circles, made—who shall say when or by whom?—remaining there as an atavistic suggestion of Etruscan symbolism. The whiteness of the walls was relieved by tall cypresses and ilexes which rose high above them, while below the branches, and reclining upon the stone top, a profusion of wild roses shed their petals and their fragrance for the benefit of the passers-by. In the distance, through the trees, showed the shimmering green of olive-groves and vineyards—covering the hillsides, yet yielding occasionally to a gay-blossoming garden; and, as if to complete by contrast, the streaked peaks of Carrara gave a faint suggestion of their marble richness. In front, Fiesole rose sheer and picturesque, while villas, scattered here and there, some large and stately, some small, some antiquated and others modernized, gave evidence that the ancient Via della Piazzola still expressed its own individuality as in the days when the bishops of old trod its paths in visiting their see at the top of the hill, and Boccaccio and Sacchetti, with their kindred spirits, made its echoes ring with merry revelling. But, inevitably turning again, the modern pilgrims saw far below them, and most impressive of all, the languorous City of Flowers, peacefully dreaming on either side of the silver Arno.

All this was a familiar sight to John Armstrong, whose five years’ residence in Florence, just before entering Harvard, made him feel entirely at home in its outskirts. He preferred, therefore, to fix his eyes upon the face of the girl beside him. She was tall and fair, with figure well proportioned, yet the characteristic which left the deepest impress was her peculiar sweetness of expression. Among her Vincent Club friends she was universally considered beautiful, and a girl’s verdict of another girl’s beauty is rarely exaggerated. Her deep, merry, gray eyes showed whence came the vivacity which ever made her the centre of an animated group, while the sympathy and understanding which shone from them explained her popularity.

The announcement of her engagement to Jack Armstrong was the greatest surprise of a sensational Boston season, not because of any unfitness in the match,—for the Armstrong lineage was quite as distinguished as the Cartwrights’,—but because Helen had so persistently discouraged all admiration beyond the point of friendship and comradeship, that those who should have known pronounced her immune.

But that was because her friends had read her character even less correctly than they had Armstrong’s. They would have told you that she was distinctly a girl of the twentieth century; he discovered that while tempered by its progressiveness, she had not been marred by its extremes. They would have said that her character had not yet found opportunity for expression, since her every wish had always been gratified; he would have explained that the fact that she had learned to wish wisely was in itself sufficient expression of the character which lay beneath.

He watched her in the midst of the social life to which they both belonged, entering naturally, as he did, into its conventionalities as a matter of course, and he rejoiced to find in her, beyond the enjoyment of those every-day pleasures which end where they begin, a response to the deeper thoughts which controlled his own best expression. He could see that these new subjects frightened her a little by their immensity, as he tried to explain them; he sympathized with her momentary despair when she found herself beyond her depth; but he was convinced that the understanding and the interest were both there, as in an undeveloped negative.

This same power of analysis which enabled him to discover what all could not surmise had separated Armstrong, in Helen’s mind, from other men, nearer her own age, whom she had known. She could hardly have put in words what the difference was, but she felt that it existed, and this paved the way for his ultimate success. His personal attributes, inevitably tempered by the early Italian influence, marked him as one considerably above the commonplace. At college he had won the respect of his professors by his strength of mind and tenacity of application, and the affection of his fellow-students by his skill in athletics and his general good-fellowship. Now, eight years out of college, he had already made his place at the Boston bar, and was regarded as a successful man in his profession. But beyond all this, unknown even to himself, Armstrong was an extremist. The seed had been sown during that residence in Florence years before, when unconsciously he had assimilated the enthusiasm of an erudite librarian for the learning and achievements of the master spirits of the past. Latin and Greek at college had thus meant much more to him than dead languages; in them he found living personalities which inspired in him the liveliest ambition for emulation.

These were some of the subjects to which he introduced Helen. Little by little he told her of the fascination they possessed for him, of the treasures hidden beneath their austere exterior. But the girl was perhaps more interested by the charm of his presentation than by the possibilities she saw in the subjects themselves. She felt that she could understand him, and admitted her respect for the objects of his enthusiasm, but she was convinced that these were beyond her comprehension, and frankly rebelled at the necessity of going back into dead centuries for them.

“I love the present, and all that it contains,” she replied to him one day when something suggested the subject during one of the many walks they took together; “I love the sky, the air, the sunshine, and the flowers. Why should I go back to the past, made up of memories only, when I may enjoy all this beautiful world around me? And you, Jack—I should not have you if I had lived in the past!”

As her friends had said, she possessed strong ideas about marriage, and expressed them without reserve. Until Armstrong’s irresistible wooing, she had decided, as a result both of observation and of conclusion, that admiration and attention from many were far to be preferred to the devotion of any single one, and that matrimony was neither essential nor desirable except under ideal conditions.

“There are so many things which seem more interesting to me than a husband,” Helen asserted. “I’m afraid that I agree too much with that wise old cynic who said that ‘love is the wine of life, and marriage the dram-drinking.’ I insist on remaining a teetotaler.”

Thus Armstrong felt himself entitled to enjoy a certain degree of pride and satisfaction in that he had succeeded in convincing her at last that the ideal conditions she demanded had been met.

Even on board the steamer, at the start of their wedding journey, as the familiar sky-line of New York became less and less distinct, Armstrong read in his wife’s eyes, still gazing back at the vanishing city, the thoughts which inevitably forced themselves upon her—a last remnant of her former doubt. When she turned and saw him looking at her, she smiled guiltily.

“We are leaving the old life behind us,” she said. “With all the philosophy you have tried to teach me, I have not fully realized until now what a change it means.”

“Do you regret it?” he asked her, half rebellious that even a passing shadow should mar the completeness of their happiness.

Helen quickly became herself again, and threw back her head with a merry laugh at the seriousness of his interrogation. “Regret it! How foolish even to ask such a question! But you cannot wonder that the importance of the event should force itself upon me, now that we are actually married, even if it never did before. It makes so much more of a change in a woman’s life than in a man’s.”

Helen sighed, and then looked mischievously into his face. “With you superior beings,” she continued, “it simply signifies a new latch-key, a new head to your household, and the added companionship of a woman whom you have selected as absolutely essential to your happiness. You keep your old friends, give up for a time a few of your bad habits, and transfer a part of your affections from your clubs to your home. To the woman, it means a complete readjustment. New duties and responsibilities come to her all at once. From her earliest memory she has been taught to depend upon the counsel and guidance of her parents, but suddenly she finds herself freed from this long-accustomed habit, with a man standing beside her, only a few years her senior, who is convinced that he can serve in this capacity far better than any one else ever did. Even with a husband as superior as yourself, Mr. John Armstrong, is it not natural that one should recognize the passing of the old life, while welcoming the coming of the new?”

After landing, they had lingered for a fortnight in Paris, but, beneath the keen enjoyment of the attractions there, Armstrong had felt an impatience, unacknowledged even to himself, to reach Florence, which contained for him so much of interest, and whither his memory—let him give it sway—ever recalled him. He felt that his dei familiares were patiently waiting for him there, indulgent in spite of his long absence, yet insistent that their rights again be recognized. Having dropped his engrossing law-practice, he yearned to take advantage of this opportunity, now near at hand, to devote himself to the girl he had won, and at the same time to gratify this long-cherished wish to study more deeply into the work of those early humanists who had foreshadowed and brought about that mighty thought revolution, the wonderful breaking-away from the deadly pall of ignorance into the light and joyousness and richness of intellectual life known as the Renaissance. Helen would no longer fail to understand them when she saw them face to face. He would lead her gently, even as Cerini the librarian had led him; and together they would draw from the old life those principles which made it what it was, incorporating them into their new existence, which would thus be the richer and better worth the living. So now that he had actually reached his goal, it was natural that his contentment at finding himself in Florence with his wife was intensified by the joy of being again amid the scenes and personages which his imagination had taken out from the indefiniteness of antiquity, and invested with a living actuality.

The sharp contrast of his two great devotions came to John Armstrong as he stood at the cross-roads on the edge of San Domenico. The one had exerted so powerful an influence on what he was to-day—the other must influence his future to an extent even greater. The one, in spite of the personality with which he had clothed it, was as musty and antiquated as the ancient tomes he loved to study; the other, as she stood there, her cheeks aglow after the brisk walk, her face animated with enthusiastic delight, seemed the personification of present reality. What a force the two must make when once joined together, contributing, each to the other, those qualities which would else be lacking!

“I must take you yet a little higher,” Armstrong urged at length; “these walls still cut off much of the glorious view.”

In a few moments more they had partly ascended the Via della Fiesolana, which at this hour was wholly deserted. With a sigh, half from satisfaction and half from momentary fatigue, Helen turned to her companion. She caught the admiration which his face so clearly reflected, but, womanlike, preferred to feign ignorance of its origin. Glancing about her, she discovered a rock, half hidden by the tall grass and wild poppies, which offered an attractive resting-place. Seating herself, she plucked several of the brilliant blossoms, and began to weave the stems together. At last she broke the silence.

“Why are you so quiet, Jack?”

“For three reasons,” he replied, promptly. “This walk has made me romantic, poetic, and hungry.”

Helen laughed heartily. “I am glad you added the third reason, for by that I know that you are mortal. This wonderful air and the marvellous view affect me exactly as a fairy-story used to, years ago. When I turned I fully expected to find a fairy prince beside me. You confess that you are romantic, which is becoming in a five-weeks’-old husband, but why poetic?”

“‘Poetry is but spoken painting,’” quoted Armstrong, smiling; “and I should be pleased indeed were I able to put on canvas the picture I now see before me.”

“Since you cannot do that, suppose you write a sonnet.”

Armstrong met her arch smile firmly. The girlish abandon under the influence of new surroundings awoke in him a side of his nature which he had not previously realized he possessed. Stooping, he gently held her face between his hands and looked deep into her responsive eyes before replying:

“‘Say from what vein did Love procure the gold
To make those sunny tresses? From what thorn
Stole he the rose, and whence the dew of morn,
Bidding them breathe and live in Beauty’s mould?
What depth of ocean gave the pearls that told
Those gentle accents sweet, tho’ rarely born?
Whence came so many graces to adorn
That brow more fair than summer skies unfold?
Oh! say what angels lead, what spheres control
The song divine which wastes my life away?
(Who can with trifles now my senses move?)
What sun gave birth unto the lofty soul
Of those enchanting eyes, whose glances stray
To burn and freeze my heart—the sport of Love?’”

Helen made no reply for several moments after Armstrong ceased speaking. Then she held out her hand to him and looked up into his face.

“I never knew before that you were a real poet,” she said, quietly.

“I wish I were—and such a poet! My precious Petrarch, for whom you profess so little fondness, is responsible for that most splendid tribute ever paid to woman.”

Helen was incredulous.

“That sanctimonious old gentleman with the laurel leaves on his head and the very self-confident expression on his face?”

Armstrong nodded.

“Who spent all his life making love to another man’s wife from a safe distance?”

“Yes; this is one of his love-letters.”

“Then if I accept those lines you just repeated with so much feeling, I must be Laura?”

“But not another man’s wife.”

“I should have been if you had acted like that, Jack. Let me see how you look with a laurel wreath made of poppies.”

She drew his head down and tied the flowers about his forehead. Then, pushing him away from her, she clapped her hands with delight.

“There! if the noble Petrarch had looked like that, Madonna Laura could surely never have resisted him.”

“Had Madonna Laura resembled Madonna Helen, the worthy Petrarch would have had her in his arms before she had the chance,” laughed Armstrong, improving his opportunity as he spoke.

“Very gallant, Jack, but very improper.” Helen pursed her lips and looked up at him mischievously. “But let us forget your musty old antiquities and talk of the present. Do you realize that this is the end of our honeymoon?”

“No,” he replied, holding her more closely and laughing down at her; “it has only just begun.”

“Of course,” assented Helen, disengaging herself, “but to-morrow we are to exchange the very romantic titles of ‘bride’ and ‘bridegroom’ for the much more commonplace ‘host’ and ‘hostess.’”

“Oh! I am relieved that you are not going to divorce me at once.” Armstrong was amused at her seriousness. “But it was your idea to invite them to join us, was it not?”

“I know it was—and now I must make a confession to you. I thought that in five weeks we both would be glad enough to have some little break in our love-making. But I did not realize how rapidly five weeks could pass. Still”—Helen sighed—“what is the use of having a villa in Florence unless you can invite your friends to see it?”

“Then you have not become tired of your husband as soon as you thought you would?”

“Nor you of your wife?” Helen retorted, quickly. “Mamma suggested it first. She said that so long a wedding trip as we had planned was sure to end with one or both of us becoming hopelessly bored unless we introduced other characters into our Garden of Eden.”

“Did she say ‘Garden of Eden’? That family party included a serpent, if rumor be correct.”

The girl laughed.

“But there could not be one in ours, because I would never give you the chance to say, ‘The woman did it.’”

“Your mother forgets that we are exceptions.”

“She says there may be some difference in men, but that all husbands are alike.”

“Trite and to the point, as always with mamma.” Armstrong paused and smiled. “Well, I think even she will be satisfied with the success of her suggestion. How many do our guests number at present?”

Helen dropped the flower she was idly swinging and began to count upon her fingers.

“Let me see. There is Inez Thayer—I am glad that she could visit us, so that at last you can know her. It is strange enough that you should not have met her until the wedding. You cannot help liking each other, for she is interested in all those serious things you love so well. The girls used to make sport of our devotion at school because our dispositions are so unlike: she is thoughtful, while I am impulsive; she is carried away with anything which is deep and learned, while I, as you well know, have nothing more important in life than you and my music.”

Helen paused for a moment thoughtfully. “Sometimes I wish I could really interest myself in those ancient deities you worship.”

“You could if you only knew them as I do,” he urged, quietly. “The present is the evolution of the past, but it has been evolved so fast that many of the old-time treasures have been forgotten in the mad pace of every-day life.”

“But we can’t remember everything,” Helen replied; “there are not hours enough in the day. I can’t even find time to read our modern writers as much as I wish I could, and I think one ought to do that before going back to the ancients.”

“All modern literature is based upon what has gone before,” insisted Armstrong.

“Wait a moment.” Helen’s face again became thoughtful. “I have it!” she cried, triumphantly. “‘The gardens of Sicily are empty now, but the bees still fetch honey from the golden jars of Theocritus.’ That is what you mean, is it not? I remember that from something of Lowell’s I read at school.”

“Splendid!” he laughed, with delight. “Who dares to say that you are not in sympathy with the past?” He bent his head down close to hers. “Would you not prefer to hold those ‘golden jars’ in your very hands, sweetheart, rather than merely read about them?”

“But, Jack, ‘the gardens of Sicily are empty now.’ Think how lonesome we should be.” Helen threw back her head and drew in a long breath of the exhilarating air.

Armstrong was still insistent. “I wish I could make you see it as I do,” he said. “The present of to-day is bound to be the past of to-morrow. What I want to do is to assimilate all that the past can give me, so that I may do my part, however small, toward giving it out again, made stronger and more effective because of its modern application, thus helping this present to become worthy of being considered by those who come after us.”

Helen looked up at him with undisguised admiration. “Oh, Jack, that sounds so wonderful, and I wish I could enter into it with you, but I simply cannot do it. Inez will be just the one. At school, as I told you, she went in for the classics and all that, while I—well, I was sent there to be ‘finished.’ Don’t look so disappointed, Jack. Truly I would if I could.”

“I shall not give you up yet,” he answered, smiling at Helen’s intensity, notwithstanding his genuine regret. “Tell me something more about Miss Thayer, since you insist upon her becoming your substitute.”

“Inez is a darling, in spite of her superiority,” Helen replied, gayly, “and I simply could not have been married without her for a bridesmaid. She would have sailed two weeks earlier except for our wedding. As it was, she came over with her cousins, and has been travelling with them until time to join us here at the villa.”

“De Peyster is still devoted, I judge?”

“Poor Ferdinand! His persistency has quite won my sympathy. He simply will not take ‘no’ for an answer, but travels back and forth between Boston and Philadelphia like any commercial traveller. Going over, he has a bunch of American Beauties under one arm and a box of bonbons under the other; returning, nothing but another refusal to add to those Inez has already given him.”

“He is not a bad sort of chap at all, when you get past his peculiarities,” Armstrong added.

“Ferdy is a splendid fellow, in his own way,” assented Helen, warmly, “and any girl might do a great deal worse than marry him; but he is not Inez’ style at all. I believe her trip to Europe is really to get away from him. I know he thinks that is the reason, and is simply inconsolable.”

“De Peyster would be a good match,” remarked Armstrong, thoughtfully. “He has plenty of money and plenty of leisure, and he ought to be able to make his wife fairly comfortable.”

“But that is not what Inez wants. She has great ideas about affinities, and Ferdy does not answer to the description.”

“Then there is your uncle Peabody,” Armstrong prompted, helpfully.

“Yes, there is dear Uncle Peabody. You will enjoy him immensely.”

“Does he live up to his reputation of a man with an ‘ism’?”

“Oh, Jack! Some one has been maligning him to you. That is because he is the only original member of our family, and really the most useful.”

“Indeed! If that is your estimate of him, it shall also be mine. I was prepared for a well-developed specimen of the genus crank.”

“Wait till you see him.” Helen laughed at her husband’s mental picture. “He is a crank, in a way, but he is a mighty cheerful one to have around.”

“He believes in making an air-plant of one’s self, in order to help him forget his other troubles, does he not?”

“Who has been making fun of dear Uncle Peabody? I must have him tell you about his work himself. It is true that he believes most people overeat, and it is true that he is devoting his life and his fortune to finding out what the basis of proper nutrition really is; but as for starving—wait till you see him!”

“You have relieved me considerably,” Armstrong replied, gravely. “From what I had heard of your uncle I had expected nothing less than to be made an example of for the sake of science—and you have already discovered that I am really partial to my meals.”

“You can be just as partial to them as ever, Jack. But, seriously, I know you will find him most interesting, and I shall be surprised if his theories do not give you something new to think about.”

“His theories will not do for me,” said Armstrong, assuming a position of mock importance, “for I have always been taught that a touch of indigestion is absolutely essential to genius.”

“Splendid!” cried Helen. “That will be just the argument to start the conversation at our first dinner and keep it from being commonplace. I have been trying to think how we could get Uncle Peabody interested. It is only that first dinner which I dread, and you have helped me out nobly.”

“That makes two,” suggested Jack.

“Yes, two. Then there are the Sinclair girls, who have been studying here in Florence for nearly a year. They will come up from their pension. That makes four—and the others, you know, are Phil Emory and Dick Eustis, who arrive in Florence from Rome to-night. I don’t need to tell you anything about them.”

“There is a whole lot you might tell me about Emory if you chose.”

Armstrong looked slyly into his wife’s face.

“Shame on you, Jack!” Helen cried, flushing; “the idea of being jealous on your wedding trip!”

“I am not jealous now.” He emphasized the last word.

“Well, I am glad you are over it.”

“It looks like a very jolly party,” he hastened to add, seeing that Helen’s annoyance was genuine, “and I can see where we become old married folk to-morrow. You and Uncle Peabody will act as chaperons, I presume, Phil and Dick will look after the Sinclair girls, while I am to devote myself to Inez Thayer. Is that the programme?”

“Exactly. I am so anxious that Inez should appreciate what a talented husband I have. She has heard great stories about your learning and erudition, so now you must live up to the picture.”

“Then suppose we start for home if you are quite rested. It is plainly incumbent on me to make sure that my knowledge of the classics proves equal to the test.”

II

The Armstrongs had installed themselves in the Villa Godilombra, near Settignano. The date for the wedding was no sooner settled than Jack cabled to secure what had always seemed to him to be the most glorious location around Florence. Years before, his favorite tramp had been out of the ancient city through the Porta alla Croce to La Mensola, whence he delighted to ascend the hill of Settignano. Every villa possessed a peculiar fascination for him. The “Poggio Gherardo”—the “Primo Palagio del Refugio” of the Decameron—made Boccaccio real to him. The Villa Buonarroti, whither Michelangelo was sent as a baby, after the Italian custom, to be nursed in a family of scarpellini, always attracted him, and times without number he had stood admiringly before the wall in one of the rooms, gazing at the figure of the satyr which the infant prodigy drew with a burning stick taken from the fire. In those days he had been seized with a secret yearning to become an artist, and often he had tried to reproduce the satyr from memory, but always the ugly visage assumed a mocking, sneering aspect which caused him to relinquish his cherished ambition in despair.

But the Villa Godilombra appealed to Armstrong for a different reason. It stood high up on the hill, affording a wonderful view of the village of Settignano and the wide-spreading valley of the Arno. The villa itself, with its overhanging eaves, coigned angles, and narrow windows, set on heavy consoles, was essentially Tuscan, and impressive far out of proportion to its size. It would have seemed too massive but for an arcade at either end, the one connecting the house itself with its chapel, the other leading from the first floor through a spiral stairway in one pier of the arcade to what originally, in the days of the Gamberelli, had been an old fish-pond and herb-garden. In front of the villa a row of antiquated stone vases shared the honors with equally dilapidated stone dogs along a grassy terrace held up by a low wall, while beyond this and the house was the vineyard.

Armstrong had studied the plans of the house and grounds from a distance, because, after his disappointing experience with Michelangelo’s satyr, he had firmly determined to become an architect and to build Italian houses in America. He had walked up and down the long bowling-green behind the villa, carefully noting the number of statues set upon the high retaining wall and figuring the height of the hedges. One day old Giuseppe, the sun-baked gardener who had watched the boy first with suspicion and then with interest, invited him to enter, and his joy had been complete. Giuseppe showed him the fish-pond and the grotto, lying in the shadow of the ancient cypresses, made up of varicolored shells and stones, with shepherds and nymphs occupying niches around a trickling fountain. He led him to the balustrade at the end of the bowling-green, and pointed out the panorama which terminated in the hills beyond the southern bank of the river.

Parallel with the back of the villa was another wall which supported a terrace of cypress and ilex trees. Behind this was the salvatico, without which no self-respecting Italian villa could maintain its dignity, with stone seats beneath the heavy foliage offering a grateful relief from the glare of the sun. And here and there were white statues of classic goddesses, to relieve the loneliness had it existed. An iron gate, let into the wall opposite the main doorway of the villa, led into a small garden, this leading in turn into another grotto, which, with its fountain and statues, formed an extension of the vista. On either side a balustraded flight of steps led up to an artificial height—the Italians’ beloved terrazza—flanked by rows of orange and lemon trees, growing luxuriantly in their red earthen pots; while against the wide balustrades rested the heavily scented clusters of the camellia and the rose-tinted oleander.

Twelve years is a short space of time in Italy, where age is reckoned by the millennial, so it seemed perfectly natural, when Armstrong arrived in Florence, to find Giuseppe still at his old post and included in the lease as a part of the Villa Godilombra. The old man expressed no surprise, no delight—yet at heart he was well pleased. The previous tenants of the villa had been the unimaginative family of a German-American brewer, and their preference for beer over the wonderful vino rosso which he himself had pressed out from the luscious grapes in the vineyard filled his heart with sorrow. He confided to Annetta, the red-lipped maid Armstrong had engaged for Helen, that he “was glad to serve an ‘Americano molto importante’ rather than a porco.” And Giuseppe took great satisfaction in placing upon that last word all the emphasis needed to express six months’ accumulated disgust.

From the moment the Armstrongs arrived, Giuseppe’s admiration for Helen knew no bounds. To him she was the personification of all that was perfection. Not that he expressed it, even to Annetta—he would have forgotten mass on Good Friday sooner than so forget his place. It was rather that devotion which is born and not made—occasionally, but not often, found in those who enter so intimately into the life of those they serve, yet who must always feel themselves apart from it. Hardly a day had passed since the Armstrongs had assumed possession of the villa that Helen had not found the choicest fragole at her plate, each juicy berry carefully selected and resting upon a bed of its own leaves at the bottom of the little basket. Her room was ever redolent with the odor of the flowers he smuggled in, always unobserved; and his instructions to the more frivolous Annetta as to her duties toward the nobile donna were such as to cause that young woman to throw her head haughtily on one side, with the observation that she was probably as well acquainted with the requirements of a lady’s maid as any gardener was apt to be, even though he were old enough to be her grandfather.

This particular tiff had taken place while Armstrong and his wife were making their excursion to Fiesole. On their return they had found Giuseppe in a morose mood, which quickly vanished when Helen told him, in her broken Italian, that she expected guests upon the morrow, and depended upon him to see that every room was properly decorated, as he alone could do it. The old man could hardly wait to arrange the chairs upon the veranda, so eager was he to seek revenge upon his youthful tormentor.

“Did she ask you to arrange the flowers, young peacock-feather?” asked Giuseppe of Annetta when he found her in the kitchen. “Did she trust you even to bring the message to old Giuseppe? No. With her own lips the Eccellenza praised the one servant on whom she can rely.”

“She knows you are good for nothing else,” Annetta retorted, with a scornful laugh and a toss of her pretty head; “and she wishes to get you out of the way while we attend to the really important matters. See,” she cried, as the tinkling of the maids’ bell punctuated her remarks, “the nobile donna will now give me commands.”

Giuseppe could not so far forget his dignity as to reply to such an outrageous slander, so he contented himself with casting upon Annetta his most withering glances as she hastily brushed past him, holding back her skirts lest they be defiled by touching the old man. He watched her angrily until she vanished through the door, then, with the choicest maledictions at his command, he shuffled into the garden—into his own domain, where the present generation of ill-bred servants, as he explained to himself, could vex him not.

Mrs. John Armstrong’s first dinner at the Villa Godilombra was an unqualified success. Uncle Peabody had arrived early that morning; his optimism had set its seal of approval upon the evident happiness of the bridal couple, and he had already established himself as chief reflector of the concentrated joy which he saw about him. Inez Thayer was received into Helen’s welcoming arms soon after luncheon, and was at once installed in the best guest-chamber for an extended visit. Two dusty vetture brought the Sinclair girls, Emory and Eustis, in time for dinner, each driver striving to deliver his passengers first in anticipation of an extra pourboire. The company was therefore complete, and each member quite in the spirit of the occasion.

The great candelabra cast their light upon the animated party seated about the table in such a manner that the old paintings hanging upon the walls of the high room were but dimly visible. The long windows were open, and the light breeze just cooled the air enough to mellow the temperature, without so much as causing the candle-flames to flicker. Giuseppe’s choicest flowers, deftly arranged upon the table by Helen’s skilful hands, contrasted pleasantly with the antique silver and china which had once been the pride of the original owner of the villa; and the menu itself, wisely intrusted by Helen to the old Italian cook, was rife with constant surprises for the American palate. Even the wines were new—if not in name, at least in flavor, for Italian vintages leave behind them their native richness and aroma when transplanted. Never was any vino rosso so delicious as that which Giuseppe made, even though unappreciated by his former master; never such lacrima Christi as that which Armstrong secured in a little wine-shop near the Bargello; never such Asti spumante as that which sparkled in the glasses, eager to share its own bubbling happiness in return for the privilege of touching the fair lips of the beautiful donne Americane.

“We had a friend of yours on board ship, Miss Thayer,” said Emory, speaking to his left-hand neighbor as they seated themselves.

“A friend of mine?” queried Inez. “I can’t think who it could be.”

“Ferdy De Peyster,” replied Emory.

Inez cast a quick glance at Helen. “Really?” she asked. “I thought he was going to spend the summer at Bar Harbor.”

“Changed his mind at the last moment,” he said. “Could not resist the charms of Italy. Do you know, Helen”—Emory addressed himself to his hostess—“De Peyster has developed a mania for art.”

Helen laughed. “No,” she replied, “that is news indeed. It is a side of Ferdy’s nature which even his best friends had not suspected. Is he coming to Florence?”

“Can’t say; but he is evidently planning to leave Rome. We left him at the Vatican, in the Pinacoteca, standing before Raphael’s ‘Transfiguration.’”

“With a Baedeker in his hand?” queried Jack.

“No, studying Cook’s Continental Time-table.”

“What a detective you would make, Mr. Emory,” suggested Mary Sinclair as the laughter subsided.

“I have a better story about De Peyster than that.”

Eustis waited to be urged.

“Give it to us, Dick,” said Jack, helpfully.

“It was at Gibraltar,” began Eustis. “We were in the same party going over the fortifications. De Peyster, you know, enlisted at the time of the Spanish war. Some family friend in the Senate obtained for him a berth as second lieutenant, and his company got as far as Key West. He rather prides himself on his military knowledge, and he confided to me that he had his uniform with him in case he was invited to attend any Court functions. Well, all the way around De Peyster explained everything to us. The Tommy Atkins who was our guide was as serious as a mummy, but confirmed everything Ferdy said. When you reach the gallery at the top, you remember, the guide points out the parade-ground below, and it happened that there was a battalion going through its evolutions.”

“‘Ah!’ said De Peyster, ‘this is very interesting.’” Then he described each movement, giving it the technical military name. At last he turned to our guide and said, patronizingly: ‘I’m a bit disappointed, sergeant, after all I have heard of the precision of the English army. I have often seen American soldiers go through those same movements—just as well as that.’

“The sergeant saluted respectfully and gravely. ‘Quite likely, sir,’ he said, ‘quite likely. These are raw recruits—arrived yesterday, sir!’”

“De Peyster was a sport, though,” added Emory. “When he saw that the joke was on him he handed Tommy a shining sovereign and said: ‘Here, sergeant, have this on me, and drink a health to our two armies—may comparisons never be needed.’”

Helen clapped her hands. “Good for Ferdy! He is all right if people would only leave him alone.”

“Too bad he has so much money!” Eustis was reflective. “If De Peyster had to get out and hustle a bit you would find he had a whole lot of stuff in him.”

“Of course he has,” Uncle Peabody agreed.

“Do you know Mr. De Peyster?” Inez asked, surprised.

“No,” replied Uncle Peabody, “I don’t need to after hearing Mr. Eustis’s summary. On general principles, every one has ‘a whole lot of stuff in him.’ The trouble is that people don’t give it a chance to come out.”

“Your confidence is evidently based upon your general optimism?” Armstrong remembered that Helen had mentioned this as a cardinal characteristic.

“Yes, but proved by a thousand and one experiments. Our present subject, who now becomes No. 1002, is apparently handicapped by the misfortune of inherited leisure. It is rarely that a man of possession reaches his fullest development without the spur of necessity. More frequently we see one extreme or the other—too much possession or too much necessity.”

“That is all very well as a theory, but does it really prove anything as regards De Peyster?” questioned Armstrong. “Personally I think optimism is a dangerous thing. This confidence that everything is coming out right is what makes criminals out of bank cashiers.”

“There is a vast difference between real and false optimism,” replied Uncle Peabody. “I knew a man once who called himself a cheerful pessimist, because every time he planted a seed it grew down instead of up. He came to expect this, so it did not worry him any. He was a real optimist, even though he did not know it.”

“What would be your prescription for a case like Mr. De Peyster’s?” queried Bertha Sinclair.

“A good wife, possessed of ambition, sympathy, and tact,” Uncle Peabody replied, promptly. “This, my dear Miss Sinclair, is your opportunity to assist me in proving my argument. Will you be my accomplice?”

“I? Why, I don’t even know Mr. De Peyster,” Bertha protested. “You must find some one else.”

“Very well,” sighed Mr. Cartwright. “You see how difficult it is for science to assert its laws.”

Helen caught sight of Inez’ cheeks and hastened to her friend’s relief.

“Uncle Peabody, do you know that you are responsible for the first difference of opinion which has arisen between my husband and me?”

“My gracious, no! Can it be possible?”

“It is a fact. I stated to him only yesterday that perfect digestion was the only basis on which health and happiness can possibly rest. You taught me that, but Jack asserts that a touch of indigestion is absolutely essential to genius.”

“How does he know? Has he a touch of indigestion?”

“Not a touch,” laughed Armstrong, “and that proves my statement. I really believe I might have been a genius if my digestion had not always been so disgustingly strong.”

“Don’t despair, my dear boy.”

Uncle Peabody looked at Jack over his spectacles. “Genius is a germ, and sometimes develops late in life. If your theory is correct, a few more gastronomic orgies such as this will make you eligible.”

“But is there not something in what I say?” Armstrong persisted, seriously. “Is it not true that good health is against intellectual progression? Is not good health the supremacy of the physical over the mental? The healthy man is an animal—he eats and sleeps too much. Pain and suffering have not developed the nervous side, which is so closely connected with the intellectual. When the physical side becomes weakened, then the brain begins to act.”

Uncle Peabody listened attentively and then removed his spectacles. “My dear Jack Armstrong,” he said, at last, “I can see some fun ahead for both of us, and Helen has placed me still further in her debt by her choice of a husband. Your argument is not a new one. It was invented a great many years ago in France by some clever person who wished to have an excuse for late nights, absinthe, and cigarettes. Do you mean seriously to advance a theory which, if logically carried through to the end, would credit hospitals and homes for the hopelessly depraved with being the highest intellectual establishments in the world?”

“But look at the examples which can be cited,” Armstrong continued, undisturbed. “Zola produced nothing of importance after he adopted the simple life, and Swinburne’s poetry lost all its fire as soon as he ‘reformed.’”

“Can you prove in either case that the question of nutrition or digestion entered into the matter at all?”

“Oh, it may have been a coincidence, of course; but many other cases might be added.”

Uncle Peabody was silent for a moment. “Let me give you a simple problem,” he said, at length. “Helen tells me that you have an automobile now on its way to Florence?”

Armstrong assented.

“When it arrives I presume you will engage a chauffeur?”

“What has an automobile to do with nutrition, Mr. Cartwright?” demanded Mary Sinclair. “Surely an automobile has no digestion.”

“My application is near at hand. When you engage that chauffeur I presume you will insist that he knows the mechanism of the machine, understands the application of the motive power and other details which enter into safe and successful handling of the car?”

“Naturally,” replied Jack. “I am not introducing my machine here for the purpose either of murder or suicide.”

“Exactly. That is just what I wanted you to say. Now, every human stomach is an engine which requires at least as intelligent handling as that of an automobile. Upon its successful working depends the mechanical action of the body. We may disregard the additional dependence of the brain. Petroleum in the automobile is replaced by what we call food in the human engine. Too much of either, unintelligently applied, produces the same unfortunate result. Now I ask you, John Armstrong, would you engage as chauffeur for your automobile a man who knew no more about the mechanism of its engine, or how to feed and handle it properly, than you yourself know about your own body engine?”

“No,” Armstrong admitted, frankly, “I would not.”

“But which is more serious—a damage resulting from his ignorance or from your own?”

“Look here, Mr. Cartwright,” said Jack, laughingly, “you promised that there was fun ahead for us both. At present it seems to be mostly for you and our friends.”

“Who started the discussion?”

“Helen; but I admit my error in being drawn into it. I had not expected to be convicted upon my own evidence.”

Helen rose. “I must rescue my husband from the calamity I have brought upon him. Come, let us have our coffee in the garden.”

III

If one could have looked within Uncle Peabody’s room after the other guests had snuffed out their candles, he would have discovered its inmate seated beside the flickering light with an open letter in his hand. He had read it over many times since its receipt nearly three months earlier, announcing in Helen’s characteristic way her engagement and approaching marriage. No one else had ever come so closely into his life, and he felt a certain responsibility to satisfy himself that the girl had made no mistake in the important step which she had taken. Now that he had actually met her husband, he again perused the lines which had introduced his new nephew to him.

“It has actually happened at last,” the letter began, “and your favorite wager of ‘a thousand to one on the unexpected’ has really won. In other words, I, Helen Cartwright, condemned (by myself) to live and die an old maid as penalty for being so critical of the genus homo, now confess myself completely, hopelessly in love, and so happy in my new estate that I wonder why I ever hesitated.

“It is all so curious. The things which interested me before now seem so commonplace compared to the events to come in connection with this broader existence which is opening up before me. How infinitely more gratifying it is to feel myself living for and a part of another’s life, how comforting to know that some other personality, whom I can love and respect, feels himself to be living for and a part of my life. It adds to the seriousness of it all, but how it increases the satisfaction!

“I wish I could describe John Armstrong to you, but now that I am about to make the attempt I realize how difficult a task I have undertaken. He is eight years older than I, but sometimes he seems to be years younger, while again I feel almost like a child beside him. No, Uncle Peabody, it is not a similar case to that little Mrs. Johnson whom you quoted when you were last home as saying that a woman feels as old as the way her husband treats her. I know this will pop into your mind, so I will promptly head you off. The fact is that Jack is a very remarkable man. He is handsome, with great strength of character showing in every feature, he is tall and athletic,—but it is his wonderful mental ability which will most impress you. Think of a man playing on the Harvard ’Varsity eleven, rowing on the crew, and yet graduating with a summa cum laude!

“Jack is a superb dancer, thus disproving the common belief that a man can’t be clever at both ends; and at the Assemblies, even before we were engaged, I used to anticipate those numbers which he had taken more than all the others. Besides this, his conversation was always so original,—touching frequently upon topics which were new to me. His particular fad is what he calls ‘humanism’ and his particular loves the great writers of the past,—his ‘divinities,’ as he calls them. You probably understand just what all this means, but, alas! most of it is beyond my comprehension! What he tells me interests me, of course,—it even fascinates me. I can follow him up to a certain point; then we reach my limitations, and I am forced to admit my lack of understanding. That is when I feel so like an infant beside him. He is as patient as can be, and insists that when once I am in Florence, where the air itself is heavy with the learning of the past, I shall be able to comprehend it all, and it will mean the same to me that it does to him. I wish I felt as confident!

“We are to be married in April, and Jack has taken the Villa Godilombra in Settignano for the season. We expect to arrive there early in May, and we want you to come to us for just as long a visit as you can arrange. You won’t disappoint me, will you, dear Uncle Peabody? We all have been broken-hearted that you have so long delayed your return, and one of the events in our plans for Florence to which I am looking forward with the greatest eagerness is this visit with you. Write and tell me how your work progresses, but don’t say ‘I told you so.’ This would show that you really expected it all the time, and your favorite argument would lose its force. Just say that you will come to us at Settignano.”

The letter itself showed that Helen had changed much during the months which had elapsed since he had last seen her. There was a more serious undertone and a broader outlook,—due undoubtedly to Armstrong’s influence. Uncle Peabody wondered whether Helen could have been attracted to this man by her admiration for his mental strength rather than by any real sentiment, perhaps mistaking the one for the other. This was the point he wished to settle in his own mind, and this was why he had studied them both, from the moment of his arrival, much more carefully than either one of them realized.

Armstrong was a remarkable man, as Helen had said. Even in the few hours he had known him, Uncle Peabody found much to admire. It was true that his manner toward Helen showed indulgence, almost as to a child rather than to a wife; but his devotion was entirely obvious, and this relation was to be expected after reading Helen’s letter. Still, Mr. Cartwright told himself, the existence of this relation necessitated a certain readjustment before a perfection of united interests could be attained. Armstrong was bound to be the dominating force, and Helen must inevitably respond to this new influence, strange as it now seemed to her. His knowledge of her sympathetic and intuitive grasp of his own pet theories gave him confidence to believe that this response would be equally prompt and comprehensive.

Henry Peabody Cartwright was distinctly a citizen of the world. Boston had been his birthplace, Boston had been the base of his eminently successful business operations, and his name still figured in the list of the city’s “largest taxpayers.” Beyond this, the city of his early activity had, during the past twenty years, seen him only as a visitor at periodic intervals. He had emerged from his commercial environment at the age of forty, with a firm determination to gratify his ideals.

Fortunately for him, and for mankind as well, his ideals were not fully crystallized when he set out to gratify them. Boston was entirely satisfactory to him as an abiding-place, but he felt a leaven at work within him which demanded a larger arena than even the outlying territory of Greater Boston covered. He started, therefore, in the late eighties for a trip around the world, with the definite purpose, as he himself announced, of “giving things a chance to happen to him.”

“I have no schedule and no plans,” he said to those who questioned him. “I shall ‘hitch my wagon to a star,’ but always with my grip near at hand, so that I may change stars upon a moment’s notice.”

There were no immediate family ties to interfere with the carrying-out of what seemed to his friends to be rather quixotic ideas. There may have been some youthful romance, but, if so, no one ever succeeded in learning anything of it from him.

“It is all perfectly simple,” he once good-naturedly replied to a persistent relative. “The girls I was willing to marry would not have me, and those who would have me I was not willing to marry. I used to think that I would become more attractive as I grew older, but I have given up that idea now. Once I tried to rub a freckle off with sand-paper and pumice-stone and found blood under the skin; but the freckle—the same old freckle—is there to this day.”

His devotion to women in the composite was consistent and sincere; the fondness which existed between himself and his brother’s family was such that his departure had left a distinct void, and his visits home were events circled with red ink in the family calendar. He enjoyed these visits no less than they; but with never more than a day or two of warning he would announce his intention of leaving for Egypt or India or some spot more or less remote in his quest for the unexpected. To the reproaches which were levelled at him, he replied, with a smile which defied controversy:

“I am just as sorry not to be with you all as you can possibly be to have me away; but I have educated myself to the separation, and have thus overcome the necessity for personal propinquity.”

On that first trip around the world Uncle Peabody found one of his ideals, although he did not realize its vast importance until several years later. Japan appealed to him, and the longer he remained there the more impressed he became with certain of the national characteristics. First of all, he marvelled at the evenness of temper which the people displayed, at their endurance, their patience. He watched the carefulness with which they weighed the importance of each problem before accepting its responsibility, and their utter abandon in carrying it through when once undertaken. This was twenty years before the Russo-Japanese war, and he had come among them with the existing Occidental estimate of their paganism and barbarity. It may have been a species of incredulity leading to curiosity which induced him to remain among them, but as a result of his sojourn he discovered that they were philosophers rather than fatalists, geniuses rather than barbarians.

He questioned his new hosts, when he came to know them better, and was told quite seriously and quite naturally that they never became angry, because anger produced poison in the system and retarded digestion; that upon digestion depended health; that upon health depended happiness, and upon happiness depended personal efficiency and life itself. They explained that forethought was one of the cardinal factors of their creed, but added that its antithesis, fear-thought, was equally important as an element to be eliminated. They called his attention to the fact that they did not live upon what they ate, but upon what they digested, and that by masticating their food more thoroughly than he did they secured from the smaller quantity the same amount of nourishment without needlessly overloading their systems with undigested food which could not possibly be assimilated.

This last theory did not altogether appeal to Peabody Cartwright at first. His friends at the Somerset Club still held memories of his epicurean proclivities, and they were not weary even yet of recalling the time when he had won a goodly wager by naming, blindfolded, five different vintages of Burgundy and Bordeaux. But the more he thought it over the more convinced he became that the something to which he had promised to give a chance had really happened to him. He pondered, he experimented—but he still continued to eat larger quantities of food than the Japanese.

A year later he was in Italy, and in Venice Mr. Cartwright suddenly discovered that he had found the geographical centre of the civilized world. With Venice as the starting-point, one could reach London or Constantinople, St. Petersburg or New York, with equal exertion. Venice, therefore, became his adopted home, although it could claim no more of his presence than any one of a dozen other cities in the four quarters of the globe. During the twenty years, he had succeeded in making himself a part of each one—had become a veritable citizen of the world, but by no means a man without a country.

Italy served to drive home the truths which Japan had first shown him. Three years after his experience there, a dingy, second-hand book-store in Florence had placed him in possession of Luigi Cornaro’s Discorsi della Vita Sobria. He read it with amazement. Here in his hand, written by a Venetian nobleman more than three hundred years before, at the age of eighty-three, was the text-book of the theories of life which he had accepted from the Japanese as new and untried except among this alien people! It gave him a start, and he journeyed to Turin, Berne, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, London, St. Petersburg, and even back to Boston, seeking to interest the famous physiologists in his discovery, which he believed was destined to exterminate disease and to transform those practising the medical profession into hygienic engineers.

Mr. Cartwright’s name and personality preserved him from a sanitarium, but his theories as to self-control, forethought, and fear-thought received ample opportunity for personal experiment. He was as tenacious as if his future depended upon the outcome. A good-natured indulgence here, and an incredulous sympathy there, gave him his first opportunities for demonstration. He not only drew upon his fortune, but freely contributed himself as a subject for experiment. It had been slow, but he had learned patience from the Japanese. Disbelief gradually changed into doubt, doubt into question, question into half-belief, and half-belief into conviction. Quietly, surely, his own faith was assimilated by those high in the physiological ranks, and almost against their will, and before they realized the importance of their concessions, he had forced them to prove him right by their own analyses.

The last five years had been a steady triumph. He had found his ideals, but he had not attained them. He knew what his life-work was, and had the gratification of counting among his friends and collaborators the highest authorities the world recognized. The habits of generations could not be changed in a moment—some of them could never be changed; but the ball had been started and was gaining in size with each revolution. It no longer needed his gentle, persuasive push; it had its own momentum now, and he found it only necessary to guide its advance and to watch its growth.

Uncle Peabody’s thoughts reverted to his work as he folded Helen’s letter and placed it again in his pocket, where he had so long carried it. He regretted having his labors interrupted just now, but he found himself keenly interested to watch Helen’s approaching evolution. His wagon was firmly hitched to this new star, and he had no notion of changing stars. So, with a murmured “Bless you, my children. May you live forever, and may I come to your funeral,” he sought the repose which the others had already found.

IV

Mary and Bertha Sinclair were just completing a year’s study in Florence, upon which they were depending to perfect their musical education; but both girls were sufficiently homesick after their two years’ absence from Boston to be more than eager to exchange their pension for a week’s visit with Helen, who brought to them a fresh budget of home news,—for which their eagerness increased as the date for their return to America drew nearer. Emory and Eustis, too, added familiar faces, so the days following the first dinner at the villa proved to be full of interest and enjoyment to all concerned.

The guests became familiar with each portion of the house and grounds, the mysteries of Italian house-keeping were contrasted with the limitations of boarding, and numerous topics of common import succeeded each other without surcease.

During the morning following the arrival of the guests, Armstrong touched tentatively upon the subject of visiting the library.

“We went there when we first came to Florence,” Mary Sinclair replied; “and we saw everything there was.”

Armstrong smiled indulgently, thinking of the little they had really seen.

“You know we are not very literary,” explained Bertha, catching the expression upon his face.

“They are really more hopeless cases even than I,” Helen added, sympathetically.

“Why don’t you try Phil and me?” inquired Emory. “We went through the Vatican library, so we are experts. At least they said it was a library. The only books we saw there were a few in show-cases—the rest they kept out of sight.”

“You would not recognize a real book if you saw it, Emory,” Armstrong replied, with resignation. “There is no hurry. Perhaps Miss Thayer will go with me some day soon.”

“Indeed I will,” Inez responded, with enthusiasm. “There is nothing I wish so much to do.”

“Good.” His appreciation was sincere. “I shall take real delight in introducing to you my old-time friends, with whom I often differ but, never quarrel.”

“Are they so real to you as that?” Inez asked, impressed by his tone.

“They are indeed,” Armstrong replied, seriously. “I visit and talk with them just as I would with you all. But they have an aggravating advantage over me, for, no matter how laboriously I argue with them, their original statement stands unmoved there upon the written page, as if enjoying my feeble effort to disturb its serenity, and defying me to do my worst.”

“I would much prefer to give them an absent treatment,” asserted Eustis.

“Inez is clearly the psychological subject,” Helen added. “At school she was forever putting us girls to shame by her mortifying familiarity with the classics. It is only fair that she should now be paid in her own coin.”

“I accept both the invitation and the challenge,” replied Inez, bowing to her hostess, and, walking over to the low wall on which Helen had seated herself, she threw her arm affectionately about her neck. “But you must not embarrass me with such praise, or your husband will suffer a keen disappointment. To study Latin and Greek out of school-books is one thing; to meet face to face the personalities one has regarded as divinities—even reading their very handwriting—is another. It makes one wonder if she ever did know anything about them before.”

“That is exactly the spirit in which to approach the shrine, Miss Thayer!” cried Armstrong, enthusiastically. “Let us frame a new beatitude: ‘Blessed is she who appreciates the glories of antiquity, for she shall inherit the riches of the past.’”

The contrast of the two girls in the rich Italian morning light was so striking that Uncle Peabody paused in his approach after a successful attack upon the rose-bushes, touched Armstrong upon the shoulder, and nodded admiringly in their direction. They were separated a little from the others, and were busily engaged in a conversation of their own, in which no man hath a part, quite oblivious to the attention they attracted. Inez was standing, and, even though seated, Helen’s superb head reached quite to her companion’s shoulder, and the fair hair and complexion were clearly defined against the darker hue of the face and head bent down to meet her own. Her eyes, looking out into the distance even as she spoke, reflected the calm, satisfied contentment of the moment, while in the brown depths of the other’s one could read an ungratified ambition, an uncertainty not yet explained. Inez Thayer’s face was attractive, Helen’s was beautiful—that beauty which one feels belongs naturally to the person possessing it without the necessity of analysis.

Armstrong was evidently pleased with this comparison, as he had been with all previous ones. Italy, it seemed to him, formed just the background to set off to best advantage his wife’s personal attractions. Uncle Peabody smiled contentedly at the undisguised satisfaction which was so clearly indicated in the younger man’s face.

“If there had been any girls in Boston who looked like that when I was of sparking age,” he whispered to Armstrong, “I should certainly have married and settled down, as I ought to have done.”

“And allowed the world to perish of indigestion?” queried Armstrong, smiling.

“Scoffer! you do not deserve your good-fortune. Come, these roses are becoming all thorns. Young ladies, may I intrude upon your tête-à-tête long enough to present you with the trophies of my after-breakfast hunt?”

“A thousand apologies, Uncle,” cried Helen, taking the roses in her arms and burying her face in their fragrant petals. “Oh! how beautiful! And how idiotic ever to leave this Garden of Paradise and immure yourselves within that musty old library. Do you not repent?”

“I place the decision wholly in Miss Thayer’s hands,” said Armstrong; but he glanced at Inez with evident expectancy.

“Then I decide to go,” replied the girl. “I am quite impatient to meet the friends in whose good company Mr. Armstrong revelled before his present reincarnation.”

“When?” asked Armstrong, quickly.

“Now!”

“Splendid! I will order the carriage at once.”

“There is rapid transit for you!” exclaimed Eustis. “Jack believes in striking while the iron is hot.”

“What a narrow escape we have had,” murmured Mary Sinclair, with a sigh of relief.

“Very well,” said Helen, resignedly. “It may be just as well to have it over. Jack has been looking forward to this ever since he turned his face toward Florence, and he will be quite miserable until he has actually gratified his anticipation.—But don’t be away long, will you, Jack?”

“Miss Thayer will very likely find the staid company which we plan to keep quite as stupid as the rest of you anticipate,” replied Armstrong, “so we may be home sooner than you expect.”

Inez had already disappeared in-doors to put on her hat, and Armstrong started out to call a carriage. Helen intercepted him as he crossed the veranda.

“You won’t mind if I don’t go with you to-day, will you, Jack? If it were just to see the treasures at the library I would urge them all to go; but I know what is in your mind, dear. Truly, I will go with you some time, and you shall try your experiment upon me; but I am not in the mood for it just now. I ought not to leave the others, anyway.”

“It is all right, of course,” he answered. “I wish you did feel like going, but your substitute seems to be enthusiastic enough to make up for your antipathy.”

“Don’t call it that,” Helen answered, half-reproachfully; “it is simply that I am ashamed to have my ignorance exposed,—and it will give you such a splendid chance really to know Inez. Now run along and have a good time, and tell me all about it when you come home.”

The little one-horse victoria soon left the villa behind, and was well along on the narrow descending road before either of its occupants broke the silence. As if by mutual consent, each was thinking what neither would have spoken aloud. Helen had not seen the expression of disappointment which passed over her husband’s face as she spoke. He would have given much if it might have been his wife beside him. He had studied the girl carefully, and had found in her an intuitive sympathy with the very subjects concerning which she disclaimed all knowledge. At first he had thought that she exaggerated her limitations because of his deeper study, but he soon discovered her absolute sincerity. It was a lack of confidence in herself, he inwardly explained, and when once in Florence he would give her that confidence which was the only element lacking to her complete understanding. But as yet he had been unable to get her inside the library, or even within range of the necessary atmosphere.

Inez Thayer’s thoughts were upon the same subject, but from a different standpoint. Her last words to Helen, when Uncle Peabody had interrupted their conversation, framed a mild reproach. “If I had won a man like Jack Armstrong,” Inez whispered to her, “I would not allow any one, not even you, to take my place on an excursion such as this, upon which he has so set his whole heart.”

“You are a sweet little harmonizer, Inez,” Helen had answered, smilingly, “but you are a silly child none the less. Jack and I understand each other perfectly. He knows my limitations, and, if I went, I should only spoil his full enjoyment. You will understand it and revel in it, and he will be supremely happy. If you were not so much better fitted naturally for this sort of thing, of course I should go rather than disappoint him, but, truly, the arrangement is much better as it is.”

Inez had no opportunity to continue the conversation, but Helen had not convinced her. Hers was an intense nature, and she had much more of the romantic in her soul than her best friends gave her credit for. Her one serious love-affair had proved only an annoyance and mortification. Ferdinand De Peyster was in many ways a desirable parti, as mammas with marriageable daughters were quite aware. He was possessed of a handsome competency, was not inconvenienced by business responsibilities, and his devotion to Inez Thayer was only whetted to a greater degree of constancy by the opposition it received from its particular object. He was not lacking in education, having spent four years in the freshman class at Harvard; he was not unattractive, in his own individual way, and his one great desire, not even second to his striving for blue ribbons with his fine stable of blooded horses, was to have her accept the position of head of his household.

But Inez was repelled by the very subserviency of his devotion. Her love rested heavily upon respect, and this could be won only by a man who commanded it. John Armstrong fulfilled her ideal, and she wondered why Fate had not fashioned the man whom she had attracted in a similar mould.

Armstrong looked up from his reverie half guiltily, and for a moment his eyes met those of his companion squarely. Inez could not match the frank glance—it seemed to her as if he must have read her thoughts; but the heartiness of his words relieved her apprehension.

“What a bore you must think me, Miss Thayer! I have not spoken a word since we left the house.”

“I must assume my share of responsibility for the silence,” Inez replied, regaining her composure. “The seriousness of our quest must have had a sobering effect upon us both.”

“But you won’t find these old fellows so serious as you think,” Armstrong hastened to say. “They were humanists and products of the movement which marked the breaking away from the ascetic severity preceding them. But, after all, they were the first to realize that life could be even better worth living if it contained beauty and happiness.”

“You see how little I know about them, in spite of Helen’s attempt to place me on a pedestal.”

“Why, if it had not been for their work,” he continued, enthusiastically, “the classics might still have remained as dead to us as they were to those who lived in the thirteenth century. Instead of studying Virgil and Homer, we should have been brought up on theological literature and the ‘Holy Fathers.’”

“I feel just as I did at my coming-out party,” Inez replied—“that same feeling of awe and uncertainty. I am eager to go with you, yet I dread it somehow. It is not a presentiment exactly,—it is—”

“I know just what you mean,” Armstrong interrupted, sympathetically; “and, if you feel like that now, just wait until you see old Cerini, the librarian. It is he who is responsible for my passion for this sort of thing. Why, I remember, when I was here years ago and used to run in to see him at the Laurenziana, I never regarded him as a mortal at all; and I don’t believe my reverence and veneration for the old man have abated a whit in the twelve years gone by.”

The light vehicle had passed through the Porta alla Croce, and was swaying from side to side like a ship at sea, rattling over the stones of the narrow city streets at such a rate that conversation was no longer a pleasure.

“Just why Florentine cabmen are content to drive at a snail’s pace on a good road and feel impelled to rush at breakneck speed over bad ones is a phase of Italian character explained neither by Baedeker nor by Hare,” remarked Armstrong, leaning nearer to Inez to make himself heard.

With a loud snap of his whip and a guttural “Whee-oop,” the cocchiere rounded the statue of John of the Black Bands, just missed the ancient book-stand immortalized by Browning in the Ring and the Book, and came to a sudden stop before the unpretentious entrance to the Biblioteca Laurenziana.

“You have been here before, of course?” he asked his companion as they passed through the wicket-gate into the ancient cloisters of San Lorenzo.

“Once, with Baedeker to tell me to go on, and with the tall Italian custodian to stop me when I reached the red velvet rope stretched across the room, which I suppose marks the Dante division between Purgatory and Paradise.”

“This time you shall not only enter Paradise, but you shall behold the Beatific Vision,” laughed Armstrong.

Passing by the main entrance of the library at the head of the stone stairs, Armstrong led the way along the upper cloister to a small door, where he pressed a little electric button—an accessory not included in Michelangelo’s original plans for the building. A moment later they heard the sound of descending footsteps, and presently a bearded face looked out at them through the small grated window. The inspection was evidently satisfactory, for the heavy iron bar on the inside was released and the door opened.

“Good-morning, Maritelli,” said Armstrong in Italian. “Is the direttore disengaged?”

“He is in his study, signore, awaiting your arrival.”

Maritelli dropped the iron bar back into place with a loud clang and then led the way up the short flight of stone steps to the librarian’s study. Armstrong detained Inez a moment at the top.

“I brought you in this way because I want you to see Cerini in his frame. It is a picture worthy the brush of an old master.”

Maritelli knocked gently on the door and placed his ear against it to hear the response. Then he opened it quietly and bowed as Armstrong and his companion entered.

“Buon’ giorno, padre.” Armstrong gravely saluted the old man as he looked up. “I have brought to you another seeker after the gold in your treasure-house.”

Cerini’s face showed genuine delight as he rose and extended both hands to Inez. “Your wife!” he exclaimed; “I am glad indeed to greet her.”

Armstrong flushed. “No, padre, not my wife, but her dearest friend, Miss Thayer.”

The old man let one arm fall to his side with visible disappointment, which he vainly sought to conceal.

“I am sorry,” he said, simply, taking Inez’ hand in his own. “I have known this dear friend for many years, and have loved him for the love he gave to my work. I had hoped to greet his wife here, and to find that the literæ humaniores were to her the elixir of life that they are to me—and to him.”

“When I tell her of my visit she will be eager to come to you as I have,” said Inez, strangely touched by the keenness of his disappointment. “To-day she could not leave her guests.”

“Will you first show Miss Thayer the illuminations and the rarest of the incunabula?” asked Armstrong, eager to change the subject; “and then will you let us come back here to talk with you?”

“With pleasure, my son, with pleasure. What shall I show her first?”

“That little ‘Book of Hours’ illuminated by Francesco d’Antonio, padre.”

Cerini pulled up the great bunch of keys suspended from the end of his girdle and unlocked one of the drawers in the ancient wooden desk in front of him.

“I always wonder how you dare keep so priceless a treasure in that desk, and why it is not put on exhibition where visitors may see it,” Armstrong queried.

Cerini laughed quietly. “There are many other treasures, my son, equally precious, as you know well, scattered about in these desks and drawers, where I alone can find them.”

“How dare you take the risk?”