“See, little sister,” said he, “it looks like a woman’s, and to think that with it he gave the butcher that famous sword-stroke! And you should have seen Luisa,” he went on to Salvato, “when she heard the pistol shots, and the swords clashing, when she saw that I, a man, and a fearless one, dared not go to your aid because you had to do with the Queen’s assassins. ‘Then I must save him,’ she cried, and darted into the garden. Oh, if you had only seen her, Your Excellency, she did not run, she flew.”

  “What is the good of telling him this?” cried Luisa, and shuddering at the recollection of that night, she hid her crimson face and her eyes brimming with tears in her hands. “You are well named ‘Michael the Fool.’ “she murmured, “I was wrong to scold Nina for sending you away.”

  “Your hand, Luisa, your hand,” begged the wounded man, “I did not know that you, a stranger to me, saved me from royal assassins. You weep, do you then regret having saved my life?”

  Madame San Felice, exhausted by conflicting sensations, leaned her head on the back of the chair, closed her eyes and let fall her quivering hand into the young man’s.

  Salvato eagerly seized it; Luisa sighed, this sigh was a confession.

  Giovannina, half concealed by the window curtains, understood what was passing in her mistress’s heart; and so rooted to the spot she stood, with clenched hands, and stony gaze, like a statue of jealousy, that she did not hear a loud ringing till Michael said:

  ‘“Are you asleep, Nina, they will pull the bell down.”

  “Yes, go, to the house door,” said Luisa, and in a rapid low tone to Salvato: “It is not my husband, he always comes in by the garden. Go quick, Nina; you understand, I am not at home.”

  “Quick, not at home, do you hear, Nina?” called Michael after her.

  She went out without replying, and returning in a few minutes, and approaching her mistress mysteriously said, in a low tone of voice, that M. Andrew Baker asked to speak with her, “and I hesitated to say you were not at home,” she added, “because I know he is your banker, and because he said he came on important business.”

  “Important business concerns my husband, not me.”

  “Precisely madame, but he might tell the Chevalier that he had called and had not found you in.”

  Luisa reflected for a moment, and turning to Salvato, “Be easy, I shall soon return,” said she. The two exchanged a handshake, smiling, Luisa rose and went out. Hardly had the door shut behind her than Salvato closed his eyes, as he always did when she was no longer there.

  Michael, thinking he wished to sleep, approached Nina. “What was it?” he whispered with that unrestrained naïf curiosity of the primitive.

  Nina, raising her voice so that Salvato could hear, answered: “It’s that rich, elegant young banker; you know him, M. Andrew Baker, that good-looking, fair boy, an Englishman who paid court to madame before her marriage.”

  “Ah, yes; Luisa’s whole fortune is in his bank, is it not?”

  “Exactly,” said Nina; and by the almost imperceptible quivering in the wounded man’s face, she knew that he had not lost a word of what she had said.

  Meanwhile, Luisa had gone into the reception room where Andrew Baker was awaiting her, and for a moment she had difficulty in recognizing him; he was in Court dress, had shaved off his long, fair English whiskers, an adornment detested by King Ferdinand, he wore the Cross of a Commander of Saint Georges-Constantinien, and the badge on his coat; he had knee breeches and he carried a sword. Luisa smiled slightly at such a costume at half-past eleven in the morning.

  “Oh, my dear M. Andrew,” said Luisa, having glanced at him, and having received a respectful bow, “how splendid you are! I don’t wonder you wanted me to have the pleasure of seeing you in all your glory, for I presume that it is not for a matter of business you have put on Court dress!”

  “Had I thought, madame, that it would give you more pleasure to see me thus than in my ordinary attire, I should not have waited till to-day to assume it; but I know that on the contrary you are one of those intelligent women who, while always choosing the most becoming dress themselves, pay little attention to what others are wearing. My visit is the result of my wishes, but my costume the result of circumstances. Three days ago the King deigned to make me a Commander of the Order of Saint Georges-Constantinien, and to invite me to dine at Caserta to-day.”

  Luisa’s expression of surprise was not very flattering.

  “You are rightly astonished, madame,” replied the young man, a little piqued, “but have you not heard how one day Louis XIV., aristocrat as he was, invited the banker, Samuel Bernard, from whom he wanted to borrow twenty-five millions, to dine with him at Versailles? Well, it seems that King Ferdinand has as great a need as that ancestor of his, and as my father is the Samuel Bernard of Naples the King invites his son, Andrew Baker, to dine with him at Caserta, his Versailles, and, as he wishes to be sure that the twenty-five millions will not escape him, he has put round the neck of the poor wretch he admits to his table, this halter by which he hopes to lead him to his treasury.”

  “You are a sensible man, M. Andrew. I observed it not for the first time to-day, if good sense sufficed to open the doors of Royal Palaces, you might be invited to table with all the kings on earth. You have compared your father to Samuel Bernard, I, who am acquainted with his unassailable probity and his liberality in business, accept the comparison. Samuel Bernard was a noble-hearted man, who rendered great service to France, not only under Louis XIV., but under Louis XV. But why do you gaze at me thus?”

  “I admire you, madame.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think you are probably the only woman in Naples who knows who Samuel Bernard was, and who has the gift of complimenting one who is the first to recognize that, for a simple visit, he is presenting himself to you in a ridiculous get up.”

  “You embarrass me, but may I ask if there is a new road then, through Mergellina to Caserta?”

  “No, but not being due at Caserta till two o’clock, I believed I should have time to speak to you about a matter precisely in connection with the expedition.”

  “You would not, I trust, dear M. Andrew, exert your influence to have me made a Lady-in waiting to the Queen? That, I warn you, I should decline in advance.”

  “Ah, madame, devoted to the Royal Family as I am, there are certain pure souls who must remain aloof from a certain atmosphere.... as the healthy should avoid the miasmas of the Pontine Marshes. No, but our house is negotiating great affairs with the King, does us the honour of borrowing twenty-five millions guaranteed by England; it is a safe undertaking in which the money invested can bring in seven or eight instead of four or five per cent.; you have a half-million to your credit with us; we are going to be asked immediately for coupons for this loan of which our house personally takes up eight millions. I have come to enquire, before we make the matter public, if you would like us to include you.”

  “Dear M. Baker,” I am extremely obliged to you,” replied Luisa, “but you know that money matters are the Chevalier’s business only; and that (you know his habits) the Chevalier is probably talking from the top of his ladder to His Royal Highness the Prince of Calabria, so that you should have gone to the palace library if you wanted to meet him, besides, there, in the presence of the heir-apparent, your costume would have been infinitely more in place.”

  “You are cruel, madame.”

  “I believe,” went on Luisa in a naïve tone, “that the Chevalier has invited you to our Thursday evenings from six to ten. If he forgot, I hasten to supply the omission; if you forgot, I remind you.”

  “Madame,” stammered Andrew, “had you wished it you could have made very happy one who loved you, and who is obliged merely to adore you.”

  Luisa, with her calm and limpid eyes upon him, advanced, holding out her hand, said:

  “Sir, you did me the honour to ask from Luisa Molina the hand that Madame San Felice offers you. If I were to allow you a title other than that of friend you would be deceived in me, and applying to a woman who would have been unworthy of you. It is not a moment’s caprice which makes me prefer to you the Chevalier who is nearly thrice my age, and twice yours; it is the deep feeling of filial gratitude which I vowed to him; he is still for me to-day what he was two years ago; remain for your part what the Chevalier, who esteems you, offered, that is, my friend; and prove to me that you are worthy of this friendship in never reminding me of an occasion on which, by a refusal which, however, had nothing offensive in it, I was obliged to wound a noble heart which should cherish neither rancour nor hope.” Then, bowing with great dignity, “The Chevalier will have the honour of calling upon your father to give him his reply.”

  “If you will neither permit one to love or to adore you,” replied the young man, “at least you cannot prevent one’s admiration.” And, bowing in his turn with the most profound respect, he withdrew, stifling a sigh.

  As for Luisa, without a thought of her inconsistency, hardly had she heard the street door shut on Andrew Baker than she flew, like a bird returning to its nest, to the bedside of the wounded man.

  Salvato was very pale, his eyes were closed and his marble-like countenance wore an expression of suffering.

  “Are you asleep, my friend,” she asked in French, in a voice whose anxiety there was no mistaking, “or have you fainted?”

  “Neither, calm yourself, madame,” said Salvato, half opening his eyes but not looking at her.

  “Madame!” repeated Luisa, astonished. “Madame!”

  “But I suffer,” the young man went on.

  “From what?”

  “From my wound.”

  “No,” said Luisa, “I have studied your countenance more carefully. You are suffering from a moral pain, and you must tell me the cause immediately, I insist. I have a right to know. Hasn’t the doctor told me to spare you every emotion?”

  “Well, then, since you insist,” replied Salvato, gazing at her fixedly, “I am jealous.”

  “Jealous! Of whom, in Heaven’s name?”

  “Of you. Yes. How is it that you remained away half-an-hour when you were to stay only a few minutes? And what is this M. Baker to you that he is privileged to rob me of half-an-hour of your presence?”

  An expression of heavenly happiness came into the young woman’s face. Salvato also, without uttering the word love had just told her that he loved her. She lowered her head towards his so that her hair almost touched his face, fanned with her breath, and beneath her gaze.

  “Child!” said she with that melody in the voice which arises from the deepest fibres of the heart. “What is he? What did he come for? Why did he stay so long? I am going to tell you.”

  “No, no, no,” murmured the wounded man, “no, I do not need to know; thanks, thanks.”

  “For what? Why thanks?”

  “Because your eyes have told me all, my beloved. Your hand! Your hand!”

  Luisa gave her hand to Salvato, who set his lips convulsively to it, whilst on it he let fall a tear.

  Without considering what she was doing, Luisa carried her hand to her lips and drank this tear.

  King Ferdinand had invited Andrew Baker to dine at Caserta, first because he found, doubtless, that receiving a banker at his table was of less importance in the country than in town, and further because he had received from England and Rome some precious consignments of which we shall speak later. He had therefore hastened over the sale of his fish at Mergellina, a sale which in spite of this haste was accomplished, let us add, to the greatest satisfaction of his pride and purse.

  Caserta, the Neapolitan Versailles as we have called it, is, indeed, a building in the frigid and heavy taste of the middle of the XVIIIth century. Neapolitans who have not travelled in France contend that Caserta is finer than Versailles; those who have, content themselves with saying that Caserta is as fine; finally, uninfatuated travellers, without putting Versailles very high, put Caserta much below Versailles; which is also our own opinion, and we are not afraid of being contradicted by people of taste.

  But for a week Caserta had contained treasures worthy of bringing from the four quarters of the globe amateurs of statuary, painting, and even of natural history.

  Ferdinand had just had brought from Rome and installed there, the artistic inheritance of his ancestor Pope Paul III., he who excommunicated Henry VIII., who signed a league against the Turks with Charles V. and Venice, and who took up again the building of St. Peter’s, confiding it to Michael Angelo.

  But while the masterpieces of the Greek chisel and the brush of the Middle Ages were arriving from Rome, another consignment was coming from England which was engaging the curiosity of His Majesty the King of the Two Sicilies far otherwise.

  It was primarily an ethnological museum gathered together in the Sandwich Isles by the expedition which succeeded that in which Captain Cook had perished, and eighteen live kangaroos, male and female, brought from New Zealand, in expectation of which Ferdinand had had prepared, in the middle of the park of Caserta, a magnificent enclosure with sheds. These interesting marsupials had just come out of their cages and King Ferdinand was in astonishment at the immense leaps they were making, frightened as they were at Jupiter’s barking, when the arrival of M. Andrew Baker was announced.

  “Good,” said the King, “bring him here, I am going to show him something he has never seen, and that, with all his millions, he won’t be able to buy.” And the King, perceiving the young man in the distance, took some steps in his direction. He knew the fattier and son only as the leading bankers of Naples. It was Corradino who was transacting the loan with them and who had suggested flattering their pride with the Cross of St. Georges Constantinien. This had, naturally, been offered first to the head of the firm, Simon Baker, but he, worthy man, had put forward his son who had been named a Commander of the Order in his stead.

  We have seen that Andrew Baker had a good appearance,- good sense and was a man of education. He

  approached the King, then, with much circumspection and deference, but with far less embarrassment than an hour previously he had accosted Madame San Felice; and the salutations made, he waited for Ferdinand to address him.

  The King examined him from head to foot and made a slight grimace. Though Andrew Baker had no whiskers or moustache, neither had he powder or queue, signs of soundness in the King’s estimation. But as he greatly held to getting his twenty-five millions he said graciously to the young man: “Well, M. Baker, how goes our negotiation?”

  “I believe, sire, that the matter is arranged. The King’s wishes are orders. To-morrow the payment to our firm of the various houses taking shares in the loan will commence.”

  “And how much does your firm personally lend?”

  “Eight millions, sire, which are from this moment at your Majesty’s disposal.”

  “At my disposal, when?”

  “To-morrow, or this evening on a simple receipt from your Minister of Finance.”

  “Would not mine do as well?”

  “Better, sire, but I did not hope that the King would do our firm the honour of giving a receipt in his own hand.”

  “Yes, indeed, yes, and with great pleasure....! So you say that this evening....? As I should be sorry, my dear M. Baker, that it should be known that I have had this money,” said the King, scratching his ear, “seeing that it is destined to surprise people, I should like it to be conveyed to the palace to-night.”

  “It shall be done, sire, only, as the bank closes at six, in that case I ought, if Your Majesty permits, to send an express to my father. Two pencilled words to my footman will suffice.”

  “It will be simpler to send your carriage back, I shall return to Naples at about seven o’clock, and will take you with me.”

  “Sire, this will be an honour indeed for a poor banker,” said the young man, bowing, and, tearing a leaf from his note-book, he wrote several pencilled lines, and turning to the King, “Does Your Majesty permit me to give an order to this man?” said he, indicating the footman who had brought him to the King.

  “Certainly, certainly.”

  “My friend,” said Andrew Baker, “you are to give the paper to my coachman, who is to set off immediately to Naples, and to give it to my father. The carriage need not return. His Majesty is doing me the honour of bringing me,” and at these words he bowed respectfully to the King.

  “If this youth wore powder and a queue,” mused Ferdinand, “well, one can’t have everything,” and aloud:

  “Come, M. Baker, and I will show you some animals you don’t know, to a certainty;” and he led him straight to the enclosure.

  “Ah!” said Andrew, “kangaroos.”

  “You recognise them?” cried the King.

  “Sire, I have shot hundreds.”

  “Where “In Australia.”

  “And what the devil were you doing there?”

  “When I left the University of Jena, my good father sent me to England to finish my education, and afterwards consented to my going round the world with Captain Flinders. The voyage lasted three years, and he having discovered some islands off the southern coast of New Holland named them Kangaroo Isles, on account of the enormous number of those animals there. I shot some each day and kept every man aboard supplied with fresh meat.”

  “Ah, ah,” said the King, who knew nothing of geography, “but Hamilton has not deceived me in saying that the kangaroo is a rare animal, I hope, or I shall regret my papyri. They were found at Herculaneum. Hamilton, an amateur of that sort of old rubbish, saw them; he spoke of the kangaroos, and I told him I wanted to try and acclimatise some. So he asked me if I would give the London Museum as many rolls of papyrus as the Zoological Gardens there would give me kangaroos. I said, ‘Bring over the kangaroos as quick as you can! ‘Yesterday eighteen arrived, and I have given him eighteen papyri.”

  “Sir William has not made a bad bargain,” said Baker, smiling, “perhaps he has got Tacitus’s panegyric on Virginius, his speech against the proconsul Marcus-Priscus, or his last poems, an irreparable loss.”