t must be paid for by England.

"May God punish them ... but may He wait a little bit!" he murmured in
his thoughts.

The imposing professor became greatly exasperated when speaking of the
land in which she was living.

"Mandolin players! Bandits!" she always cried when referring to the
Italians.

How much they owed to Germany! The Emperor Wilhelm had been a father to
them. All the world knew that!... And yet when the war was breaking
out, they were going to refuse to follow their old friends. Now German
diplomacy must busy itself, not to keep them at her side, but to
prevent their going with the adversary. Every day she was receiving
news from Rome. She had hoped that Italy might keep herself neutral,
but who could trust the word of such people?... And she repeated her
wrathful insults.

The sailor immediately adapted himself to this home, as though it were
his own. On the few occasions that Freya separated herself from him, he
used to go in search of her in the salon of the imposing dame who was
now assuming toward Ulysses the air of a good-natured mother-in-law.

In various visits he met the count. This taciturn personage would offer
his hand instinctively though keeping a certain distance between them.
Ulysses now knew his real nationality, and he knew that he knew it. But
the two kept up the fiction of Count Kaledine, Russian diplomat, and
this man exacted respect from every one in the doctor's dwelling.
Ferragut, devoted to his amorous selfishness, was not permitting
himself any investigation, adjusting himself to the hints dropped by
the two women.

He had never known such happiness. He was experiencing the great
sensuousness of one who finds himself seated at table in a well-warmed
dining-room and sees through the window the tempestuous sea tossing a
bark that is struggling against the waves.

The newsboys were crying through the streets terrible battles in the
center of Europe; cities were burning under bombardment; every
twenty-four hours thousands upon thousands of human beings were
dying.... And he was not reading anything, not wishing to know
anything. He was continuing his existence as though he were living in a
paradisiacal felicity. Sometimes, while waiting for Freya, his memory
would gloat over her wonderful physical charm, the refinements and
fresh sensations which his passion was enjoying; at other times, the
actual embrace with its ecstasy blotted out and suppressed all
unpleasant possibil