es from?" Anthony repeated.

"She--? Who?" asked Adrian, looking vague. Then, as Anthony
vouchsafed no answer, but merely twirled his stick, and gazed with
indifferent eyes at the horizon, "Oh--Madame Torrebianca?" he
conjectured. "Still harping on my daughter? Of course I know where
_she_ comes from. She comes from the land where the love of the turtle
now melts into sweetness, now maddens to crime--as who should say a
land of Guildhall banquets. She comes from Italy. Have you ever eaten
ortolans in Italy?"

"Do you happen to know what part of Italy?" Anthony persisted.

"From Rome, the pomp and pageant of imperial Rome," returned Adrian
promptly. "I 've got it in the lease. Nothing like having things in
leases. The business instinct--what? Put it in black and white, says
I. 'La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca, of the Palazzo Sebastiani, via
Quattro Fontane, Rome, party of the second part.' A _beau vers_, is
n't it? The lilt, the swelling cadence, the rich rhyme, the hidden
alliterations,--and then the sensitive, haunting pathos, the eternal
verities adumbrated by its symbolism. I 've stood upon Achilles' tomb,
and heard Troy doubted. Time--that monster-mother, who brings forth
her children only to devour them--Time shall doubt of . . ."

"Rome may be the official sort of address she gives to land-agents and
people," Anthony interposed. "But the part of Italy where she really
lives is a little castaway island in the Adriatic, some fifty miles
north from Ancona,--the little, unknown, beautiful island of Sampaolo."

Adrian came to a standstill again, and dropped his jaw in sign of
astonishment.

"Oh, come. Not really?" he gasped at length.

"Yes, really," said Anthony.

"My eye!" Adrian exclaimed.

"It _is_ odd, is n't it?" said Anthony.

"_Odd_?" cried Adrian. "It's--it--it beggars the English tongue."

"Well, if it beggars yours, it is doing pretty well," said Anthony.

"You goose," said Adrian, resuming his walk. "Can you actually suppose
that I 've passed all these golden days and weeks in friendly
hob-nobbings with her, and not learned that she came from the island of
Sampaolo? A fellow of penetration, like me? I appeal to your
honour--is it likely?"

"Why the devil have you never told me?" Anthony demanded, with asperity.

"You 've never asked me--you 've never given me a chance. You talk,
when you have me for a listener, you talk such an uninterrupted stream,
it's a miracle