he name. I am your
very loyal subject. Let's conspire together for your restoration."

"You told me the other day that you were a subject of the Pope,"
Anthony objected.

"That is during this interregnum," she explained. "The Pope is our
liege lord's liege lord, and, in our liege lord's absence, our homage
reverts to him. I will never, at all events, admit myself to be a
subject of the Duke of Savoy. Let's plot for your restoration."

"My 'restoration,' if that is n't too sounding a term, is a thing past
praying for," said Anthony. "But I don't know that I should very
keenly desire it, even if it were n't."

"What!" cried she. "Would n't it be fun to potentate it on a scarlet
throne?"

"Not such good fun, I fancy, as it is to squire it in these green
meadows," he responded. "Are n't scarlet thrones apt to be upholstered
with worries and responsibilities?"

"Are n't green meadows sown thick with worries and responsibilities?"
asked Susanna.

"Very likely," he consented. "But for a moderate stipend I can always
hire a man like Willes to reap and deal with them for me."

"Could n't you hire 'a man like Willis' to extract them from your
scarlet cushions? Potentates have grand viziers. Mr. Willes would
make a delicious grand vizier," she reflected, with a kind of
wistfulness.

"He would indeed," said Anthony. "And we should have comic opera again
with interest."

"But you only look at it from a selfish point of view," said Susanna.
"Think of poor Sampaolo--under the old regime, an Island of the
Blessed."

"Seriously, is there at Sampaolo, the faintest sentiment in favour of a
return to the old regime?" he asked.

"Seriously, and more 's the pity, not the faintest," Susanna confessed.
"I believe I am the only legitimist in the island--save a few priests
and nuns, and they don't count. I am the entire legitimist party."

She turned towards him, making a little bow.

"Yet there is every manner of discontent with the present regime," she
said. "The taxes, the conscription, the difficulties put in the way of
commerce, the monstrous number of officials, and the corruption of them
one and all, are felt and hated by everyone. Under the old regime, for
example," she illustrated, "Vallanza was a free port,--now we have to
pay both a national duty and a municipal duty on exports as well as
imports; nothing was taxed but land, and that very lightly--now nearly
everything is taxed, even salt, even a work