"Sir," I replied, "the visit of a gentleman is never an intrusion.

Permit me to offer you a chair." He sat down, and crossed one thin leg over the other. He was dressed in the height of the fashion; he wore patent-leather shoes, and carried a light ebony cane with a silver head. His hat was perfectly new, and so smoothly brushed that it reflected a circular image of the objects in the room. But he had a certain dignity that saved his foppery from seeming ridiculous.

"You are very kind," he answered. "Perhaps you would like to hear some news of Signor Cardegna,--your boy, for he is nothing else."

"Indeed" I said, "I should be very glad. Has he written to you, baron?"

"Oh, no! We are not intimate enough for that. But I ran on to Paris the other day, and heard him three or four times, and had him to supper at Bignon's. He is a great genius, your boy, and has won all hearts."

"That is a compliment of weight from so distinguished a musician as yourself," I answered; for, as you know, Nino had told me all about his playing. Indeed, the description was his, which is the reason why it is so enthusiastic.

"Yes," said Benoni, "I am a great traveller, and often go to Paris for a day or two. I know everyone there. Cardegna had a perfect ovation.

All the women sent him flowers, and all the men asked him to dinner."

"Pardon my curiosity," I interrupted, "but as you know everyone in Paris, could you inform me whether Count von Lira and his daughter are there at present? He is a retired Prussian officer." Benoni stretched out one of his long arms and ran his fingers along the keys of the piano without striking them. He could just reach so far from where he sat. He gave no sign of intelligence, and I felt sure that Nino had not questioned him.

"I know them very well," he said, presently, "but I thought they were here."

"No, they left suddenly for Paris a month ago."

"I can very easily find out for you," said Benoni, his Bright eyes turning on me with a searching look. "I can find out from Lira's banker, who is probably also mine. What is the matter with that young man? He is as sad as Don Quixote."

"Nino? He is probably in love," I said, rather indiscreetly.

"In love? Then of course he is in love with Mademoiselle de Lira, and has gone to Paris to find her, and cannot. That is why you ask me." I was so much astonished at the quickness of his guesswork that I stared, open-mouthed.

"He must have told you!" I exclaimed at last.

"Nothing of the kind. In the course of a long life I have learned to put two and two together, that is all. He is in love, he is your boy, and you are looking for a certain young lady. It is as clear as day."

But in reality he had guessed the secret long before.

"Very well," said I, humbly, but doubting him, all the same, "I can only admire your perspicacity. But I would be greatly obliged if you would find out where they are, those good people. You seem to be a friend of my boy's, baron. Help him, and he will be grateful to you.

It is not such a very terrible thing that a great artist should love a n.o.ble's daughter, after all, though I used to think so." Benoni laughed, that strange laugh which Nino had described,--a laugh that seemed to belong to another age.

"You amuse me with your prejudices about n.o.bility," he said, and his brown eyes flashed and twinkled again. "The idea of talking about n.o.bility in this age! You might as well talk of the domestic economy of the Garden of Eden."

"But you are yourself a n.o.ble--a baron," I objected.

"Oh, I am anything you please," said Benoni. "Some idiot made a baron of me the other day because I lent him money and he could not pay it.

But I have some right to it, after all, for I am a Jew. The only real n.o.bles are Welshmen and Jews. You cannot call anything so ridiculously recent as the European upper cla.s.ses a n.o.bility. Now I go straight back to the creation of the world, like all my countrymen. The Hibernians get a fact.i.tious reputation for antiquity by saying that Eve married an Irishman after Adam died, and that is about as much claim as your European n.o.bles have to respectability. Bah! I know their beginnings, very small indeed."

"You also seem to have strong prejudices on the subject," said I, not wishing to contradict a guest in my house.

"So strong that it amounts to having no prejudices at all. Your boy wants to marry a n.o.ble damosel. In Heaven's name let him do it. Let us manage it amongst us. Love is a grand thing. I have loved several women all their lives. Do not look surprised. I am a very old man; they have all died, and at present I am not in love with anybody. I suppose it cannot last long, however. I loved a woman once on a time"--Benoni paused. He seemed to be on the verge of a soliloquy, and his strange, bright face, which seemed illuminated always with a deathless vitality, became dreamy and looked older. But he recollected himself and rose to go. His eye caught sight of the guitar that hung on the wall.

"Ah," he cried suddenly, "music is better than love, for it lasts; let us make music." He dropped his hat and stick and seized the instrument. In an instant it was tuned and he began to perform the most extraordinary feats of agility with his fingers that I ever beheld. Some of it was very beautiful, and some of it very sad and wild, but I understood Nino's enthusiasm. I could have listened to the old guitar in his hands for hours together,--I, who care little for music; and I watched his face. He stalked about the room with the thing in his hands, in a sort of wild frenzy of execution. His features grew ashy pale, and his smooth white hair stood out wildly from his head. He looked, then, more than a hundred years old, and there was a sadness and a horror about him that would have made the stones cry aloud for pity. I could not believe he was the same man. At last he was tired, and stopped.

"You are a great artist, baron," I said. "Your music seems to affect you much."

"Ah, yes, it makes me feel like other men for the time," said he, in a low voice. "Did you know that Paganini always practised on the guitar?

It is true. Well, I will find out about the Liras for you in a day or two, before I leave Rome again."

I thanked him and he took his leave.

CHAPTER XII

Benoni had made an impression on me that nothing could efface. His tall thin figure and bright eyes got into my dreams and haunted me, so that I thought my nerves were affected. For several days I could think of nothing else, and at last had myself bled, and took some cooling barley-water, and gave up eating salad at night, but without any perceptible effect.

Nino wrote often, and seemed very much excited about the disappearance of the contessina, but what could I do? I asked everyone I knew, and n.o.body had heard of them, so that at last I quite gave it over, and wrote to tell him so. A week pa.s.sed, then a fortnight, and I had heard nothing from Benoni. Nino wrote again, enclosing a letter addressed to the Contessina di Lira, which he implored me to convey to her, if I loved him. He said he was certain that she had never left Italy. Some instinct seemed to tell him so, and she was evidently in neither London nor Paris, for he had made every inquiry, and had even been to the police about it. Two days after this, Benoni came. He looked exactly as he did the first time I saw him.

"I have news," he said, briefly, and sat down in the arm-chair, striking the dust from his boot with his little cane.

"News of the Graf?" I inquired.

"Yes. I have found out something. They never left Italy at all, it seems. I am rather mystified, and I hate mystification. The old man is a fool; all old men are fools, excepting myself. Will you smoke? No?

Allow me, then. It is a modern invention, but a very good one." He lit a cigarette. "I wish your Liras were in Tophet," he continued, presently. "How can people have the bad taste to hide? It only makes ingenious persons the more determined to find them." He seemed talkative, and as I was so sad and lonely I encouraged him by a little stimulus of doubt. I wish I had doubted him sooner, and differently.

"What is the use?" I asked. "We shall never find them."

"'Never' is a great word,'" said Benoni. "You do not know what it means. I do. But as for finding them, you shall see. In the first place, I have talked with their banker. He says the count gave the strictest orders to have his address kept a secret. But, being one of my people he allowed himself to make an accidental allusion which gave me a clue to what I wanted. They are hidden somewhere in the mountains."

"Diavolo! among the brigands: they will not be very well treated,"

said I.

"The old man will be careful. He will keep clear of danger. The only thing is to find them."

"And what then?" I asked.

"That depends on the most ill.u.s.trious Signor Cardegna," said Benoni, smiling. "He only asked you to find them. He probably did not antic.i.p.ate that I would help you."

It did not appear to me that Benoni had helped me much, after all. You might as well look for a needle in a haystack as try to find anyone who goes to the Italian mountains. The baron offered no further advice, and sat calmly smoking and looking at me. I felt uneasy, opposite him. He was a mysterious person, and I thought him disguised.

It was really not possible that, with his youthful manner, his hair should be naturally so white, or that he should be so old as he seemed. I asked him the question we always find it interesting to ask foreigners, hoping to lead him into conversation.

"How do you like our Rome, Baron Benoni?"

"Rome? I loathe and detest it," he said, with a smile. "There is only one place in the whole world that I hate more."

"What place is that?" I asked, remembering that he had made the same remark to Nino before.

"Jerusalem," he answered, and the smile faded on his face. I thought I guessed the reason of his dislike in his religious views. But I am very liberal about those things.

"I think I understand you," I said; "you are a Hebrew, and the prevailing form of religion is disagreeable to you."

"No, it is not exactly that,--and yet, perhaps, it is." He seemed to be pondering on the reason of his dislike.

"But why do you visit these places if they do not please you?"