rself and impose it."

It was the first letter that David Rossi had received from Roma, and as
he read it the air seemed to him to be filled with the sweet girlish
voice. He could see the play of her large, bright, violet eyes. The
delicate fragrance of the scented paper rose to his nostrils, and
without being conscious of what he was doing he raised the letter to his
lips.

Then he became aware that Bruno was still in the room. The good fellow
was in the shadow behind him, pushing things about under some pretext
and trying to make a noise.

"Don't let me keep you up, Bruno."

"Sure you don't want anything, sir?" said Bruno with confusion.

David Rossi rose and walked about the room with his slow step.

"You have something to say to me?"

"Well, yes, sir--yes, I have."

"What is it?"

Bruno scratched his shock head and looked about as if for help. His eyes
fell on the letter lying open in the light on the desk.

"It's about that, sir. I knew where it came from by the colour and the
monogram."

"Well?"

Bruno began to look frightened, and then in a louder voice, that bubbled
out of his mouth like water from the neck of a bottle, he said:

"Tell you the truth, sir, people are talking about you."

"What are they saying, Bruno?"

"Saying?... Ever heard the proverb, 'Sun in the eyes, the battle lost'?
Sun in the eyes--that's what they're saying, sir."

"So they're saying that, are they?"

"They are. And doesn't it look like it, sir? You'll allow it looks like
it, anyway. When you started the Republic, sir, the people had hopes of
you. But a month is gone and you haven't done a thing."

David Rossi, with head down, continued to pace to and fro.

"'Patience,' I'm saying. 'Go slow and sure,' says I. That's all right,
sir, but the Government is going fast enough. Forty thousand men called
out to keep the people quiet, and when the bread-tax begins on the first
of the month the blessed saints know what will happen. Next week we
hold our meeting in the Coliseum. You called it yourself, sir, yet
they're laying odds you won't be there. Where will you be? In the house
of a bad woman?"

"Bruno!" cried Rossi in a stern voice, "what right have you to talk to
me like this?"

Bruno was frightened at what he had said, but he tried to carry it off
with a look of passion.

"Right? The right of a friend, sir, who can't stand by and see you
betrayed. Yes, betrayed, that's the word for it. Betrayed! Betrayed!
It's