"A la bonne heure! But why, In the name of the saints or the devil, have you taken such a fancy to me?"

"Why have I taken such a fancy to you?" I repeated, slowly. "My dear Ferrari, I am surely not alone in my admiration for your high qualities! Does not every one like you? Are you not a universal favorite? Do you not tell me that your late friend the Count Romani held you as the dearest to him in the world after his wife? Ebbene! Why underrate yourself?"

He let his hands fall slowly from my shoulders and a look of pain contracted his features. After a little silence he said:

"Fabio again! How his name and memory haunt me! I told you he was a fool--it was part of his folly that he loved me too well--perhaps. Do you know I have thought of him very much lately?"

"Indeed?" and I feigned to be absorbed in fixing a star-like j.a.ponica in my b.u.t.ton-hole. "How is that?"

A grave and meditative look softened the usually defiant brilliancy of his eyes.

"I saw my uncle die," he continued, speaking in a low tone. "He was an old man and had very little strength left,--yet his battle with death was horrible--horrible! I see him yet--his yellow convulsed face--his twisted limbs--his claw-like hands tearing at the empty air--then the ghastly grim and dropped jaw--the wide-open glazed eyes--pshaw! it sickened me!"

"Well, well!" I said in a soothing way, still busying myself with the arrangement of my b.u.t.ton-hole, and secretly wondering what new emotion was at work in the volatile mind of my victim. "No doubt it was distressing to witness--but you could not have been very sorry--he was an old man, and, though it is a plat.i.tude not worth repeating--we must all die."

"Sorry!" exclaimed Ferrari, talking almost more to himself than to me.

"I was glad! He was an old scoundrel, deeply dyed in every sort of social villainy. No--I was not sorry, only as I watched him in his frantic struggle, fighting furiously for each fresh gasp of breath--I thought--I know not why--of Fabio."

Profoundly astonished, but concealing my astonishment under an air of indifference, I began to laugh.

"Upon my word, Ferrari--pardon me for saying so, but the air of Rome seems to have somewhat obscured your mind! I confess I cannot follow your meaning."

He sighed uneasily. "I dare say not! I scarce can follow it myself. But if it was so hard for an old man to writhe himself out of life, what must it have been for Fabio! We were students together; we used to walk with our arms round each other's necks like school-girls, and he was young and full of vitality--physically stronger, too, than I am. He must have battled for life with every nerve and sinew stretched to almost breaking." He stopped and shuddered. "By Heaven! death should be made easier for us! It is a frightful thing!"

A contemptuous pity arose in me. Was he coward as well as traitor? I touched him lightly on the arm.

"Excuse me, my young friend, if I say frankly that your dismal conversation is slightly fatiguing. I cannot accept it as a suitable preparation for dinner! And permit me to remind you that you have still to dress."

The gentle satire of my tone made him look up and smile. His face cleared, and he pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead, as though he swept it free of some unpleasant thought.

"I believe I am nervous," he said with a half laugh. "For the last few hours I have had all sorts of uncomfortable presentiments and forebodings."

"No wonder!" I returned carelessly, "with such a spectacle as you have described before the eyes of your memory. The Eternal City savors somewhat disagreeably of graves. Shake the dust of the Caesars from your feet, and enjoy your life, while it lasts!"

"Excellent advice!" he said, smiling, "and not difficult to follow. Now to attire for the festival. Have I your permission?"

I touched the bell which summoned Vincenzo, and bade him wait on Signer Ferrari's orders. Guido disappeared under his escort, giving me a laughing nod of salutation as he left the room. I watched his retiring figure with a strange pitifulness--the first emotion of the kind that had awakened in me for him since I learned his treachery. His allusion to that time when we had been students together--when we had walked with arms round each other's necks "like school-girls," as he said, had touched me more closely than I cared to realize. It was true, we had been happy then--two careless youths with all the world like an untrodden race-course before us. SHE had not then darkened the heaven of our confidence; she had not come with her false fair face to make of ME a blind, doting madman, and to transform him into a liar and hypocrite. It was all her fault, all the misery and horror; she was the blight on our lives; she merited the heaviest punishment, and she would receive it. Yet, would to G.o.d we had neither of us ever seen her! Her beauty, like a sword, had severed the bonds of friendship that after all, when it DOES exist between two men, is better and braver than the love of woman. However, all regrets were unavailing now; the evil was done, and there was no undoing it. I had little time left me for reflection; each moment that pa.s.sed brought me nearer to the end I had planned and foreseen.

CHAPTER XXIII.

At about a quarter to eight my guests began to arrive, and one by one they all came in save two--the brothers Respetti. While we were awaiting them, Ferrari entered in evening-dress, with the conscious air of a handsome man who knows he is looking his best. I readily admitted his charm of manner; had I not myself been subjugated and fascinated by it in the old happy, foolish days? He was enthusiastically greeted and welcomed back to Naples by all the gentlemen a.s.sembled, many of whom were his own particular friends. They embraced him in the impressionable style common to Italians, with the exception of the stately Duca di Marina, who merely bowed courteously, and inquired if certain families of distinction whom he named had yet arrived in Rome for the winter season. Ferrari was engaged in replying to these questions with his usual grace and ease and fluency, when a note was brought to me marked "Immediate." It contained a profuse and elegantly worded apology from Carlo Respetti, who regretted deeply that an unforeseen matter of business would prevent himself and his brother from having the inestimable honor and delight of dining with me that evening. I thereupon rang my bell as a sign that the dinner need no longer be delayed; and, turning to those a.s.sembled, I announced to them the unavoidable absence of two of the party.

"A pity Francesco could not have come," said Captain Freccia, twirling the ends of his long mustachios. "He loves good wine, and, better still, good company."

"Caro Capitano!" broke in the musical voice of the Marchese Gualdro, "you know that our Francesco goes nowhere without his beloved Carlo.

Carlo CANNOT come--altro! Francesco WILL NOT. Would that all men were such brothers!"

"If they were," laughed Luziano Sal.u.s.tri, rising from the piano where he had been playing softly to himself, "half the world would be thrown out of employment. You, for instance," turning to the Marquis D'Avencourt, "would scarce know what to do with your time."

The marquis smiled and waved his hand with a deprecatory gesture--that hand, by the by, was remarkably small and delicately formed--it looked almost fragile. Yet the strength and suppleness of D'Avencourt's wrist was reputed to be prodigious by those who had seen him handle the sword, whether in play or grim earnest.

"It is an impossible dream," he said, in reply to the remarks of Gualdro and Sal.u.s.tri, "that idea of all men fraternizing together in one common pig-sty of equality. Look at the differences of caste!

Birth, breeding and education make of man that high-mettled, sensitive animal known as gentleman, and not all the socialistic theories in the world can force him down on the same level with the rough boor, whose flat nose and coa.r.s.e features announce him as plebeian even before one hears the tone of his voice. We cannot help these things. I do not think we WOULD help them even if we could."

"You are quite right," said Ferrari. "You cannot put race-horses to draw the plow. I have always imagined that the first quarrel--the Cain and Abel affair--must have occurred through some difference of caste as well as jealousy--for instance, perhaps Abel was a negro and Cain a white man, or vice versa; which would account for the antipathy existing between the races to this day."

The Duke di Marina coughed a stately cough, and shrugged his shoulders.

"That first quarrel," he said, "as related in the Bible, was exceedingly vulgar. It must have been a kind of prize-fight. Ce n'etait pas fin."

Gualdro laughed delightedly.

"So like you, Marina!" he exclaimed, "to say that! I sympathize with your sentiments! Fancy the butcher Abel piling up his reeking carca.s.ses and setting them on fire, while on the other side stood Cain the green-grocer frizzling his cabbages, turnips, carrots, and other vegetable matter! What a spectacle! The G.o.ds of Olympus would have sickened at it! However, the Jewish Deity, or rather, the well-fed priest who represented him, showed his good taste in the matter; I myself prefer the smell of roast meat to the rather disagreeable odor of scorching vegetables!"

We laughed--and at that moment the door was thrown open, and the head-waiter announced in solemn tones befitting his dignity--

"Le diner de Monsieur le Conte est servi!"

I at once led the way to the banqueting-room--my guests followed gayly, talking and jesting among themselves. They were all in high good humor, none of them had as yet noticed the fatal blank caused by the absence of the brothers Respetti. I had--for the number of my guests was now thirteen instead of fifteen. Thirteen at table! I wondered if any of the company were superst.i.tious? Ferrari was not, I knew--unless his nerves had been latterly shaken by witnessing the death of his uncle.

At any rate, I resolved to say nothing that could attract the attention of my guests to the ill-omened circ.u.mstance; if any one should notice it, it would be easy to make light of it and of all similar superst.i.tions. I myself was the one most affected by it--it had for me a curious and fatal significance. I was so occupied with the consideration of it that I scarcely attended to the words addressed to me by the Duke di Marina, who, walking beside me, seemed disposed to converse with more familiarity than was his usual custom. We reached the door of the dining-room; which at our approach was thrown wide open, and delicious strains of music met our ears as we entered. Low murmurs of astonishment and admiration broke from all the gentlemen as they viewed the sumptuous scene before them. I pretended not to hear their eulogies, as I took my seat at the head of the table, with Guido Ferrari on my right and the Duke di Manna on my left. The music sounded louder and more triumphant, and while all the company were seating themselves in the places a.s.signed to them, a choir of young fresh voices broke forth into a Neapolitan "madrigale"--which as far as I can translate it ran as follows:

"Welcome the festal hour!

Pour the red wine into cups of gold!

Health to the men who are strong and bold!

Welcome the festal hour!

Waken the echoes with riotous mirth-- Cease to remember the sorrows of earth In the joys of the festal hour!

Wine is the monarch of laughter and light, Death himself shall be merry to-night!

Hail to the festal hour!"

An enthusiastic clapping of hands rewarded this effort on the part of the unseen vocalists, and the music having ceased, conversation became general.

"By heaven!" exclaimed Ferrari, "if this Olympian carouse is meant as a welcome to me, amico, all I can say is that I do not deserve it. Why, it is more fit for the welcome of one king to his neighbor sovereign!"

"Ebbene!" I said. "Are there any better kings than honest men? Let us hope we are thus far worthy of each other's esteem."

He flashed a bright look of grat.i.tude upon me and was silent, listening to the choice and complimentary phrases uttered by the Duke di Manna concerning the exquisite taste displayed in the arrangement of the table.

"You have no doubt traveled much in the East, conte," said this n.o.bleman. "Your banquet reminds me of an Oriental romance I once read, called 'Vathek.'"

"Exactly '" exclaimed Guido "I think Oliva must be Vathek himself'"

"Scarcely!" I said, smiling coldly. "I lay no claim to supernatural experiences. The realities of life are sufficiently wonderful for me."

Antonio Biscardi the painter, a refined, gentle-featured man, looked toward us and said modestly: