ness, and vindictiveness, there would perhaps have been
some hope of moving her. As it was, matters looked ill, and to make them
worse there was the well-known fact that Guido had formerly played high
and had lost considerable sums at cards. It would be easy to make
society believe that he had paid his debts, which had always been
promptly settled, with money which the Princess had intrusted to him for
investment.

"What possible object can she have in ruining you?" asked Lamberti,
presently.

"I cannot guess," Guido answered after another short pause. "I have
little enough left as it is, except the bare chance of inheriting
something, some day, from my brother, who likes me about as much as my
aunt does, and is not bound to leave me a penny."

"But, after all," argued Lamberti, "you are the only heir left to either
of them."

"I suppose so," assented Guido in an uncertain tone.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing--it does not matter. Of course," he continued quietly, "this
may go on for some time, but it can only end in one way, sooner or
later. I shall be lucky if I am only reduced to starvation."

"You might marry an heiress," suggested Lamberti, as a last resource.

"And pay my aunt out of my wife's fortune? No. I will not do that."

"Of course not. But I should think that if ever an honest man could be
tempted to do such a thing, it would be in some such case as yours."

"Perhaps to save his father from ruin, or his mother from starvation,"
said Guido. "I could understand it then; but not to save himself.
Besides, no heiress in our world would marry me, for I have nothing to
offer."

Lamberti smiled incredulously. He was not a cynic, because he believed
in action; but his faith in the disinterested simplicity of mankind was
not strong. He had also some experience of the world, and was quite
ready to admit that a marriageable heiress might fairly expect an
equivalent for the fortune she was to bring her husband. Yet he wholly
rejected the statement that Guido d'Este had nothing of social value to
offer, merely because he was now a poor man and had never been a very
rich one. Guido had neither lands nor money, and bore no title, it was
true; and could but just live like a gentleman on the small allowance
that was paid him yearly according to his father's will. But there was
no secret about his birth, and he was closely related to several of the
reigning houses of Europe. His father had been one of the minor