last desperate snatch at his departed youth.

CHAPTER XI

THALLIE DONS THE PRETTIEST GOWN
THAT SHE HAS EVER WORN

WITH the new year, cold rains swept down across Tuscany; the city turned gloomy; the paths of the pension garden were covered with sodden petals. Thallie and Frossie accused John Holland of bringing the winter to Florence.

"Maybe so," he replied, with a smile that puzzled them. "Even though I came from the south!"

He had come from Rome, he said, to check up, in the Archæological Museum, a recent find of Etruscan relics. Once more the sisters thought it strange that so obvious a man of the world should spend his time examining black jars from the tombs of a vanished race. They discovered that he even had a valet concealed at the Hotel Alexandra, two squares away, on the Arno. In fact, he completely upset their conventional ideas of a scholar.

Yet they read in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" that John Holland was among the most brilliant of the younger historians. The word "younger" perplexed them.

"Then a man past forty," Frossie asked, "is considered young?"

"A man past fifty, no doubt," replied Thallie, sarcastically.

And again the sisters, in silent indignation, considered M. Zolande, who had sinned all the more in tarnishing their ideals of love.

They were grateful that Mr. Holland had never mentioned the scene in Via de' Bardi. He told Aurelius only that Zolande was not the best teacher for Thallie. The father replied:

"If you say so, sir, then that 's the end of it. I bow to your critical judgment, which I know has been formed by the study of art from its first primeval efforts. But what a pity that Thallie's work can't go on, like Frossie's, without the need of instruction!"

Holland looked doubtful.

"Without the need of instruction?" "What I mean is this. A painter, I suppose, must have studied the essentials of painting for many years; but a novelist, after a sound acquaintance with Hill and Webster, no longer goes to school, except possibly to nature."

John Holland lost no time in putting Frossie through an examination.

He found that all her criticisms unconsciously favored truth. She had an instinctive sense of harmony and proportion, an innate dislike of certain great formless novels accepted by many as masterpieces. Regarding style, she resented the claptrap phrases, the turgid, and the hysterical. Her favorite medium was a simple running prose, graceful, musical, various, distinguished by a discreet distribution of color. At last she showed him some pages of her romance. In her own work Frossie had violated her every artistic conviction!

"You see," he explained, "we climb toward our ideals by a long and arduous road. But possibly your historical setting impedes you. I 've never seen but one good attempt in that line, Flaubert's 'Salammbo. A tour de force, a fine curiosity, but not what you 're after-a real interpretation of life. Suppose you inspect the present again, which you ought to find quite as thrilling as the past."

Another time he persuaded Thallie to show him her studies in oil.

While setting the canvases round on the parlor chairs, she made some flurried excuses. This one, in the manner of Titian, she meant to do over again; that head, in Raphael's style, she had dashed off in half a day; she knew that the figure after Rubens was all out of drawing. Midway between apprehension and pride, with a breathless laugh, she protested:

"In fact, I'm afraid they 're awful. I should n't have shown them to you."

And she fixed her eyes imploringly on Holland, who viewed each sketch with the care of a judge at the Salon.

In his suit of rough gray homespun, his gaiters spotless, his blue cravat set off with a large black pearl, this big, stronglooking, self-possessed man could still be

uncomfortably impressive. So, as he made no comment at once, Thallie hastened to add:

"Besides, I'm not going on in these lines. The old masters are wonderful, of course, but we moderns should find our own methods. All our twentieth-century revolts should extend to art, don't you think? Individualism, you know. Το express oneself, and only oneself, in tensely."

He did not smile.

"In that case," he said, "you 'll do what all great artists have tried to do."

"Ah," she exclaimed, as happy as if he had praised her work to the skies-so happy, indeed, that she did not realize his failure to praise it at all.

"And I'm not going to try for another teacher just yet. I want to be unhampered awhile. Then, too-" she looked away—“then, too, I 've sort of lost my nerve about studios."

"Of course," he responded. "To work alone for a while won't do you the slightest harm."

"I'm so glad you agree with me!" Next morning Thallie set up an easel at home, with the door-porter's eldest child as a model.

She now aimed at such swift and decisive painting as some one-George Moore, perhaps attributed to Manet. She was also obsessed by tales she had read of artists whose fame was founded on tints that nobody had ever discerned before. Squint ing hard at the door-porter's daughter, she tried to reduce that puerile, olive-hued face to its component colors. This flesh, she decided, was really composed, in the light, of amethyst, orange, and emerald particles, in the shadows of ultramarine and mauve. Forthwith she smeared in some green and lavender patches with startling effect.. No matter; this picture was meant to be seen from a distance.

Thallie, released from all restraint, was turning Impressionist!

Reginald, alas! still stayed in Paris. Encouraged by this apparent defection, Lieutenant Fava redoubled his calls at the pension.

The Sicilian made no more dramatic proposals of marriage. His present game was to twirl his rat-tail mustaches despondently, send worshiping looks from his slanting eyes, shake his long, narrow head, as if at some hopeless dream, and smuggle away, not too secretly, a flower that the adored one had dropped. These sad, subservient manners, this mien of the classic prisoner of love, ended by boring Thallie. Her manner toward Fava grew condescending and careless. For all his boasted experience, he had not perceived that this. maiden was meant to find her emotional complement in mastery, not in submission.

Sometimes, at the little restaurant that served the three lieutenants in place of a mess-room, Fava expressed his chagrin.

"Devil take it! when I went at her with horse, foot, and guns, she condescended to pardon me like a queen. And now, when I crawl on my hands and knees and sigh like a bellows, she lifts up her nose all the more. Accidents to that accursed pig of a Reginaldo! Camillo, find out for me if they are really affianced."

"Affianced!" Azeglio exclaimed. “One would think they were married, the way they went out walking alone."

"That's the American custom," Camillo informed him.

"Ah! ah!" Fava winked, wagged his head, screwed up his face in a hideous grin. "The American this, the American that! I have yet to see an American composed of a face and a pair of little pink wings, like the cherubs in holy pictures!" Camillo, laying down knife and fork, calmly remarked:

"In discussing that girl, remember she may soon be my sister-in-law."

"Have I said anything derogatory to her? I even accept her American walks with that wretch. I even pass over one time when I saw her and him in Giacinta's yes, sitting there openly, those two alone, and drinking a cup of tea! Could I offer more proof of my respect for the character of your sister-in-law?"

Azeglio, kicking Camillo under the table, suggested:

"You'll stop all those American tricks when you 've married her, though?"

"Oh, then, to be sure," declared Fava, "she 'll have to learn a few lessons. But that bird is still in the tree."

"Courage!" Camillo laughed. "Put on a mask and propose at the carnival ball.' "By the way," Azeglio inquired, "when the carnival ball comes along, shall we have to invite them? A box costs a hundred lire, you know."

The faces of the three lieutenants grew long.

That night, in barracks, Camillo counted his savings, shrugged, blew out the lamp, sat down to review his condition.

A light from the troopers' dormitories passed over the courtyard and entered his room, a small white chamber arranged with that neat simplicity which distinguishes the born soldier. Here stood his military chest, there his narrow bed, and, over his varnished boots all precisely alined against the wall, hung his uniforms, helmet, revolver, and long, straight sword. Near the window, beside the shaving-shelf, were tacked some photographs of his parents and sisters. A table covered with books, a lamp, an arm-chair, completed his property.

In the courtyard a trumpet wailed the silenzio. The lights, except one in each dormitory, went out. Camillo looked up at the moon, which was struggling, like a soul in the toils of circumstance, to break through the clouds. His face of a young medieval knight grew firm.

"Since I cannot give my children a fortune, they must have honors, honors, and honors. Ah, yes, I 'll have to rise quickly now. If only another war would come!"

Camillo had not been content with learning cavalry tactics and memorizing historic problems of strategy. For years, as if Italy's future depended upon his knowledge, he had studied the regimen, equipment, and field-work of infantry, the transportation of ammunition and food, the latest, most intricate forms of intrenchment, the conduct of sieges, ballistics, powders, projectiles-the whole com

plicated science of modern warfare. And nothing interested him more than the new coöperation of aëroplanes and artillery.

But a day of battle might come when the aviators had all been disabled, when volunteers would be needed to soar and spy, in order to save a brigade, a division, an army. That would be the chance for him if he knew how to fly.

One day he revisited Baron di Campoformio.

The Villa Campoformio, in the country-side north of Florence, was a white stucco house in a spacious garden of ilexand cypress-trees. High walls, surmounted by large stone urns, inclosed the grounds: one rang a bell in the gate-post, and, after five minutes or so, a man-servant in a green baize apron pushed back the bolts. Camillo, dismounting, left his horse with this servitor. The baron, clad in an old tweed coat, his thin hair blown by the breeze, his boots incrusted with loam, was helping the gardener tie up the rose-bushes with straw.

Campoformio led Camillo into the drawing-room, a large apartment hung in yellow brocade, where a sporting widower's tastes had almost eclipsed the influence of the dead American wife. Another servant brought vermuth and seltzer, cigarettes and cigars. The baron's weatherbeaten face wore a quizzical look as he asked:

"Well, Signore Icarus?"
Camillo smiled in turn.

"It 's true," he confessed, "that I came to ask for a little ride in the sky."

you

"Oh, I knew you would. It was easy to see that you'd never rest till 'd driven a biplane yourself. Am I right?" "I should like to do that, too."

"Good enough! The more of us that can fly, the worse we shall beat the Austrians. I take it you 're not afraid of heights?"

"I was born on a mountain." "Your nerves are all right in these fatal days of peace?"

Camillo held out his strong brown hands, palms down, with fingers spread, at arm's length. They did not move any

more than if carved out of Pavonazzetto marble.

"Bravo! A cavalry officer able to do that in Florence must have a constitution of iron-or be related to all the saints!"

They rode down to the flying-field. A biplane, propelled by mechanics and fieldhands, emerged from its hangar.

Campoformio insisted that Camillo also put on a fleece-lined jacket, an aviator's helmet, and gloves. Well muffled, they climbed the frame, the pilot taking the steering-seat, the passenger the perch behind, against the gasolene-tank. The baron raised his hand in the air. A mechanic gave the propeller a whirl and darted away. The engine began a deafening clatter. The biplane moved forward gently, then faster and faster. Camillo realized that the ground was ten, twenty, thirty feet beneath him, and blurred by the speed of this flight.

When had they left the turf?

Suddenly they shot up a steep hill of air, ran level, shot up again. The pressure of wind seemed to flatten Camillo's chest ; he could hardly expel his breath. The oxygen that rushed into his lungs made. him feel drunk. He wanted to laugh aloud, to shout in triumph, to shake his fist at the clouds. He felt as if he had never really lived till this moment.

With a nod, Campoformio bade him look down.

On every side the earth was unrolling in billows, hills flattening, highways and villages dwindling, forests melting to patches of grayish haze. Far behind, through the brilliant, transparent disk produced by the whirling propellers, Camillo saw Florence shrinking like some magical carpet of brown and silvery mottles, like Balzac's peau de chagrin, which diminished at every wish. The Arno became a thread; the heights beyond sank into their valleys, and Mount Cuccioli, slowly crumbling, was lost in the distance.

Camillo looked ahead. Mount Rinaldi, Fiesole, Mount Ceceri were bowing before this miracle, this great bird, ridden by men, that swept over them at the altitude of a thousand feet. The white ham

lets whirled round and scattered like chickens below the hawk. The hill streams, all their secrets revealed, writhed in their channels and wriggled away to the south. And ahead, the snow-capped mountains, so haughty till now in their supremacy, were beginning to crouch, like ranks of cowardly Titans preparing for flight.

"Now I know how God feels in his heavens!" Camillo thought. "At last man comes into his own! At last our divinity abases the world!" And, to Campoformio, who was looking back at him strangely, he gave an exalted, dazed smile.

"Are you dizzy?" the pilot demanded, his howl no more than a sigh in the roar of engine and wind.

"Go on! go on! go on!" cried Camillo. The words, driven back into his throat, set him to coughing.

The baron put the aëroplane round in a banking curve, descended five hundred feet at one swoop, raced homeward. Florence, creeping forth over the rim of the world, expanded from a puddle to a wide, flashing lake of roofs. The hills beyond, as the biplane dipped again, emerged from bluish mists, regained their courage, held up their heads as before. Below appeared pastures that seemed like table-cloths raised to catch the aëroplane safe in their folds. And into their folds the machine descended so softly that one could not tell when it left the air and ran on the ground.

A few rods away two hangars appeared. Familiar faces surrounded the biplanethe faces of the baron's mechanics. What, they had skimmed the world and unerringly regained this obscure little spot?

Camillo was further amazed to learn that they had flown only thirteen minutes. Campoformio gave him another keen glance.

"You were dizzy up there?"

"Not at all. I felt a bit tipsy at first." "Next time you won't notice that. If, indeed, you wish to go on?"

"Go on! Per Baccho! nothing can stop me now!".

"Then look here; while you 're at it,

why not go after the military brevet for aviators? I'll be your teacher, and guaranty that in two months' time you 'll pass the tests with flying colors."

"But that is too much to ask of you!"

"Nonsense! I hope we two can engage in a patriotic act."

Camillo, overjoyed, accepted the baron's offer.

He made haste to tell Frossie of his intention. But she, frightened, protested: "Not aëroplanes, too!"

He laughed indulgently.

"That old omnibus is as safe as a boat. The air is n't a void, after all, but a big, soft cushion, buoyant and strong, like the sea.

And to think we humans have been so long in finding it out!"

Mr. Goodchild, at least, understood Camillo's enthusiasm. Long ago Aurelius had thought of inventing the flying-machine himself; but other projects had intervened, and finally some one else had grasped the laurels that might have been his.

"Still," he reflected, his old ardor renewed by Camillo's adventure, "the science of aviation is n't perfected yet. Above all, there's a need of some infallible safety-device. If I went to work on it, devoted my mind entirely to the problem, most likely I could put an end to the accidents. But of course that kind of research would soon require a workshop."

He thought of a certain workshop across the sea, of a little ramshackle house, of Maple Lane, and all the surrounding vistas. The countless friendly aspects of Zenasville rose before him again, their attractiveness intensely enhanced by distance and time. It seemed like many years since he had bade those dear, homely regions good-by.

But now and then letters reached him from home. Dr. Numble, a faithful correspondent, was still at work on the Magnum Opus-St. Louis of France was passing into a new incarnation. Ira Inchkin, for all his complaints about the hardware business, found time to describe his wife's latest feat on the town-hall stage. Her portrayal of Hedda Gabler "had knocked

the breath right out of the 'Zenasville Recorder's' dramatic critic." Selina Inchkin, for her part, neglected to dwell on that triumph. Perhaps she was too much excited by Aggie's wedding. She wrote:

Would a thousand times that I had been with you at those nuptials! Radiant as the dawn, I see my precious Aglaia descending from the bliss-embowered altar, clinging with fond, shy sweetness to the strong arm of he who henceforth shall be her sturdy oak, her one in all, her soul-mate! How nature must have warbled its hymns of joy in that solemn and beauteous blend, when they who previously mankind had known as twain were united into one, by Heaven's holy ordnance! And so they went forth into life, like unto a symphony of angel's wings, tender and true, as Poe says, "evermore."

Aurelius, as he folded up this rhapsody, mused: "Good, warm-hearted folks, eager to share our joys, and willing to share our griefs! Old friends are good. Yes, yes, old friends, old places, old habits are hard. to lose."

He was then sitting at his favorite table in the Café Hirsch. A cup of coffee smoked before him, and by the table the waiter, Otto, drooped in melancholy rumination. On all sides sat painters, poets, journalists, most of them shabby, many lean and pale, the curious dress and airs of some betraying their essential triviality. Their chatter was unintelligible; they did not glance at Mr. Goodchild; their whole little circle buzzed on, day after day, oblivious to the stranger. Yet there was scarcely one of their enthusiasms that Aurelius could not have shared and understood, if they had given him the chance and he had spoken half a dozen foreign languages.

Even Constantine Farazounis seemed to have deserted him.

"So," said Otto, in the born pessimist's sepulchral tones of satisfaction, "to-day already you feel lonely, Mr. Gootschild, yust like me!"

"For the moment I was thinking of my