all the morning, as every day, the bell of the entrance door of vittorio lante's pretty but modest apartments in via de' prefetti had done nothing but ring: and his housekeeper, his only servant, an old woman of very honest appearance, who had been settled with him by his mother, had done nothing but announce to her master the visits of the most diverse and strange people. this pilgrimage of friends, acquaintances, and strangers had begun directly after vittorio had returned from paris, in fact from cherbourg, where he had accompanied his fiancée, mabel clarke, and his future mother-in-law, annie clarke, whence they had embarked on a colossal transatlantic liner. scarcely had the newspapers announced, rather solemnly, the arrival of the prince of santalena, don vittorio lante, who in the spring would depart for america, where would be celebrated, with marvellous sumptuousness, his marriage with miss mabel clarke, than those apartments, usually calm and silent, had been invaded every day by people of all conditions and kinds. in december don vittorio lante della scala, whom everyone now complacently called the prince of santalena, although he had not yet been able to repurchase, shall we say, the right to bear this title, had gone to terni to pass the feasts of christmas and the new year with his mother, donna maria lante della scala, who lived in great retirement in a few rooms of the majestic palazzo lante, and he did not return until the middle of january.

again the oddest people, known and unknown, began to overflow the small but elegant abode of don vittorio, and as winter declined to spring, the people arrived in increasing numbers and besieged vittorio at home. they waited for him at the door and went to look for him in the parloir of his club, where he lunched and dined; they ran everywhere he was wont to repair. each morning and evening bundles of letters arrived for him, some of which were registered and insured to the value of a thousand and two thousand lire. one day, in fact, he had a letter with a declared value of five thousand lire. and all, intimate and ordinary friends, old and new acquaintances, strangers and unknown, wrote him letters, sent him enclosures, forwarded him documents, attracted by the immense fortune he was about to possess in marrying mabel clarke with a dowry of fifty millions—and some said a hundred millions. all desired and wished, all asked from him, with some excuse or other, with one pretext or another, a little part, a big part, a huge part of this fortune which was not yet his, but which would be his within six, four, or two months.

one sought a loan on his return from the honeymoon, a friendly loan, nothing else, through the ties of old affection, giving no hint as to the date or manner of repayment; someone asked a serious loan with splendid guarantees and first mortgages; another wished to sell him the four horses of his stage-coach; another wished to give up to him his kennels, another a villa, a castle, a palace, a property, another wished him to redeem from the government an island in the tyrrhennian sea to go hunting there; while another wished him to acquire a yacht of two thousand tons.

every day to all this were added the visits of vendors of jewels, of linen, of fashions for men and women, of fine wines and liqueurs, wanting him to buy from them for fabulous sums, offering all the credit possible, to be paid for a year after the marriage, so that they might have the honour of being his purveyors. to their visits and letters were added those of other strange beings, small and great inventors who asked much money to relinquish their inventions; discoverers of wonderful secrets which they would reveal for a consideration; girls who asked for a dowry to enable them to marry; singers who asked to be maintained at the conservatoire for two or three years, the time that was necessary to become rivals of caruso; widows with six sons who wished to lodge three or four with him; people out of employment who would like to follow him to america when he went to marry; other unemployed who asked for letters of introduction to john clarke; adventurers who compared themselves with him and wanted to know how he had managed to please a girl with fifty millions; seamstresses who asked for a sewing-machine; students who wanted him to pay their university fees. all this was done in fantastic alternation, sometimes honest, sometimes false, but often grotesque and disgusting; for the saraband was conducted on a single note—money, which it is true he had not yet, as nearly everyone knew that he was poor, but that within six months or less he would have an immense fortune. in fact, some of the more cynical and shameless believed that he already had money, as if mabel clarke's millions, or million, or half a million, had already reached him as a present from the future father and mother-in-law, or from his fiancée herself. indeed, an old mistress of a month asked for three thousand francs which she said would be of immediate use to her and which he could surely give her since he had so much money from america: in exchange she offered him some love letters which he had written her, threatening on the other hand to send them to his fiancée in america. he who had registered his letter to the value of five thousand lire sent him a copy of a bill of exchange of his father's, of thirty years ago, a bill which don giorgio lante had never paid; and, as usual, the correspondent threatened a great scandal. during the first two months this strange assault at home, at the club, in the streets, in drawing-rooms, in fact everywhere he went, this curious assault of avarice and greed interested and amused him. he was supremely happy in those early days. he had taken leave of mabel, certain of her troth; annie clarke, the silent idol, had smiled on him benevolently from the deck of the liner, and he was sure that john clarke would give him his daughter. at that time he received gracious letters—a little brief it is true—from mabel, and still more often cablegrams—a form she preferred—of three or four words in english, always very affectionate: and he replied at once. he was supremely happy!

the human comedy, the human farce which bustled, not around him, but around the money he was going to possess, was at bottom somewhat flattering. he enjoyed all the pleasures of vanity which an enormously rich man can have, although still poor. his nature was simple and frank, his heart was loyal. he loved mabel ardently and enthusiastically; but the sense of power which he had for a short time came pleasantly to him. therefore he was polite to all his morning and evening aggressors; he refused no one a hearing; he never said no. only with a courteous smile he postponed to later any decision, till after the marriage or the honeymoon. some sought for a bond or a promise in writing; amiably and firmly he refused, without allowing him who was so persistent to lose all hope. vittorio lante was never impatient with all those who asked of him from fifty lire to five hundred thousand, sometimes smiling and laughing as he kept the most eccentric letters to laugh at them with mabel in america, when they should have some moments of leisure. in these annoyances of wealth there was a hidden pleasure, of which for some time he felt the impressions keenly.

then a cablegram of the 3rd of december, from new york, told him that john clarke had consented. intoxicated with joy he telegraphed to mabel, to annie, even to john clarke, and left at once for terni, to announce the glad tidings to his noble and gentle mother. still soon some shadows began to spread themselves over his life; light shadows at first and then darker. like lightning the news of the betrothal of the great american millionairess with a young roman prince had been spread and printed everywhere in all the european newspapers, and gradually there had begun witty and slightly pungent comments, then rather cutting remarks. whoever sent the french, german, and english papers to him at terni, to the palazzo lante, which first congratulated him ironically and afterwards, gradually complicating the news and redoubling the echoes, treated him as a broken noble of extinct heraldry, as a dowry-hunter, a seller of titles; whoever sent these witty, impertinent, often directly libellous papers had marked in red and blue, with marks of exclamation, the more trenchant remarks. implacably, while he was away from rome, away from every great centre, in the solitude of his ancient palace—with what sarcasm the ruin of this palace had been described in the papers and the necessity for restoring it with papa clarke's money!—he received whole packets of these papers and in his morbid curiosity and offended feelings he opened all, devouring them with his eyes, and read them through, to become filled with anger and bitterness.

but if a tender letter from mabel reached him at terni, if she replied with a tender expression to a dispatch of his, his anger calmed and his bitterness melted. his mother saw him pass from one expression to another, but she was unwilling to inquire too closely. with a tender smile and gentle glance she asked him simply:

"does mabel still love you?"

"always, mamma," he replied, trembling with emotion at the recollection of the beautiful, fresh girl.

but new papers arrived and again his mind was disturbed with anger and sorrow. he would have liked to reply to them all, with denials, with violent words, with actions against those people of bad faith, against the villains who had published the news, who had printed the articles and paragraphs full of gall: he would have liked to have picked a quarrel with the paper, cuffed the journalist and fought a duel with him; he wished to fight a dozen duels, make a noisy scandal, and then reduce to silence those chroniclers of slander and calumny by giving true light to the truth of deeds. then he hesitated and repented of it. he tore up the letter he had begun and exercised over himself a pacifying control. was he right to reply to malignity, lies, and insinuations? was it not better to shrug the shoulders, and let them talk and print, and smile at it all; laugh at the journalists and despise the journals? would not mabel clarke, if she had been with him, have thought and decided so, the american girl without prejudices, free in ideas and sentiments, incapable of allowing herself to be conquered by conventionality and social hypocrisy? then he repressed and controlled himself. but in the depth of his spirit now and then arose a second reason for silence: with increasing bitterness he told himself that some and many of the things had the appearance of truth, and that some of them, moreover, were true. he loved mabel clarke sincerely, but it was undeniable that it was a magnificent match for whomsoever married her, even if he were rich, and he instead was absolutely poor. mabel loved him loyally, but she was the daughter of an american merchant and he was the heir of a great name, a descendant of a great family. love was there, but barter in one way or another had all the appearance of existing, and did exist. the rest, it is true, was the malignity, insinuation, and calumny of journalists; but the barter was undeniable, even sanctioned by ardent sympathy. what was the use of writing, of lawsuits, of cuffing and provoking duels? it were better to be silent and pretend to smile and laugh; in fact, in a fury of pretence to smile and really laugh at all papers and journalists.

on reaching rome during the first ten days of january he was consoled by a single thought against such infamies; that mabel on the other side might know little or nothing of them. letters and telegrams continued to be always very affectionate: the marriage ought to take place in the middle of april, but john clarke had been unwilling to fix a precise date. that exalted his heart and rendered him strong against everything that was printed about the nuptials: gradually now the papers became silent. but at home, where his aggressors repaired more than ever, to ask whatever they could ask from a man immensely rich, even they in the middle of their discourses, would let slip a phrase or an allusion, that they had read something and had been scandalised by it: how could rascals on papers nowadays be allowed to insult such a gentleman as he was—don vittorio lante, prince of santalena as they knew him to be?

at each of these allusions which wounded him, even in the midst of the adulations and flatteries of his interlocutors, he trembled and his face became clouded: he noted that everyone knew them and everyone had read them, that the calumnies had been spread broadcast in every set. even at the club, now and then, someone with the most natural disingenuousness would ask him if he had read such and such a berlin paper; someone else, more friendly, would tell him frankly how he had grieved to read an entre-filet of a parisian paper. sometimes he would smile or jest or shrug his shoulders, and sometimes he showed his secret anger. his well-balanced, always courteous mood changed; sometimes he treated petitioners badly and dismissed them brusquely. such would leave annoyed, murmuring on the stairs that as a matter of fact the european papers had not been wrong to treat don vittorio lante della scala as a very noble and fashionable adventurer, but still an adventurer. he passed ten restless days in which only mabel's letters and telegrams came to calm him a little.

but he experienced the deepest shock when complete packets of american papers arrived for him, voluminous, and all marked with red and blue pencil, since each contained something about his engagement, his marriage, his nobility, and his family. in long columns of small type were spread out the most unlikely stories, most offensive in their falseness; therein were inserted the most vulgar and grotesque things at his expense, or at the expense of italy or italians. it was a regular avalanche of fantastic information, of extravagant news, of lying declarations, of interviews invented purposely, of fictitious correspondence from rome, and in addition to all this the most brutal comments on this capture of an american girl and her millions by another poor european gentleman, in order to carry away the girl and her money, and make her unhappy, to waste her money on other women as did all sprigs of european nobility, not only in italy, but wherever they had managed to ensnare an american girl. other marriages between rich american women and aristocratic but poor europeans were quoted, with their often sad lot, conjugal separations, with their divorces, fortunes squandered in europe, with their souls alienated from mother and father, and every american paper concluded that their daughters were mad and foolish again to attempt an experience which had always succeeded ill with them; that this miserable vanity of becoming the wife of an english duke, a hungarian magnate, a french marquis or italian prince should be suppressed. they should put it away: american women should wed american men and not throw away their fresh persons and abundant money on corrupt and cynical old europe.

when he had read all this, vittorio lante was thoroughly unhappy. the papers were old, but there were some recent ones; the latest, those of ten or twelve days previously, breathed an even more poisonous bitterness. by now he had learned to speak english much better, and understood it perfectly; none of that perfidy, none of that brutality escaped him, and all his moral sensibility grieved insupportably, all his nerves were on edge with spasms, as he thought that mabel clarke, his beloved, his wife to be, had read those infamies from america, and had absorbed all that poison. he would have liked to telegraph her a hundred or a thousand words, to swear to her that they were all nauseating lies; but he repented of it and tore up the telegram, striving to reassure himself, as he thought that a direct and independent creature like mabel clarke, that a loyal and honest friend like the american girl would laugh at and despise the horrid things.

but by a mysterious coincidence, which made him secretly throb with anguish, a week passed by without a letter or note, or a single word by telegram, reaching him from new york; vittorio passed a fortnight of complete silence between anguish and despair. instead, a very broad and voluminous letter, under cover and registered, reached him from new york, containing a long article about his indiscretions, dated from rome, in which it was narrated, with the most exaggerated particulars, how miss mabel clarke's fiancé in italy had seduced a cousin two or three years ago, how she had had a son by him, and how he had deserted her and her little one in a district of lazio. vittorio lante, who in three weeks of silence had written mabel clarke four letters, and sent three telegrams without obtaining a reply, dying with impatience and anxiety, and hiding it from people, felt as if a dart were passing through his heart, from side to side, felt as if all his blood were ebbing away, and he remained exhausted and bloodless, unable to live or die.

so that morning at the end of february all those whom giovanna, the faithful servant, gradually announced, since her master, pale and taciturn, consented to receive them with an automatic nod, found a man who received them with a silent and fleeting smile, with a rare word as he listened but scarcely replied to them, when they had finished expounding their ideas and propositions, as if he had understood nothing, and perhaps had heard nothing of them. for four or five days, with a great effort of the will, vittorio kept up appearances, driving back his anguish to the depths of his heart, knowing that profound dissimulation is necessary in the world, and that the world must see little of our joy and none of our sorrow.

that morning there filed before him a traveller for a motor-car company who wished to make him buy three cars, of forty, sixty, and eighty horse-power respectively, to be paid for, naturally, after the marriage, but consignable a month previously with, of course, a fixed contract; a kind of tatterdemalion, all anointed, who offered him a raphael, an authentic raphael, for two hundred thousand lire, and who ended by asking for two francs to get something to eat; a gentleman of high society, who lived by the sale of old pictures, tapestry, bronzes, and ivories, who took them from the antiquaries and re-sold them, gaining a little or a big commission, a friend who proposed increasing the prices, since mabel clarke was to pay, and that they should both divide the difference, proposing to him, in fact, that he should rob his future wife; a littérateur who came to seek from him the funds to launch a review in three languages, and who proposed to insert therein his own articles which vittorio lante should sign with his name; an agent of a bankrupt exchange, known to be unable to go on 'change, who proposed some mining affairs in africa for john clarke to take up, offering him a stiff commission so that he should transfer these uncertain shares to his father-in-law. and, more or less, in all demands, proposals, and requests which were made to him that morning, he perceived the intention to mock and cheat him, but still more he discovered in many of them the conception that he was a man of greed, who could for more or less money deceive his wife and father-in-law, cheat and rob them, like a sponger or society thief. even more sorrowfully than at other times, he trembled when he noticed the expression of lack of esteem in which the people in his presence held him, people who dared in his own house to propose crooked bargains, equivocal business, as they offered him his own price!

"am i, then, dishonoured?" he thought, with a rush of bitterness. the morning passed and afternoon came: he was alone, and for the third or fourth time in three or four hours he asked giovanna if letters or telegrams had arrived. it was an almost convulsive demand, which he had repeated constantly for three weeks, the only demand that showed another human being the state of convulsion in which he found himself. nothing came, nor that morning either, except the newspapers, and a letter from donna maria lante from terni, which giovanna had at once consigned to him. he composed his face, resumed the artless, jolly expression which had been his worldly mask, went to lunch at the club, and replied to three or four friends that the marriage would certainly take place in april. he jested with everyone; he held up his head before all, but he did not fail to observe that in questions, in compliments, in congratulations, there was a sense of hesitation, as of a slight incredulity and a little irony. the old duke of althan was very cold with him; marco fiore scarcely greeted him. hurt and very nervous, he thought:

"am i, then, dishonoured?"

he returned home: there were no letters or telegrams. he went out again to calori's fencing school, and passed an hour of violent exercise, in which he allowed to escape whatever was insupportable in his pain; again he returned home, found nothing there, and went out to leave cards on two or three foreign ladies, whose acquaintance he had made the day before at a tea at the english ambassadress'. he wandered through rome, and for the third time, as if it were the way of the cross, he repaired home, asked giovanna from the speaking-tube if there were anything for him. she replied that there was a telephone message for him. disillusioned, more than ever pierced by anxiety, he went upstairs, took from the landing-place the little card on which giovanna had written the telephone message, and read:

"a friend from america expects don vittorio lante at the grand hotel at half-past four to take a cup of tea. room number twenty-seven."

vittorio trembled from head to foot, like a tree shaken by the wind; he drew out his watch convulsively. it wanted ten minutes to the appointment; he hurled himself into a cab, trembling and controlling himself, not noticing the streets he passed, and biting his lips at every obstacle his carriage met. on at last reaching the vestibule of the grand hotel, he threw the no. 27 to the porter. refusing the lift, bounding up the stairs to the first floor, he knocked at twenty-seven, while his heart seemed to leap into his throat, suffocating him. from within the clear, harmonious voice of mabel clarke said to him in english:

"come in!"

his face changed to a mortal pallor in her presence, as standing in the middle of the great, bright room, full of flowers, she offered him her hand; his too intense emotion filled his eyes with tears. he took the hand and kissed it, while his tears fell on it.

"oh, dear, dear old boy," murmured mabel, moved, looking at him affectionately and smiling.

he held the hand between his own, looked into his fiancée's eyes, and the cry, so often repressed, was from the depth of his heart:

"mabel, i swear to you that i am an honest man."

"do not swear, vittorio," she replied at once, "i know it."

"ah, they calumniated me, they defamed me, they dishonoured me. mabel!" he exclaimed, falling into an arm-chair, "i swear to you that they are lies, infamous lies."

"i know," she replied with a softness in her firm, clear voice, "that they are lies."

"ah, my consoler, my friend, my delight," he said, with a sigh, taking her hands, drawing her to him, and embracing her and kissing her on her forehead, and eyes, and cheeks.

she allowed herself to be embraced and kissed, but with a gracious movement she freed herself from him, and they sat side by side on one of the large sofas, beneath a great musa plant.

"do you still love me, mabel?" he asked anxiously.

"i am very fond of you, dear," she replied tranquilly.

"why have you caused me such suffering, dear, dear mabel, in not writing or telegraphing to me?"

"i was travelling to rome," she explained.

"but when did you start?" he asked, already disquieted.

"three weeks ago, dear."

"then you have been elsewhere?" he continued, controlling his agitation with an effort.

"yes, elsewhere," she rejoined with a smile, but without further explanation.

"but why didn't you warn me, dear? why make me pass terrible days here alone in rome, not knowing how to vent my anger and sorrow? ah, what days!"

"i left unexpectedly, vittorio."

"unexpectedly?"

"i decided to come to rome in search of you on the spur of the moment. mammy is on the other side, only broughton accompanied me. i am incognito, dear; no one knows that i am mabel clarke. i am called miss broughton."

she laughed shortly. he was still more disturbed, though he did not wish to show it. confused and embarrassed, he looked at her, finding her more blooming than ever in her irresistible youth, in her face flourishing with beauty and health, in her slender figure dressed in white. like a lover he exclaimed:

"nothing matters now that you are here, mabel, now that i am beside you, now that i press your dear hand, where is all my happiness."

she listened to him as formerly, bowing her head with its rebellious chestnut locks a little, as if the ardent breath of those words were caressing her face and soul. then, suddenly, she said simply:

"shall we have tea, vittorio?"

"yes, dear," he replied, enchanted with her. just as formerly, she went to a little table where everything was ready to make tea. she accomplished quickly and gracefully the little operations, while he watched her, enchanted by that beloved presence, and by her action and words, which reminded him of, and brought to life again, his dream of love in the engadine. suddenly all vittorio's ecstasy dissolved; he was again disturbed by a violent uneasiness.

"why have you come to rome, mabel?" he asked, somewhat authoritatively.

"to learn the truth, vittorio," she replied firmly, "and to tell it to you."

"to learn the truth, mabel? then you believed the infamies?"

"i did not believe them," she replied, shaking her head seriously.

"did you believe that my mother was a martyr because of me, dying of hunger in her palace at terni, mending silk stockings to let me live?" he cried, beside himself.

"i did not believe it. i went to terni two days ago; i saw your mother, and i embraced her. she's a saint, and you are a good son."

"you went to terni? yet you say that you did not believe it, mabel? how dare you say so? you also believed that i seduced livia lante; did you not?"

"i did not believe that; but i saw your cousin livia four days ago at velletri. i spoke to her, and she told me everything. you did not seduce her, and you never promised to marry her; she is sure that you do not love her."

"oh, mabel, mabel, what shame for me! you went to seek the proofs of my honesty; what shame for me! you believed me a villain!" convulsed with grief, he hid his face in his hands.

she arose; took his hands away from his face, and forced him to look at her.

"dear, dear, don't go on so, i beg of you. i believed nothing, but i wanted to know the truth. as for us in our country, we believe only with our eyes, so i decided to look for the truth."

"i have never lied to you, mabel," he added, a little more calmly.

"no, never; you are a brave, loyal old boy."

"you continue, then, after your personal inquiry, mabel, to esteem and love me?"

"i continue to esteem and be fond of you."

"you continue to be mine."

"no," she replied clearly; "i do not continue to be yours."

"do you take back your word?" he cried, amazed.

"it is you who will give me back yours," she said quietly.

"i? i?"

"you, dear. because you are a man of honour, for no other reason, because you are a gentleman you will break off of your own accord our engagement, and we shall not marry."

mabel spoke simply and firmly, without emotion. moreover, her face had a seriousness and a gravity that he had never seen.

"shall we not marry?" he exclaimed.

"no, vittorio. we ought not to marry."

"because of the calumnies and defamations, mabel?"

"for none of those horrid things, my dear. we ought not to marry because we should make a mistake."

"a mistake?"

"yes, a mistake, which later would make us so unhappy, you and i. now, we ought not to be unhappy."

"but why? but why?" he asked, very agitatedly.

"because i am very rich and you are very poor."

"how horrible! how horrible!" he murmured gloomily, despondently.

"que faire, mon cher?" she exclaimed in french, shrugging her shoulders; "i have this money because father gave it to me, and i can't throw it away: can i? money isn't such a bad thing. it isn't my fault if i have so much of it."

"neither is it my fault if i am so poor," he rejoined sadly.

"nor is it mine, dear vittorio."

"you knew i was poor! i confessed it to you. i hid nothing from you."

"that is true," she declared at once. "i knew that: you told me loyally. i loved you and esteemed you for your loyalty. only i made a mistake."

"you made a mistake?"

"yes; i made a mistake in believing that a rich woman could marry a poor man without being very unhappy afterwards. it is a great mistake. i beg your pardon, vittorio, for my mistake. you are suffering for it, and i want you to pardon me."

"ah, but you don't suffer; it doesn't matter at all to you," he exclaimed, very bitterly.

"you deceive yourself, vittorio," she added, with some sweetness. "i suffer as i know how to, as i can. but it is better to suffer a brief, great sorrow, than to suffer for the whole of one's life."

"but why should we suffer together, mabel?"

"because of the money, dear."

"i never thought of that when i loved you."

"i know that," she replied, taking his hand and pressing it, "but people don't. you have been seeking for a large dowry for some years; you wanted to make a great marriage. people in america and italy will never believe you to be disinterested."

"but you who know and love me? you should see that i love and adore you only for yourself?"

"even love wanes later, and not so very much later," she replied thoughtfully. "your italian love is so ardent and flattering; it sets very soon. afterwards ... i should believe people; i should believe that you had married me for my money."

"afterwards! i swear to you that there should be no afterwards for me."

"swear not. all american women who have married europeans have been disillusioned and betrayed."

"others! others!"

"they were also gentlemen, dear, who perhaps were in good faith. it is useless, we are too different; we have other souls and temperaments. we have no luck with you europeans, we poor, rich american women."

obstinately she shook her head; then she resumed slowly.

"where should we live? a part of the time in my country, in america. there they would deem you a dowry-hunter; it would be, it will be, impossible to make them believe the contrary. you would feel yourself despised. then the life is so different, in an atmosphere of distrust the life would seem to you eccentric, grotesque, unbearable; and if i forced you to stay there you would end by hating me."

"but with us? in this beautiful land?"

"here i should suffer, dear vittorio. to all you italian men and women i should always be the american woman who had made a bargain, who had given her dollars and bought a title. principessa di santalena! donna mabel lante della scala! what a lot of people would laugh on hearing the name, and would hide their smiles, because i should have a palace and a park, and would give dinners and garden-parties; but behind my back, what sneers and criticisms, and evil speaking! at your first betrayal how all would curse you in my country, how all would say you were right in yours, and all this because i, poor little woman, have a dowry of fifty millions, and you fifteen hundred lire a month, on which your mother must live."

she ceased, as if breathless from having made too long a speech, she who was accustomed to short, clear phrases, like all her race.

"you never thought of this in the engadine," he interrupted.

"no, i never thought of it. up there everything was so beautiful and simple! love was so pure and life so easy!"

"ah, how could you have forgotten that time, mabel?"

"i haven't forgotten it. afterwards i saw that nothing is simple, nothing easy—neither life, nor love, nor happiness—nothing, when there is this terrible, powerful thing, money."

"what, then, do you want from me? what have you come to seek from me?" he asked, half angrily and half sadly.

"for you to give me a proof of what you are by your birth, by your past, by your character; for you to free me from the promise of engagement, frankly and spontaneously."

"oh, i couldn't do otherwise," he said, with a pale, ironical smile.

"you could. if you were a vile calculator, if you were a sordid, interested man you could. you have my word, and my mother's; you have my father's; you have my letters and my telegrams; you could force me to marry you."

she looked him in the eyes fixedly. he fixed hers unhesitatingly, without a tremble, and said to her in a loud voice:

"miss mabel clarke, i release you and your parents from the engagement; i hold at your disposal your letters and telegrams."

mabel clarke grew pale, and then blushed with a rush of blood to her beautiful face; she offered her hand to vittorio lante.

"i knew it, darling! i am very fond of you, and shall always be fond of you."

silent, impassive, he had performed his sacrifice in the name of his honour; but the heroic act had consumed him. there was a long silence between them.

"i shall start back to-morrow," she said, in a low voice.

"ah, to-morrow!" he repeated, as if he did not quite understand.

"will you accompany me to naples, where i shall embark, dear?" she asked him affectionately, but with a veil of sadness in her voice.

"i would rather not," he murmured weakly.

"you must be stronger, vittorio."

"i have been strong," he replied, opening his arms. "you must not ask more from me."

"you must not suffer, darling."

"i love you and suffer in loving you, mabel," he said, simply and sadly.

"i hope that will soon end."

"eh, not so soon, not so soon," he added, with melancholy and bitterness.

"you will return to your mother, won't you?"

"later on i shall go. i must go there to explain everything," he murmured.

mabel, after having conquered him, experienced an ever broader sympathy, an ever greater pity for him. every word in which he vainly poured forth his sorrow, the undoing, the delusion of all his hopes, struck her good and loyal heart more than all the cries of revolt which had rushed from his lips. after having conquered him, after being freed, she became his friend, his sister, loving and sad, suffering in seeing him suffer, desiring that he should suffer no more. but the man who had given all his measure, who had accomplished his great act of renunciation, could no longer be consoled by her; she had lost the sentimental power of comforting him. but she tried again:

"your mother expects you, vittorio."

"did you tell her everything?" he asked in a weak, colourless voice.

"yes, i told her."

"poor mamma," he murmured to himself.

"dear, dear vittorio, start a new life within and without yourself! sell the old palace and the old park. pay your debts. take your mother away with you, and with what is left try some undertaking, create an industry, some work for yourself and others," she said energetically.

"i should require another soul, and another heart," he replied gloomily, with lowered eyes.

"change your country and your surroundings," she suggested energetically, as if she wished to inject some will into him.

"perhaps i ought to come to america?" he asked, with a pale, ironical smile.

"why not? john clarke would do everything for you."

but suddenly she bit her lips, as she saw vittorio's contracted face become disturbed with pallor, as if under an access of anger and grief.

"oh, thanks!" he said, with deep irony. "one thing only john clarke could do for me, and that i have renounced. must i come to america like a wretched seeker after work, like an emigrant? miss mabel, we shall separate without your understanding me."

"perhaps," she replied humbly, "it has not been vouchsafed me to understand you."

"would you like me to be there, miss mabel, when you marry the american, some american, of your race and country?" he asked, with a sarcastic smile.

"oh, this will only happen much later," she murmured, "very much later."

"but it will happen, miss mabel," he insisted bitterly.

"i believe so," she said simply; "not now, not for a year. even later."

"why should you wait, miss?" he asked sadly, with ever greater sarcasm.

"to forget you, dear," she replied frankly.

he trembled, but restrained himself.

"you think us american women heartless, vittorio. you will never understand us."

worn down, he again made a vague gesture of excuse.

"on the contrary, vittorio, i believe you will marry livia lante, much sooner than i shall marry an american."

he shrugged his shoulders.

"we are very poor, livia and i. one can endure poverty when one is in love. i do not love livia."

"later solitude and boredom will oppress you. she is sweet and gracious. she will beautify your life."

"i could never endure poverty but on one condition, mabel," he exclaimed suddenly, invaded by a new exaltation.

"which?"

"with you, mabel, with you! ah, if only you were a poor woman with a halfpenny for a dowry, without a dress to your back, how i would dream of taking you, of carrying you away with me, to work for you, my companion, my spouse, my love, to look for work and riches for you, but with you and for you!"

pale, absorbed, she listened to him. he drew near to her, took her hands, and spoke face to face.

"ah, mabel, come away, come away with me, far-away, renounce your millions, renounce all your money; say to your father that you don't want a farthing, that vittorio lante, your husband, wishes to work and create with you and for you life and riches."

with closed eyes she vacillated in his arms, vacillated beneath the wave of that enveloping passion.

"mabel, you alone can make of me another man, with another soul, with another heart! mabel, remember, remember our dreams of love in the engadine, remember that you consented to love me up there; you did love me, you have been my beloved, you can't forget! change yourself, change me; be another woman, give yourself to love, as i let myself be taken in the great battle for you! change yourself, as i change myself! deny not the arguments of love; be a woman as other women, as i ask to be a man in every strife however cruel. mabel, mabel, change yourself."

holding her in his arms, a breath of scorching words wrapped the girl as in a fire of flame. for the first time vittorio lante saw on that face, so dazzling with youth and beauty, a lost expression of love and sorrow. still, she was made for victory; she was the stronger. tearing herself free, she composed her face, and replied:

"vittorio, it is impossible."

"impossible?"

"no soul ever changes; at least, not for love. each soul remains what it is."

"it is true," he replied, coldly and sadly. "the soul never changes, not even for love."