is the Commendatore, in his hat and overcoat. He closes the door
behind him, gathers up the papers lying on the table, and says to
Benedetto, with a disdainful air:

"Mark this. We give you three days in which to leave Rome. Do you
understand?" Without even waiting for an answer, he pressed a bell. The
usher entered, and he commanded:

"Show him out!"

* * * * *

On reaching the great stairway with his guide, Benedetto, believing
himself free to descend, begged for a little water.

"Water?" the usher replied. "I cannot go for it now. His Excellency is
waiting. Please step this way."

To Benedetto's' great astonishment, he invited him to enter the lift.

"Both their Excellencies," said the usher, correcting himself, and, as
the lift ascended to the second floor, he looked at Benedetto as at one
about to receive a great honour which he does not appear to deserve.
When they reached the second floor, the two traversed an immense hall
dimly lighted. From this hall Benedetto was shown into an apartment so
brilliantly illumined as to cause him discomfort and suffering, and he
was nearly blinded.

Two men, seated in the two corners of a large sofa, were waiting for
him, each in a different attitude, the younger with his hands in his
pockets, his legs crossed, and his head leaning against the back of the
couch; the elder with his body bent forward, and continuously stroking
his grey beard, first with one hand and then with the other. The
first individual had a sarcastic expression, the second a searching,
melancholy, kindly one. The latter, who evidently possessed the greater
authority of the two, invited Benedetto to be seated in an easy-chair,
opposite to him.

"You must not think, dear Signor Maironi," said he in a voice both
harmonious and deep, and which seemed, in a way, to correspond with the
melancholy look in his eyes, "you must not think that we are here as two
powerful arms of the State. We are here, at the present moment, as
two individuals of a very rare species, two statesmen who know
their business well, and who despise it still more. We are two great
idealists, who know how to lie in a most ideal manner to those who
deserve nothing better, and who also know how to adore Truth; two
democrats, but nevertheless two adorers of that recondite Truth which
has never been touched by the dirty hands of old Demos."

Having spoken thus, the man of the flowing grey beard once more