The Minister, starting, looked at him sharply, and asked--

"How did you know?"

"Never mind how I know, Camillo. It is, as you see, useless for you to try and deceive me. You have given the contract to those Germans--for a consideration. But don't think that I blame you. Why, I should do the very same thing myself. I get a little in my own small way out of certain people in Asti, but not enough. That's why I am compelled, so much against my will, to come to you."

"Ah!" groaned the Minister, facing him quickly and determinedly. "The same old story--eh? Money."

"Like air, it is a necessity of life," he replied, smiling. "I have been in want of it for a month past, but preferred to wait rather than to trouble you while you were on holiday."

"But you surely get enough now!" protested His Excellency. "I've obtained a dozen different favours for you; I've given you appointments; I've allowed you to make recommendations for military decorations in Piedmont; I've allowed you to handle the secret service funds; and I've done all I could so as to place you in a position to receive secret commission. But of course, if you fail to make use of your opportunities, it is not my fault."

"Never fear. I do not stir a finger without some consideration," he laughed. "You surely know me too well after all these years. No; I find that it is not sufficient. Money I want, and money I must have.

Recollect what services I have rendered to you in the Camera, my dear Camillo," he went on. "You surely do not forget the dead set made against you a year ago, and how I succeeded in uniting the various groups and inducing them to pa.s.s a vote of confidence! You never were nearer downfall than you were that afternoon--except, perhaps, to-night.

You have enemies, my dear friend--enemies in the Socialist groups, who declare that you have held office too long," he added.

"I know," exclaimed the other hoa.r.s.ely. "I know that," and he tossed his cigar away with a quick, impatient gesture.

"While you've been abroad I have been active in secretly ascertaining the real state of political opinion in the north, and much as I regret to tell you, it is distinctly antagonistic. Now that Milan is such a strong Socialist centre the other large towns are following, and an agitation is spreading against you. They want a fresh man in office as Minister of War--the man who is so cleverly scheming to replace you."

"To replace me!" exclaimed Morini. "And who is this man, pray?"

The words which Vito Ricci had spoken sank like iron into his soul. He knew, alas! how very precarious was his office.

"The man is our friend Angelo," slowly replied the crafty deputy.

"Already in the north he is looked upon as your successor. If the groups in the Camera fall asunder, then your dismissal is imminent. I know this is a very unwelcome piece of news, my dear Camillo, but it is a hard fact which I have come here to-night to reveal to you."

CHAPTER TEN.

"FOR MARY'S SAKE."

His Excellency's face fell. He was silent for several moments.

The easy-going, well-dressed political adventurer before him was, he knew, in the secrets of the strong party who were his opponents and who were ever plotting his downfall. He had, since his return to Rome, heard rumours through certain quarters in which secret service money was spent that an agitation had been set afoot by his antagonists, but he had never dreamed that the prime mover of it all was the very man in whom he had so implicitly trusted, one of the men who owed everything to him--Angelo Borselli! The revelation staggered him. He really could not believe it to be actually true.

"And so he intends to become Minister--eh?" remarked Morini bitterly, when he at last found tongue.

"He is working for that end," replied Ricci. "I was in Milan and Parma a week ago, and on every hand I saw how cleverly he was stirring up ill-feeling against you. He is secretly allied to the Socialists--of that I am certain."

"Because he sees that through them he can obtain office," replied His Excellency, his pale face now very serious. "You have done well to tell me this, _caro mio_," he added. "I shall know now how to deal with the man who learns my secrets and then seeks to betray me."

"But your position is daily becoming one of graver peril," exclaimed the wily advocate, placing his hand confidentially upon the Minister's arm.

"The agitation is widespread. The Socialists intend that the Government shall fall."

"But you will help me, Vito, as before?" Morini urged quickly. "Those shrieking Socialist maniacs shall not gain the ascendency?" he declared, clenching his hands and pacing the room quickly.

Vito Ricci, deputy for the town of Asti, shrugged his shoulders, but did not reply. In the Italian Camera every politician of any prominence had a small body of adherents, and political ability consisted in so manipulating a number of these bodies as to form a majority; therefore for this purpose each Minister secretly bribed one or more of the most unscrupulous deputies to juggle with the party. A group might to-day be on the side of the Government, and to-morrow with the Opposition. There were no real political principles at stake in the policy of these groups, and the only important question was that of party management and judicious bribery.

Vito Ricci was a professional politician, with whom politics was a regular trade. The Government granted him a free railway pa.s.s--as it did all the other deputies at Montecitorio--and he made money wherever he could. His position enabled him to obtain many favours for himself and his friends. The system of recommendations and parliamentary influence was one of the worst features of Italian political life, for it was generally regarded as one of the deputy's chief duties that, for a consideration, he should help his friends and const.i.tuents to procure favours, promotions, decorations, and concessions of contracts which would not be otherwise obtainable. Political jobbery was regarded as inevitable.

Indeed, Vito Ricci lived upon the bribes he received--and lived well.

"You are silent," remarked His Excellency, looking him straight in his face. "Why?"

"Because I have nothing to say."

"You don't promise to a.s.sist me!" he exclaimed. "You don't declare your readiness to unite the groups again in our favour!"

"Because I fear it would be a useless task," responded the other in a calm, mechanical voice.

"A useless task!" gasped the elder man, whose face was blanched. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that matters have a.s.sumed an ugly appearance," replied the deputy. "Even the journals who have received so much money from you are silent when they ought to be loudest in your eulogy. They are evidently awaiting the advent of their new masters."

"Then you actually antic.i.p.ate a catastrophe?" exclaimed Morini hoa.r.s.ely, halting before the man who had rendered him so many valuable services-- the clever, unscrupulous adventurer who had several times turned the parliamentary tide in his favour.

Vito nodded slowly, his bearded face grave and hard set.

"If what you say is really true regarding Angelo, then I am fully aware of the great peril in which I stand," the Minister exclaimed at last, his voice faltering in his agitation. "Borselli will hesitate at nothing in order to gain power."

"Ah, I told you so a year ago, my dear Camillo," was the deputy's reply.

"But you would not listen. He was your friend, you said--as though there was such a thing as friendship in any of the ministries."

"I have been deceived," admitted the other in a low voice.

A silence fell between the pair, until the deputy suddenly said hesitatingly--

"I suppose Angelo could make some rather awkward revelations--eh?"

The Minister slowly nodded.

"H'm. I thought as much from what I gathered in Milan. He would denounce you, and by reason of his big Socialist following he would come out with clean hands. He has laid his plans well, without a doubt.

Sirena, the Socialist deputy for Pesaro, told me, in confidence, all that is intended."

"They mean to strike a blow at me?"

"Yes, by criticising the army, and by bringing forward some curious story about the plans of the fortress of Tresenta in the Alps being sold to France. Do you know anything about it?"

"Yes. The plans have unfortunately been given to France by a captain named Solaro, who has been dismissed the army and sent to prison. So they intend to make political capital out of that, do they?"

"It seems so," was the other's answer.

Morini slowly repaced the room, his chin upon his breast, deep in thought, the dead silence being broken only by his footsteps upon the marble floor.

"Borselli has formed a plot against me--a deep, dastardly plot!" he exclaimed in a desperate tone, halting again suddenly, a determined look upon his grey features. "He intends that I shall fall. But you, Vito, can save me, if you will--you know you can. With a little of this," and he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, "you can unite the groups as you did before, and show the country that the Minister of War still possesses the confidence of the kingdom."

"I doubt it," answered Ricci dubiously.

"But you will not desert me now?" implored His Excellency, laying his hand firmly upon the deputy's shoulder. "Recollect the past, Vito.

Remember the day when you, a lieutenant, prevented my horse throwing me at the manoeuvres in the Chianti. That was long ago, but both of us have had cause to congratulate ourselves upon that meeting."