enough to experience the delicious dreaminess
that ...."

"I have no desire to feel dreamy," interrupted
Saxon. "I should detest any sensation that left
my mind less active than usual. I had as soon
put on fetters."

Mr. Trefalden laughed that low, pleasant
laugh of his, and stretched himself at full length
on the grass.

"There are fetters, and fetters," said he.
"Fetters of gold, and fetters of flowers, as well
as fetters of vulgar iron."

"Heaven forbid that I should ever know any
of the three," observed Saxon, gravely.

"You have this very day been in danger of
the two last," replied Mr. Trefalden.

"Cousin, you are jesting."

"Cousin, I am doing nothing of the kind."

Saxon's blue eyes opened in amazement.

"What can you mean?" said he.

"I will tell you. But you must promise to
listen patiently, for my explanation involves
some amount of detail."

Saxon bent his head, and the lawyer, puffing
lazily at his cigar from time to time, continued.

"The Colonna family," said he, "is, as of
course you know already, one of the oldest and
noblest of the princely Roman houses. Giulio
Colonna, whom you saw just now at the Adler,
is a scion of the stock. He has been an enthusiast
all his life. In his youth he married for
love; and, for the last twenty or thirty years, has
devoted himself, heart and soul, to Italian
politics. He has written more pamphlets, and
ripened more plots, than any man in Europe.
He is at the bottom of every Italian conspiracy.
He is at the head of every secret society that has
Italian unity for its object. He is, in short, a
born agitator; and his daughter is as fanatical
as himself. As you saw them just now, so they
are always. He with his head full of plots, and
his pockets full of pamphlets—she exercising all
her woman's wit and energy to enlist or utilise
an ally."

"I understand now what she meant by the
'good cause,' " observed Saxon, thoughtfully.

"Ay, that's the hackneyed phrase."

Saxon looked up.

"But it is a good cause," said he. "It is the
liberty of her country."

Mr. Trefalden shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes, yes, of course it is," he replied; "but
one gets weary of this pamphleteering and
plotting. Fighting is one thing, Saxon, and
intriguing, another. Besides, I hate a female
politician."

"She is very beautiful," said Saxon.

"She is beautiful, and brilliant, and very
fascinating; and she knows how to employ her
power, too. Those eyes of Olimpia Colonna's
have raised more volunteers for Italy than all
her father's pamphlets. Confess now, would you
have been so ready to carry that letter this
morning, if the lady had worn blue spectacles
and a front ?"

"I cannot tell; but I fear not," replied the
young man, laughingly. "But what has this to
do with the fetters?"

"Everything. Granted, now, that the fair
signora had known you were my cousin . . ."

"I suppose she took me for your servant,"
interposed Saxon, somewhat bitterly.

"—and that you had really taken charge of
that paper grenade," continued Mr. Trefalden,
"can you not guess what the results might have
been? Well, I can. She would not have offered
you money—not a sou—but she would have
smiled upon you, and given you her hand at parting;
and you would probably have kissed it as if
she had been an empress, and worshipped her as
if she were a divinity; and your head, my dear
Saxon, would have been as irretrievably turned
as the heads of the false prophets in Dante's
seventh circle."

"No, that it would not," said Saxon, hastily,
with his face all on fire again at the supposition.
"And besides, the false prophets were in the
eighth circle, cousin—the place, you know, called
Malebolge."

"True—the eighth. Thank you. Then you
would have placed the grenade in whichever
pocket lay nearest to the place where your heart
used to be; and you would have gone to the
world's end as readily as to Thusis; and have
been abjectly happy to wear Mademoiselle
Colonna's fetters of flowers for the rest of your
natural life."

"Nay, but indeed . . . ."

"So much for the flowers," interrupted Mr.
Trefalden. " Now for the iron. Once embarked
in this 'good cause,' there would have been no
hope for you in the future. In less than a month,
you would have been affiliated to some secret
society. Dwelling as you do on the high road to
Italy, you would have been appointed to all
kinds of dangerous services; and the result of
the whole affair would have been an Austrian
dungeon, whence not even Santa Olimpia herself
would have power to extricate you."

"A very pleasant picture, and very well
painted," said Saxon, with an angry quiver of
the lip, "but an error, cousin, from beginning to
end. I should have devoted myself neither to
the lady nor the cause; so your argument falls
to the ground, and the fetters along with it."

Mr. Trefalden had too much tact to pursue
the conversation further, so he changed the
subject.

"Are you fond of music?" he asked.

"Passionately."

"Do you play any instrument?"

"I play a little on our chapel organ, but very
badly."

"By ear, I suppose?"

"Not entirely. My father learned music at
Geneva in his youth; and all that he knows he
has taught me."

"Which, I suppose," said Mr. Trefalden, "is
just enough to make you wish it were more?"

"Precisely."