ers. The whole
world knows of Italy's position. A few months ago, at the time of what
you call the Balkan Crisis, Germany pressed us very hard for a definite
assurance of our support, under any conditions, of the Triple Alliance. I
remember that Andrea was three hours with the King that day, and our
reply was unacceptable in Berlin. It may have helped to keep the peace.
One cannot tell. The Kaiser's present letter is simply a repetition of
his feverish attempt to probe our intentions."

"But at present," Norgate ventured, "there is no Balkan Crisis."

The Comtesse looked at him lazily out of the corners of her sleepy eyes.

"Is there not?" she asked simply. "I have been away from Italy for a week
or so, and Andrea trusts nothing to letters. Yesterday I had a dispatch
begging me to return. I go to-morrow morning. I do not know whether it is
because of the pressure of affairs, or because he wearies himself a
little without me."

"One might easily imagine the latter," Norgate remarked. "But is it
indeed any secret to you that there is a great feeling of uneasiness
throughout the Continent, an extraordinary state of animation, a bustle,
although a secret bustle, of preparation in Germany?"

"I have heard rumours of this," the Comtesse confessed.

"When one bears these things in mind and looks a little into the future,"
Norgate continued, "one might easily believe that the reply to that still
unanswered letter of the Kaiser's might well become historical."

"You would like me, would you not," she asked, "to tell you what that
reply will most certainly be?"

"Very much!"

"You are an Englishman," she remarked thoughtfully, "and intriguing with
Anna. I fear that I do not understand the position."

"Must you understand it?"

"Perhaps not," she admitted. "It really matters very little. I will speak
to you just in the only way I can speak, as a private individual. I tell
you that I do not believe that Andrea will ever, under any circumstances,
join in any war against England, nor any war which has for its object the
crushing of France. In his mind the Triple Alliance was the most selfish
alliance which any country has ever entered into, but so long as the
other two Powers understood the situation, it was scarcely Italy's part
to point out the fact that she gained everything by it and risked
nothing. Italy has sheltered herself for years under its provisions, but
neither at the time of signing it, nor at any other time