elling, but shall
not, as mere facts, be referred to again.

I have already said that Ugo Del Ferice had returned to Rome soon after
the change, had established himself with his wife, Donna Tullia, and was
at the time I am speaking about, deeply engaged in the speculations of
the day. He had once been, tolerably popular in society, having been
looked upon as a harmless creature, useful in his way and very obliging.
But the circumstances which had attended his flight some years earlier
had become known, and most of his old acquaintances turned him the cold
shoulder. He had expected this and was neither disappointed nor
humiliated. He had made new friends and acquaintances during his exile,
and it was to his interest to stand by them. Like many of those who had
played petty and dishonourable parts in the revolutionary times, he had
succeeded in building up a reputation for patriotism upon a very slight
foundation, and had found persons willing to believe him a sufferer who
had escaped martyrdom for the cause, and had deserved the crown of
election to a constituency as a just reward of his devotion. The Romans
cared very little what became of him. The old Blacks confounded Victor
Emmanuel with Garibaldi, Cavour with Persiano, and Silvio Pellico with
Del Ferice in one sweeping condemnation, desiring nothing so much as
never to hear the hated names mentioned in their houses. The Grey
party, being also Roman, disapproved of Ugo on general principles and
particularly because he had been a spy, but the Whites, not being Romans
at all and entertaining an especial detestation for every distinctly
Roman opinion, received him at his own estimation, as society receives
most people who live in good houses, give good dinners and observe the
proprieties in the matter of visiting-cards. Those who knew anything
definite of the man's antecedents were mostly persons who had little
histories of their own, and they told no tales out of school. The great
personages who had once employed him would have been magnanimous enough
to acknowledge him in any case, but were agreeably disappointed when
they discovered that he was not amongst the common herd of pension
hunters, and claimed no substantial rewards save their politeness and a
line in the visiting lists of their wives. And as he grew in wealth and
importance they found that he could be useful still, as bank directors
and members of parliament can be, in a thousand ways. So it came to pass
t