The door was opened to Ragna by Nando—Valentini had never permitted her to keep a latchkey—the anxiety of whose countenance was changed to relief at sight of her.

"Meno male, Signora, that you have come at last!"

"Why, Nando, what has happened?"

"The Signorini are crying for you, Signora,—the Sor Padrone found them in mischief and beat them,—beat them as though to break their poor little bones—"

But Ragna stayed for no more, her heart in her mouth she sped up the stairs to the room shared by the children.

What had happened was this: while Carolina saw to the preparation of their goÛter, they had wandered in search of amusement and finding the door of Egidio's studio open,—a most unusual occurrence, as he generally kept the key in his pocket when not at work, had strayed in. On the large upright easel near the window stood the portrait of a lady, all but finished, a tall beautiful lady whose white dress and long scarlet scarf threw into relief the dark beauty of her head and the slender grace of her figure. The palette with its sheaf of brushes thrust into the thumb-hole lay carelessly in the box of the easel, as Egidio had left it on going to luncheon.

The boys stood hand-in-hand, gazing open-mouthed at the canvas which was lowered to the last notch, as Egidio had been working on the hair and shoulder-drapery.

"What a beautiful lady," said Mimmo in awed tones, "she must be a princess!"

"Yeth, a fairy princeth," agreed Beppino, on whom his mother's fairy tales had made a deep if confused impression.

"I wonder why babbo never lets us come into this nice house?" queried Mimmo, looking about him—to his childish eyes it seemed a Paradise of delight.

The model's throne was covered by a Persian carpet on which stood a carved armchair of the Bargello pattern, and behind, on a screen, hung a curtain of old blue-green brocade, the same that formed a background to the beautiful lady. At one end of the long, high-ceilinged room, an old black-walnut press, square and massive supported some vases of Capodimonte and old Ginori ware, and above it was a picture of the Padre Eterno enthroned on clouds, through which the Dove sent golden beams, while a demon leered from a cave in the lower left hand corner. Armchairs and sgabelli of various patterns stood about, over some of them were flung long pieces of drapery, brocades and velvets in soft old shades, some of them ragged and torn, but all a delight to the eye. At the other end of the room an old painted corredo-chest, the lid turned up, displayed a tumbled heap of costumes within, over it a panoply of armour flanked by two racks of small arms, decorated the wall. On a large round table paint-brushes and tubes of colour made an untidy litter about a Renaissance jewel-casket of steel damascened with gold, and an ivory crucifix on an ebony stand. A deep recess held a stack of half finished portraits, studies, background sketches, bare stretchers and rolls of canvas. A corresponding recess on the other side of the door had been turned into a dressing-room for the model. On the door-lintel stood a small ÉcorchÉ, in plaster, and a few heads, hands, feet and anatomical casts. A lay figure on a divan in the corner, emerged wildly from a trail of drapery.

The children wandered about exploring it all with fearful delight, ready to fly at the sound of their father's footstep, for this was forbidden ground, even to Ragna. As time passed and no alarm came, they grew bolder, and presently found themselves standing before the portrait, drawn by its irresistible charm. They stood gazing up at it until suddenly a brilliant idea occurred to Beppino.

"Let'th help babbo," he said.

"Babbo will be angry if we touch his things," objected Mimmo, but Beppino was obstinate.

"Me going to help babbo," he declared and seized a brush. It happened to be charged with scarlet colour, and left a broad wavering trail over the lady's white skirt. It was too much for Mimmo; he also seized a brush and clambered to the stool Egidio used to sit on when painting.

"You do the dress, Beppino, and I'll do the face! It's too dry, give me that bottle,—I've seen babbo stick his brush in it."

Beppino handed up the desired bottle, and a hard brush dipped in turpentine, gripped firmly in the child's fist was presently scrubbing diligently backwards and forwards over the freshly painted surface. Oily streams ran down from the eyes over cheeks and chin, gobs of impasto spread themselves impartially over the blurred features, the dark of the hair ran down into the face. Face? It was no longer distinguishable as such, and under Beppino's vigorous efforts the white satin of the skirt looked like a Scottish tartan in delirium tremens.

"Beppino," said Mimmo suddenly, in an awed whisper, "her face is coming off!"

It was at this moment that Egidio entered the studio; he saw the children and sprang forward. Beppino, waving his brush, called joyfully,—fear lost in the glory of achievement.

"Babbo! Babbo! we's helping 'oo!"

"Helping indeed!" His eyes roved over the devastated canvas, on which were spread the ruins of his labour of love and a blind fury gripped him.

"Accidento a voi!" he yelled, and the children shrank from his blazing eyes and congested face. He seized the two small culprits by their Van Dyck collars and dragged them over to the side of the room where the armour was. The children, too frightened to cry, struggled, but he held them easily with his left hand while he looked about him for an instrument of punishment; seeing a foil in the rack, he took it down. The first blow brought an agonized scream from both boys, a scream that Carolina heard in the dining-room, where she had just finished laying the table for their goÛter; and that brought her breathless and with flying feet to the studio door. There she stood a second, horrified by the sight that met her eyes. Egidio, his face distorted like that of a fiend, stood slashing at the children indiscriminately and mercilessly; the poor little things had put up their arms instinctively to shield their faces, and each whistling stroke wrung from them a fresh scream, as it descended. Mimmo's golden curls tossed wildly as he shook in the grasp of the madman—for Egidio at that moment was mad—his lace collar was torn, and on his poor little wrist were cruel marks from which red drops trickled. Being the bigger of the two he partially masked Beppino.

Carolina paused but for the taking in of a breath, then she sprang forward and seized in mid-air the hand wielding the foil. Egidio turned on her with a snarl, infuriated by the interruption.

"Go, woman!" he yelled, "how dare you come here?"

"Stop it!" she answered, "let the children go!"

"I shall punish them as I see fit, I—their father. They have ruined my work, do you hear? My work of weeks! Look!"

She glanced at the portrait and saw that it was smeared but her untutored mind could not grasp the extent of the disaster. The sight of it maddened Valentini again and he made an effort to wrench his hand from her hold.

"Signore," she pleaded, "remember that they are little, they are only babies, they did not know."

"Little are they? They are big enough to ruin my work! Dio santo, they shall smart for it!"

Again he tugged at her restraining hands.

"Be careful girl—when I am through with them you shall have your turn—who do you think you are to interfere with your master?"

He wrenched his arm free with a force that sent her reeling and once more the foil descended.

She flew at him again, her face blanched, her eyes blazing, a new note in her voice.

"Have a care yourself!" she shrieked. "Murderer! Assassin! Help! Help! Murder!"

"Stop that, you fool!" he snarled, but she cried the louder, and he dropped the children to choke her cries.

The white scared faces of Nando and Assunta peering in at the door brought him to his senses and he flung the girl off.

"You pack of fools!" he growled, "take that hysterical idiot away and leave this room! How dare you come here without my orders?"

But Assunta was already by Carolina's side, bending over the children, whose loud sobbing filled the room.

"Take your silly face from that door, Nando! Dio mi strabenedica if I don't throw the whole crew of you into the street! Am I to have no peace in my own home?"

A sound of steps was heard in the passage; Nando felt a hand on his shoulder thrusting him aside, and Enrico Ferrati entered, glancing about him in astonishment at the scene before him.

"My God, Egidio! What does this mean? What has happened to the children?"

Carolina raised her tear-stained face.

"Ah, Signor Dottore! The good God himself has sent you! Look at these poor innocents, murdered by their father!"

He was kneeling beside them in an instant, examining the welts and cuts on their little necks and hands, feeling them cautiously over—fortunately no bones were broken.

"Take them to their room, my good girl, undress them and put them to bed. I shall come presently—you can put some compresses on these bruises, and wash the cuts with the solution in the big green bottle on the Signora's dressing table. Go, Mimmo caro, go, Beppino mio, Zio Rico is here and will come to you. There now, don't cry! There is nothing to be afraid of, it is all over!"

Carolina took Mimmo in her arms and staggering a little under his weight, led the way, Assunta following with Beppino.

"Go also, my friend," said the Doctor to Nando, "I shall ring if you are wanted."

Nando slunk off in his turn, casting many curious backward glances.

Ferrati waited till the last footstep had died away then he raised his eyes from the foil he had picked up and was fingering.

"And now will you tell me what all this means, Egidio?" he asked quietly.

Valentini shrugged his shoulders sulkily.

"I was merely giving the children a little richly deserved punishment."

"Punishment! They are covered with cuts and welts and bruises! Thank Heaven they are still wearing their thick winter clothes—You might have killed them, Egidio, you would have, if you had not been stopped in time. As it is, it is a miracle that they are not maimed for life! Are you mad to think of touching the tender body of a child with a thing like this?" He bent the flexible blade of the foil, "I tell you that if their clothes had not protected them, you would have cut the flesh of those babies to ribbons!"

"But look, Rico," Valentini burst forth passionately, "look what they have done! I come in here and I find they have ruined my work, the picture that was to make my reputation—and that I shall have no chance to do again, if I could, for she has gone away!"

He wheeled the easel about, and Ferrati gazed aghast on the havoc wrought.

"My God, Egidio," he exclaimed, "this is awful!"

"And yet you blame me for punishing—" he said bitterly, but Ferrati interrupted him.

"You had provocation, I will admit; this is a terrible disappointment. But you are a man, Egidio, and to allow your rage to get the better of you to the extent that you would have murdered—yes, murdered is the word—those innocent children—"

"Innocent!"

"Yes, certainly, innocent. Can you suppose for a minute that a child of that age would be capable of a deliberate act of malice such as this? Think man, think how easily you might have killed them, and how would you have met your wife with their blood on your hands?"

"Oh, Ragna!" said Egidio sneeringly.

"Where is she?"

"I suppose she is gadding about somewhere, as usual."

Valentini looked at him keenly.

"That is another thing, in fact it was that I was coming to you about when I heard Carolina's screams of 'murder'. You are not treating your wife as you should, Egidio, and as I was partly responsible for the marriage, I cannot stand aside and let things go on as they have been doing. As your friend, as the friend of both of you, I feel that I can be silent no longer."

"So she has been to you with her complaints!"

"She has done nothing of the sort; Ragna is not the woman to complain of her husband to anyone—you should know your wife better by this time."

He paused, but Valentini his eyes sulkily fixed on the carpet, merely shrugged his shoulders.

"No, I speak only of what Virginia and I have seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears. You speak slightingly to Ragna and of her, in public; you humiliate her and make her life unbearable. What you say and do in private I have no means of knowing, but I can see that your wife both fears and hates you."

"She has an impossible character," said Egidio petulantly, like a child taken to task. Ferrati seemed always to have this mysterious power of domination over him, the result, perhaps, of the man's clear-eyed honesty.

"She is pretentious, rebellious against my authority; she is ungrateful for all I have done for her, she lies; I tell you she is impossible."

"Let us talk this over," said Ferrati glad to have at last something definite to take hold of. "I will take you up point by point, and we will find out how much foundation there is for what you say. I believe it is all a misunderstanding."

"It is not, I can't be deceived about my own wife, I know her better than she knows herself."

"There is where you are wrong. Your wife is not perfect—no human being is, but you wilfully blind yourself to her good qualities and exaggerate her defects. Now take this, you call her pretentious," he flung his arms round Valentini's shoulders and forced him to pace slowly up and down the room—"I do not think her so. She is a beautiful woman, she is clever—I have read her publications and they are excellent,—she may have a little weakness for titled friends."

"She fills my house with knaves and fools. She continues to receive people I have forbidden her to see, I won't have it! She—"

"Sh! let me continue, when I have finished you shall say what you have to say. I repeat, you call her pretentious, my opinion and that of everyone who knows her is that she is modest and unassuming. As for her friends—" he wheeled suddenly looking Egidio in the eyes, "what right have you to object to them? Do you suppose your escapades, the way you spend your evenings, to be unknown? This woman, the original of this portrait, what right had you, knowing her for what she is, standing to her in the relation in which you did—what right had you, I say, to bring her here, into the house where your wife lives?"

His voice was like a trumpet-call, and Egidio's eyes fell.

"You say that she rebels against your authority—but if that authority is a tyranny? She is not a child, she is a responsible woman and the day has gone by when a husband's word was law. In virtue of what superior powers do you arrogate to yourself the right to guide and control your wife as though she were a minor child? But if obedience is what you require you must be moderate in your commands, lighten your yoke, fit it to the neck that is to wear it. I don't wonder that Ragna finds your exercise of authority unreasonable. Now for the ingratitude—in what way is she ungrateful? And after all, my dear friend, why should she be grateful, what more have you done for her than she has done for you?" Egidio's jaw dropped. "Your marriage was a contract entered into on both sides with full knowledge of the circumstances. You knew her condition, you knew, for she told you, that she did not love you—you offered her your name and protection in exchange for the advantage of her society. Well, has she not fulfilled her part of the contract? Has she not been a model wife and mother, faithful, true to you in word and deed? Has she not given you a son of whom any man might be proud? What more could you expect of her? Granted that Mimmo—that his presence in the house must be hard at times, but he is a dear affectionate child, whom no one could help loving—and you knew beforehand what you were undertaking. Remember, the child was never foisted on you, as seems sometimes to be your conviction. Here are three of your points disposed of—frankly I cannot see that you have a leg to stand on!"

Egidio opened his mouth to protest but closed it again; indeed what could he say without letting his friend see that it was the loss of Ragna's expected fortune, in hopes of which he had married her, that lay at the root of his grievance. He had so often proclaimed his disinterestedness that he could not very well abandon the position; and more than this he feared Ferrati's condemnation and wished to keep his good opinion. Anything he could say would but put himself in a most unflattering light. Seeing he had no answer to make, Ferrati continued.

"You accuse her of lying—how and when does she lie? I have held her, ever since I first knew her, for the personification of truth."

"Well," said Egidio uneasily, his arraignment of Ragna seemed hard to substantiate, somehow, before this stern judge, "she says she has no housekeeping money when I know she must have. She saves and pinches, to send my money to her pauper family; she gives away the presents I have made her."

"If she chooses to stint herself in order to help her family, and in such a way that the household does not suffer by it, I do not see what you have to complain of. Is it not natural for her to wish to help her own kith and kin? Would not you do the same? And why do you oblige her to ask you for every centesimo? Why do you insist on even buying her clothes for her instead of letting her do it herself? If you tyrannize over her you must expect that she will develop a slave's vices—but I can still see no evidence of a direct lie on her part; at most, she may be guilty of an occasional, and considering your conduct, most excusable equivocation! Now, my friend, you have come to a turning-point, you must realize that yourself. By your own fault, I don't say consciously—but still by your own actions, you have come to this pass, that the relations between you and your wife, are, by your own admission, impossible—and that you are both of you miserable, and but for outside intervention you would be standing here now a murderer, as a result of your ungovernable temper—the murderer of the children you really love better than anything else in the world. Pull up man! For God's sake, pull up and start out afresh! I know Ragna will meet you half-way. Can't you see where you are going, at this rate?"

Valentini fairly squirmed under his friend's kindly hand. The indictment was terribly severe; it was the first time in his life that anyone had dared speak to him so openly and so authoritatively. It found him unprepared, bereft of his usual armour of carefully arranged appearances. The incident of the children had shaken him more than he cared to admit. If he had but little affection for Mimmo, Beppino was the very apple of his eye; but he would not willingly have done physical harm even to Mimmo. He, in common with many so-called "bad" men, had an instinctive love of children and animals and in spite of his violent temper nearly always won their affection. He was shocked to think to what his violence had led him—so much so that he could hardly believe it. Indeed had there been no witnesses he would have denied his action and in a short time would positively have persuaded himself that no such thing had taken place. He was not a man, however, to acknowledge himself in the wrong and Ferrati knew him well enough, not to expect it of him; it was enough that he should answer, as he presently did:

"My life, certainly, is anything but happy. A man generally looks forward to finding at least peace in his own home, but that has not been my lot—although if ever a man slaved from morning to night and gave up everything for his family, I am that man!"

It was quite true that he worked hard, but he would have worked equally hard with no family to provide for, industry was in the nature of the man.

"However, ungrateful though they be, I shall keep on. I was a fool to get married, I see that now, if it had not been for that attack of typhoid—but I shall keep on sacrificing myself, I can't help it, I am never happy unless I am doing something for others. What do I care for money for myself?"

He threw out his arms in a noble gesture, at which Ferrati could not help smiling.

"I must think of the future of the children! By the way," he added almost shamefacedly, taking Ferrati's arm, "let us go to them and see that they have taken no harm—you see I don't bear malice—"

"Let us finish all that there is to say first," said Ferrati, anxious to wring some concession for Ragna from this unusually promising occasion. "We were talking of your wife."

"Oh, well, yes, Ragna. She was most insolent to me last night, mad with jealousy and perfectly insufferable—you don't know what it is, Rico, to have a jealous wife! just think, she imagined some perfectly ridiculous thing between me and that slattern, Carolina. It seems impossible to have so little criterio. You wouldn't believe, Rico, the things she said! She almost got the better of my patience!" Ferrati smiled grimly. "We had more words this morning and in a fit of rage she said she would leave me, and I told her to go—a quel paese. Peggio per lei!"

His voice rose as he found a vent for his repressed feelings, he almost forgot Ferrati's presence in the joy of shifting to other shoulders the blame which in his heart he knew to be his. He paused, drawn to his full height, his eyes burning.

"It is always the same story 'put a beggar on horseback and he'll ride to the Devil!' I married her out of the gutter—"

"I beg your pardon, Egidio," broke in Ferrati's stern voice, "you did no such thing and if you set any value on my friendship, you will never repeat those words."

Valentini cast a furtive side glance at him.

"Oh, well, have it as you will. I married her colla camicia—it amounts to the same—she has nothing of her own, so the worse for her if she goes off, as she will soon find out. Then she will beg to be taken back and I won't, I swear I won't."

"What!" cried Ferrati horrified, "do you mean to say you have actually driven away your wife, the mother of your child?"

"If she went it was of her own accord."

"Then she has gone?"

Had he come too late? Had Ragna actually found courage to throw off her bondage?

"When I came in, Assunta told me that the padrona had Nando call her a carriage just after luncheon, and she has not come back yet."

Suddenly he flung himself on a chair by the table, his fingers clutching his hair, prey to a violent fit of self-pity.

"Oh, Rico, I am the unhappiest man on the earth! My wife, the woman for whom I sacrificed my whole life, has deserted me! The base ingratitude, the heartlessness of it! Think of a woman deserting her husband and children! My head will burst with the strain of it all. Oh, why was I such a fool as to marry? And a woman like that! All my life is sorrow and disappointment and gratta-capi."

He was thoroughly unstrung. He had never thought that Ragna would take him at his word when he bade her begone, but by now he had thoroughly convinced himself that she was gone, and his little world rocked on its foundations. Most of all, he was sorry for himself, he felt ill-used and sore.

Ferrati seated himself, facing Valentini across the table; he spoke, and his voice was incisive and authoritative.

"Do you realize what you have done? You have accused your wife of jealousy, but I know, and all Florence knows, Egidio, that she has good reason to be. However, she is patient and bears with it all until you outrage every sense of decency by running after her own maid in her own house—you need not deny it, I have seen the way you look at Carolina. Then because she dares reproach you with your conduct you drive her away, for that is what it amounts to. Do you realize what this means to you? Your wife is loved and respected here, and when the story of her leaving you comes out, as it surely will—what will the world say of you?"

He had deliberately touched the chord of Egidio's susceptibility to public opinion, the one to which he responded most readily.

"The world knows me, I am not afraid of the world—it is Ragna who will be condemned."

"Ah, there you are wrong, the world is not so easily hoodwinked as you choose to think; there are more whispers afloat as to your conduct than you dream of. There are a number of people already, who accept you only on your wife's account, and if that were not enough, I am here," he drew himself up, his stern eyes fixed on Valentini, "if I am questioned, as I am sure to be, I shall answer the truth!"

Valentini bounded on his chair.

"I thought you were my friend—a nice one you are indeed! I have nourished a viper in my bosom—I—"

"I am your friend, Egidio, your best friend, if you only knew it, for I am the only one who dares speak the truth to you without fear or favour. But my friendship cannot compel me to deceit to an unworthy end. I shall tell the truth to the world, and you, Egidio, must make that truth such that it may be told without shame to yourself. You must persuade your wife to come back."

"Persuade her, humble myself to her? Never."

But Ferrati had seen the wavering in his eyes,

"Well, then, leave the 'persuasion' to me."

"You can tell her that I am willing to forgive her, if you like, that I am willing to consider that nothing has come between us—See, I am ready to make concessions, to add one more sacrifice—"

The battle was won, or at least as far as Valentini was concerned; the vague stirring of regret for his violence, the fear of his friend's judgment, the thought of his life without the comforts of a well-ordered home—even the thought of losing Ragna herself, although she had come to be but a souffre douleur, had undermined his obstinacy, and the threat of the condemnation of society had been the finishing touch. His declaration of his willingness to "forgive" his wife was, however, all that he could be brought to admit, as Ferrati well knew. It must be taken as the capitulation it signified, and acted upon without further discussion. Remained the problem of Ragna; where was she? Would she return? And, above all, could she be persuaded to resume the burden of Valentini's ill-humour? At least Ferrati intended that she should have the assurance of his friendship and his help in future, for now, after this revealing scene with Valentini he had the weapons for her protection ready to hand.

"Ebbene?" asked Valentini impatiently, anxious to put an end to the interview. "Are you or are you not going to see the children?"

"Of course!" said Ferrati, rising, "poor little things, I had almost forgotten them! But," he added, sharply, turning to the other who was preparing to accompany him, "you must stop here, the sight of you might throw them into convulsions. Wait here, Egidio, and I will come down and report to you when I have seen them."

"Oh, very well," growled Egidio, his mouth twitching with discomfiture, "have it your own way!"

He thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets and slouched moodily up and down the studio. It had been a most unpleasant day for him, the culminating point of many, and the worst of it was he had come out of it with anything but flying colours. The curious part of it was that he felt weak, back-boneless, his rage had burnt itself out—for the time. He could not understand it. He lit a toscano and chewed it meditatively as he marched up and down. The fact was that the interview with Ferrati had cowed him; like all bullies he was a coward at heart and his friend's fearless condemnation had as effectually crushed him as physical chastisement would have done. He had met one stronger than himself, and was obliged to recognize the fact. In an astonishingly mild humour, he awaited events.