ed to mean something, and Sant' Ilario saw
a faint glimmer of hope in the distance. He knew Spicca's habits very
well, and was aware that when the sun was low he would certainly turn
into one of the many houses where he was intimate, and spend an hour
over a cup of tea. The difficulty lay in ascertaining which particular
fireside he would select on that afternoon. Giovanni hastily sketched a
route for himself and asked the porter at each of his friends' houses if
Spicca had entered. Fortune favoured him at last. Spicca was drinking
his tea with the Marchesa di San Giacinto.

Giovanni paused a moment before the gateway of the palace in which San
Giacinto had inhabited a large hired apartment for many years. He did
not see much of his cousin, now, on account of differences in political
opinion, and he had no reason whatever for calling on Flavia, especially
as formal New Year's visits had lately been exchanged. However, as San
Giacinto was now a leading authority on questions of landed property in
the city, it struck him that he could pretend a desire to see Flavia's
husband, and make that an excuse for staying a long time, if necessary,
in order to wait for him.

He found Flavia and Spicca alone together, with a small tea-table
between them. The air was heavy with the smoke of cigarettes, which
clung to the oriental curtains and hung in clouds about the rare palms
and plants. Everything in the San Giacinto house was large, comfortable
and unostentatious. There was not a chair to be seen which might not
have held the giant's frame. San Giacinto was a wonderful judge of what
was good. If he paid twice as much as Montevarchi for a horse, the horse
turned out to be capable of four times the work. If he bought a picture
at a sale, it was discovered to be by some good master and other people
wondered why they had lost courage in the bidding for a trifle of a
hundred francs. Nothing ever turned out badly with him, but no success
had the power to shake his solid prudence. No one knew how rich he was,
but those who had watched him understood that he would never let the
world guess at half his fortune. He was a giant in all ways and he had
shown what he could do when he had dominated Flavia during the first
year of their marriage. She had at first been proud of him, but about
the time when she would have wearied of another man, she discovered that
she feared him in a way she certainly did not fear the devil. Yet lie
had never spo