A country-house is a glass house. The more people there are staying in it, the more fragile and delicate are the walls, and the more probability there is that some one will be inspired by the Evil One to throw stones. Sometimes it happens that two or three of a party fight a pitched battle, and then some lucky lovers who have nothing to do with the hostilities are forgotten and overlooked in the din of war. But if there is one thing in the world more certain to get out than murder it is love, righteous or unrighteous. Lovers who desire secrecy should never go to country-houses together.

It seems to them as though each and every member of the household had especially adopted a set of vile and pernicious habits; a determination to be where they ought not, at all sorts of unexpected hours; to come skulking round corners under the empty pretext of seeking shade, and to be found lurking in wooded dells on pretence of studying natural history. There is the matutinal fiend, who shaves at the window in the grey dawn and sees people who have got up for an early walk; and, verily, they feel like worms when they glance up and see his beak and talons at the casement. There is also the demon that walketh in darkness, smoking a midnight cigar on the lawn before going to bed. There is the midday dragon, green-eyed and loathly to behold, who steals out in old gloves and a parasol immediately after luncheon, because she has left her glasses on the mossy seat under the trees, just out of sight of the house, and must needs find them. There is the vile and sickening bookworm, with his bland smile and unhealthy complexion, who dives into the library in the middle of the summer's afternoon, and ruthlessly opens the blinds to find a quotation, the eighteenth volume of an uncut rarity in vellum; and who wrinkles disagreeably all over when he observes the couple in the corner, staring like blushing owls in the sudden glare.

And, besides all these, there are the low earth-spirits,—a swarm of maids, butlers, grooms, stable-boys, and nurses,—who are supposed to dwell somewhere, underground, and are everlastingly appearing, like phantoms, noiseless and awful, with ears like vast trumpets of endless capacity and eyes of incalculable magnifying power.

A country-house is a terrible test of all the great virtues of mankind and a fearful reflector of all the vices. It is well to begin life in the country with an adequate certainty that, whatever you do, you will be found out, and that you will often be found out when you have done nothing. And a villa hired in the orange gardens of Sorrento, overhanging the murmuring sea and sweet with the breath of the rich south, is not different in this respect from a Yorkshire manor-house, a chÂteau in the south of France, or a "romantic retreat" on the Hudson River.

For two or three days after the events just chronicled, Leonora and Batiscombe managed successfully to spend several hours out of the twenty-four in each other's society. Marcantonio was busy during a great part of the time with correspondence concerning the politics of his party, and once he went over to Naples to see an eminent person on business. The four inmates of the house met at meals, and in the late afternoon, when they generally went out in the boat. Donna Diana occasionally sat with Leonora for an hour, and they talked to each other studiously, Leonora trying her best to make the time pleasant for Diana, and Diana doing what she could to cultivate her acquaintance with Leonora. At the end of two days it was perfectly clear that the two women would never be intimate. But they both concealed the fact from Marcantonio; and he rubbed his hands, and wrote his letters, and bought cartloads of things for his wife, in the comforting assurance that she was very happy and inclined to follow his wishes in regard to his sister.

But Diana was not given to looking after Leonora when she was out of her sight, and she spent a great part of the day in writing letters, in reading, and now and then in calling on a few acquaintances who lived along the shore in the villas towards Castellamare. She was glad that Batiscombe kept out of her way, but she did not exactly understand why he did so. He was generally extremely anxious to see as much as possible of her when he was in her neighbourhood. Could it be that he did not love her any longer? That after all these years he had at last put her out of his mind? Perhaps so. She was glad if it were so, most truly. She had many times prayed with her whole soul that he might forget her. It might be that the prayer was answered. At all events, he kept out of her way, and she did not regret it, nor ever give him a sign to come to her. She supposed that he spent his hours with Leonora or Marcantonio or both, and there was no reason why he should not be intimate in the house, so far as she herself was concerned.

One day it chanced that the wind was in the south-east, blowing a hot blast and making everything very hazy and sultry that was out of its reach, and covering everything it touched with a disagreeable mixture of dust and hot dampness. Every one who has lived in Italy knows what the sirocco is like, and the dismal stickiness it brings. It seems as though the universe were under a press and some one were screwing it down.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and Madame de Charleroi was sitting in her small boudoir, trying to write a letter to her husband. Unlike most Italians, she had not the habit of sleeping in the day, and used the time when other people were taking a nap during the great heat to keep up an extensive correspondence. She was a woman who had made this one interest for herself, and thoroughly enjoyed being in constant communication with a dozen intelligent people in all parts of the world.

It was excessively hot. Even she, who was southern born and did not mind it, felt her brain grow dizzy and her fingers tired and clammy. Leonora's white kitten had strayed into the room after lunch, and was walking about near the door, squeaking now and then as though it did not like the quarters and wanted to get out. For the mere sake of changing her position, Diana laid down her pen and rose to open the door. As she did so the cat jumped nimbly through, and a little breath of cooler air blew in from the passage. Diana stood one moment as though enjoying it, and then went out. She took a parasol in the hall, and walked slowly down the garden. The sky was overcast with a dull leaden grey, and the south-east wind blew under the trees, bad enough in itself, but infinitely better than the close heat indoors. There was no one to be seen, and Diana paced slowly along the gravel path. At the end of it were the steps which led through the rocks to the sea.

She had gone down and come up again more than once with the rest of the party in the evening, when they had been out in the boat, and she had thought each time that it would be pleasant to come and sit in some of the cool archways and look out over the sea in the heat of the day. She felt sure, too, of being alone there; it was not a likely place for any one to frequent at three o'clock in the afternoon. Diana closed her parasol, and, just lifting the skirt of her white dress off the ground, began to descend the broad stone steps, hewn out of the solid rock, through a steep vaulted tunnel in the inside of the cliff. Here and there a great arched window looked out, in which were cut wide seats.

She had passed through the darkest part of the descent, carefully picking her way, when she suddenly found herself opposite to one of these windows. She was startled to see two persons there, for she had been certain that she would be alone. They were Leonora and Batiscombe, sitting side by side under the arched opening. Hearing her tread they both looked round, and Julius seemed to pick up from the floor something which had probably fallen while they were talking. Then he remained standing, and Diana, seeing she was discovered, advanced boldly toward the pair. There was nothing so extraordinary in the situation after all, but she had always supposed that Leonora slept in the afternoon while Batiscombe and Marcantonio smoked and talked politics up-stairs. They had certainly been sitting very near together, she thought, but the sudden glare of the light and the distance which separated her from them had prevented her from noticing their faces. As she came near, Leonora rose also and spoke first. She held her back to the light, for she was blushing deeply; but Batiscombe, who never blushed and rarely turned pale, stood calmly pulling his moustache, as though it were all the most natural thing in the world.

"I had always meant to tell you how delightful it is here," said Leonora. "I am so glad you have found it out for yourself."

"En effet," answered Madame de Charleroi calmly smiling, "it is ideal." She came under the arch and looked out, enjoying the sight of the sea after the dark passages.

"And then," said Leonora, "it is strictly true that one is 'not at home' when one is here,—if people call, it is very convenient. Nobody can find one."

"Excepting Madame de Charleroi," said Batiscombe, who was very angry at the interruption.

But he said it so pleasantly and with such an air of paying a compliment, that Diana could not be offended; she only smiled a little bitterly in her lofty way, remembering other times when he would have given his right hand for a meeting of any kind with her.

In that moment a suspicion crossed Diana's mind. She understood the meaning of his remark perfectly, in spite of the bow and the smile, knowing, as she did, every intonation of his voice and every expression of his face. She saw that he was angry, and she argued that Julius preferred being with Leonora to being with herself. That was clearly the reason why he kept out of her way; he spent his time with Leonora. If Leonora attracted him, he was certainly at liberty to talk to her if he pleased, but Diana thought it must be a strong attraction indeed that kept him away from herself. It was long since he had missed an opportunity of spending an hour with his old love.

Diana sat down beside Leonora, and Batiscombe leaned against the rock and looked out over the sea, the fire dancing in his blue eyes, but his face as calm as ever. Diana began to talk to Leonora.

"You are very fortunate in getting such a place," she said. "It is by far the most beautiful on the whole shore."

"I wish it belonged to us," said Leonora. "I am sure I could come here every year and never grow tired of it."

"Ah!" exclaimed Diana, "do you like it so very much then?"

"J'en raffole!" answered Leonora enthusiastically, "I am crazy about it. And then, it is always so charming to have absolutely the best. As you say, there is nothing like this place on the whole bay. I should like always to have the best."

"But, madame," remarked Batiscombe, "it appears to me that you always do. You have the talent of supremacy."

"What an idea! The talent of supremacy!"

"But that is precisely it," continued Julius. "It is a talent. Some people are born with it—generally women."

"That is Monsieur Batiscombe's favourite theory," remarked Madame de Charleroi, just glancing at him, "but he does not believe it the least in the world."

"Is it true?" asked Leonora, innocently, looking up with an expression that did not escape Diana. It was a sort of frightened look, as though it really mattered to her what Batiscombe thought about women in general.

"It pleases madame to be witty," answered Julius, glancing in his turn at Diana. "I have not many theories, but I believe in them as a man who is about to be guillotined believes in death."

"One cannot say more than that," laughed Leonora. "But how about the supremacy of men? There have been more men in the world who have ruled it than there have ever been women."

"Mon Dieu! Men give themselves much more trouble," he replied. "Women, having the divine right given to them straight from Heaven, exercise it without difficulty. A word, a cup of tea, a glance,—and the supremacy of a woman is established. What could a man do with a cup of tea? Or, if he looked at people by the hour together, could he rule them with a glance? When a woman has the gift she finds little difficulty in using it,—whereas the more of it a man has, the more trouble it is to him. Men are so stupid!" And with this sweeping condemnation of his own sex, Julius lit a cigarette, having obtained permission of the two ladies.

"You ought not to have many friends, with such ideas about men," said Leonora.

"En effet," said Diana, "he has none."

"Not among men, at all events," said Julius. "I do not remember ever having any. I do not sleep any the worse on that account, I assure you. It is much more agreeable to have a number of pleasant acquaintances, who expect nothing from you and from whom you expect nothing. Friendship implies mutual obligations; I detest that."

Leonora laughed a little. He had such a vicious way of saying such things, as though he thoroughly meant them. But then he was courteous and gentle to every one, though she suspected he might be different if he were angry. Diana knew very well that what he said was true, and that he had led an isolated life among other men, fighting his way through with his own hand and owing no man anything. She herself had for years been his best friend and his only confidant, though he saw her rarely enough. And now she felt as though even that one bond of his were to be broken,—and whether she would or not, the thought gave her pain, and she wished it could be otherwise.

"It is always far more amusing to detest things," said Leonora, "unless you happen to want them." She was forgetting some of her indifferentism.

"It is certainly more blessed to abuse than to be abused," returned Julius, "and, if one has the choice, it is as well to be the hammer and not the anvil. I am an excessively good-natured person, and if I had friends, they would make an anvil of me and beat my brains out,—and then I should starve."

"Good-natured people are always made to suffer," said Leonora thoughtfully. "I am not in the least good-natured."

"I remember," said Diana, "that Mr. Batiscombe used to say good-nature was a mixture of laziness and vulgarity."

"Yes," answered Julius. "You have a good memory, madame. Good-nature is a compound of the laziness that cannot say 'no,' and of the vulgarity which desires to please every one indiscriminately. I suppose I possess both those faults very finely developed."

"Fortunately," remarked Leonora, "goodness and good-nature are not the same."

"Fortunately for you, Marchesa,—unfortunately for me," said Julius.

"It is too complicated—please explain," she answered.

"As you are so fortunate as to possess goodness without good-nature," said he, "you should be glad that the two are not one and the same, since good-nature is not a desirable quality. I am good-natured, but not good—I wish I were!"

"Ah, I see!" exclaimed Diana. "It was a compliment."

"Of course," said Julius.

"Of course; but your compliments are often complicated, as the Marchesa says."

Diana smiled as she spoke. Batiscombe knew that she was repaying him for the remark he had made when she had unexpectedly appeared twenty minutes earlier.

"I can only repeat," he retorted, "that Madame de Charleroi has a good memory."

Leonora was puzzled. She saw well enough that Diana and Julius were, or had been, much more intimate than she had supposed. They understood each other at a glance, by a word, and they seemed on the verge of quarrelling politely over nothing. She devoutly wished that Diana would go away, instead of spoiling her afternoon. But Diana leaned back against the rock and crossed her feet and prepared to be comfortable. She was evidently not going. Batiscombe stood motionless, with the easy stolidity of a very strong man who does not wish to move, and Leonora could see his bold profile against the grey haze of the sky. There was a short silence after his last remark, during which Leonora felt uneasy: something was in the atmosphere that made her anxious, and she did not like the way Diana looked at Batiscombe, with an air of absolute superiority, as though she could do anything she pleased with him.

"How dreadfully solemn we are," said Leonora, rather awkwardly. Julius turned quickly with a laugh.

"Let us be gay," he said. "I hate solemnity, unless there is enough of it to make me laugh. I remember being at a ball once that produced that effect."

"Allons!" said Diana, "give us some of your reminiscences, Monsieur Batiscombe. They ought to be interesting."

"Not so much as you think. But the ball was very funny. It was in Guatemala, three years ago. I was invited to a huge thing by the president—an entirely new president, too, who had just cut the throats of the old president and of all his relations. I believe there was some sort of revolution at the time, and when it was over the victorious individual gave a ball. The refreshments were simple—brandy for the men and rosolio for the ladies; there was no compromise in the shape of a biscuit or a glass of water."

Leonora laughed, being willing to laugh at anything so as to encourage Julius to talk.

"En vÉritÉ, that was very amusing," remarked Diana coldly. Batiscombe took no notice.

"The women sat round the room in a double row," he continued, "like a court ball, excepting that they all smoked large cigars, and industriously passed the liqueur. The men stood behind and gave their undivided attention to the brandy. Not a soul spoke, and they all scowled fiercely at the brandy, the rosolio, and each other. A ghastly and tuneless quartette of instruments doled out a melancholy dirge, slower than anything you ever heard at a funeral; and now and then some enterprising and funereal man led out a less enterprising but equally melancholy female in a strange step, like the tormented ghost of a waltz in chains. It was so hideous that I went out and laughed till I almost had a fit. I have never thought anything seemed very solemn since then—it destroyed the proportion in my brain. A pauper's burial on a rainy day in London is a wildly gay entertainment compared with that ball."

Leonora laughed, and even Diana smiled; whereupon Julius was satisfied, and relapsed into silence. But Leonora wanted conversation.

"What in the world took you to Guatemala, Mr. Batiscombe?" she asked.

"That is a question which I cannot answer, Marchesa," he replied. "I believe I went there for some reason or other—chiefly because I could go for nothing, and wanted to see something new."

"Can you always go to Guatemala for nothing?" asked Leonora. "It must be very amusing."

"A steamer company offered me a free passage to any port in their service," said Batiscombe; "and as the next ship went to Guatemala, I sailed with her. It happened to be first on the list."

"What a queer idea!" exclaimed Leonora.

"You are too modest, Mr. Batiscombe," said Diana. "You ought to tell the whole story—it is very interesting." Her voice was less cold than when she had spoken last.

"Oh, do tell the story!" cried Leonora. "I adore autobiographies!"

"Mon Dieu!" said Julius, "there is very little to tell. I did a service to a ship belonging to the company, and in acknowledgment they presented me with a piece of plate and the free passage in question. VoilÀ tout! madame is too good when she says it was interesting."

"If Monsieur Batiscombe will not be so obliging as to relate the experience, I will," said Diana. "He shall correct me if I make a mistake."

Batiscombe looked annoyed. He was not fond of telling his own adventures, and he hated to hear them told by other people. He could not imagine why Diana wanted to hear the story. He was irritated already, and her conduct seemed more and more inexplicable. Leonora looked at him expectantly.

Who can understand a woman? It may be that Diana, who was really fond of him in a strange fashion, was sorry for the position she had taken that afternoon, and was willing to atone by giving him the credit before Leonora of some fine action he had done.

"It was three years ago or more, in the winter," began Diana. "Monsieur Batiscombe was travelling in a ship on the coast of America. There were a hundred passengers on board, or more, and a crew of thirty-five. Is that exact?"

Julius bent his head and turned away.

"Eh bien, there was a great storm—such as there are in the ocean. It is horrible, you may imagine. The ship was driven on the rocks, a long distance from the shore. A reef, you call it, n'est-ce-pas?"

"Yes," said Batiscombe. "Fifty or sixty yards from the shore."

"Good. What do they do? Six brave sailors volunteer to throw themselves into the sea in a chaloupe—a miserable boat"—

"And monsieur was one of the volunteers"—exclaimed Leonora, enthusiastically.

"Not at all, my dear friend. The boat overturns; the sailors are immediately drowned; every one is in consternation. Then Monsieur Batiscombe arrives; he says he will save everybody; he ties a thin line—a mere string—to his waist; he throws himself to the sea. The passengers scream as they cling to the ropes and the side, while the vessel is beaten horribly on the reef. He struggles in the waves, swimming; he is thrown down again and again in the breakers; he rises and rushes on to the shore. Then he pulls the string, and after the string a rope. A sailor ventures down and he also reaches the land. They fasten the rope, and every one is saved—passengers, crew, captain, tout le monde. Ah, Batiscombe, why are you not always doing such things,—you, who can do them so well?"

Madame de Charleroi's grey eyes were wide and bright, and a very faint colour rose to her cheeks as she told the story. The calm, regal woman took a genuine delight in great actions, and as she turned to Julius at the end there was a ring of real sympathy and friendship and regret in her voice that it gave Leonora a strange sensation to hear.

"It was magnificently brave!" exclaimed Leonora in English, and she looked at Julius as though she admired him with all her heart and soul.

She had always had a feeling that he had probably made himself remarkable in such ways, but he always had told her that his life had been uneventful. To think that this calm, smooth, well-dressed, fine gentleman should have saved a whole shipload of lives by sheer strength and courage! Ah, he was a man, indeed!

But Batiscombe never moved. He stood looking seaward, his eyelids half closed, and a thoughtful look on his brown face. Indeed, he was thinking deeply, but not so much of the old story Diana had been telling as of herself. The strange appeal in her last words had touched the good chord in his wayward heart, and he was thinking how fair his life might have been with her,—and how dark it had been without her. And the old true love rose up for one moment, hiding Leonora and the rest, and all the intervening years, and sending hot words to his ready lips. He turned in the act to speak, forgetting where he was,—then checked himself. Both Leonora and Diana had seen that he was going to say something, for they were watching him. He hesitated.

"I ought to thank you, madame," he said to Diana, "for gilding my adventure so richly. But as for the thing itself, and the doing of such things, the opportunity seldom offers, and the faculty for doing them is the result of an excellent digestion and quiet nerves. Meanwhile it is grown cooler, and the boats are below. Shall we go down, and sail a little before dinner?"

The two ladies consented readily enough, and they all descended to the landing and got into one of the boats and pushed away.

"I shall have quite a new sensation in future when I sail with you, Mr. Batiscombe," said Leonora. "It would be impossible to be drowned with you on board."

But Diana was pale again, and settled herself among the cushions in silence.

Far up above, Marcantonio was interviewing the coachman on the terrace. He looked down and saw the boat shoot out with the three members of his household. He rubbed his hands smoothly together.

"Ha," he said to himself, "it is superb! What good friends they are all growing to be! En vÉritÉ, Batiscombe is a most amiable man, full of tact."