se the Croatians?"

"That is a different thing."

"In what way? No, it is the same thing."

"It is a different thing!" Franco repeated, but he was unable to
demonstrate this. He felt he was wrong according to superficial
ratiocination, and right according to a profound truth which he was
unable to grasp. He said no more but was thoughtful all day, and was
evidently seeking for an answer. He thought about it in the night also,
and finally, believing he had found an answer, called to his wife, who
was asleep.

"Luisa!" said he. "Luisa, that is a different thing."

"What is the matter?" Luisa exclaimed, waking with a start.

He had reflected that the offence of a foreign dominion was not personal
like a private offence, and was always the result of a violation of a
principle of universal justice. But while he was explaining this to his
wife it struck him that in private offences also there was always the
violation of a principle of universal justice, and he fancied he must
have blundered.

"Nothing," said he.

His wife thought he was dreaming, and placing her head upon his
shoulder, she went to sleep again. If any argument could convert Franco
to his wife's ideas it was this sweet contact, this gentle breathing
upon his breast, in which he had so often and so deliciously felt the
blending of their two souls. But now it was not so. Through his brain
the thought flashed suddenly like a quick and cold blade, that this
latent antagonism between his wife's views and his own might one day
burst forth in some painful form, and, terrified, he pressed her in his
arms, as if to defend both himself and her against the phantoms of his
own brain.

* * * * *

After breakfast, on the sixth of November Franco took his great
gardening-shears and proceeded as usual, to the extermination of all dry
leaves and branches on the terrace and in the little garden. The great
beauty and deep peace of the hour went to the heart. Not a leaf stirred;
the air from the west was most pure and crystalline; on the east the
hills between Osteno and Porlezza were fading against a background of
light mist; the house was glorious with the sun and the tremulous
reflections from the lake; but though the sun was still very hot, the
chrysanthemums in the little garden, the olives and laurels along the
coast--more plainly visible now among the reddening, falling leaves--a
certain secret freshness in the air, scented with _