king to her of Italy, in the intervals
of table anecdotes.

"Why did you leave it?" she said.

"I found I had more shadows than the one allotted me by nature; and as I
was accustomed to a black one, and not half a dozen white, I was fairly
frightened out of the country."

"You mean, Austrians."

"I do."

"Do you hate them?"

"Not at all."

"Then, how can you love the Italians?"

"They themselves have taught me to do both; to love them and not to hate
their enemies. Your Italians are the least vindictive of all races of
men."

"Merthyr, Merthyr!" went Lady Gosstre; Lady Charlotte murmuring aloud:
"And in the third chapter of the Book of Paradox you will find these
words."

"We afford a practical example and forgive them, do we not?" Mr. Powys
smiled at Emilia.

She looked round her, and reddened a little.

"So long as you do not write that Christian word with the point of a
stiletto!" said Lady Charlotte.

"You are not mad about the Italians?" Wilfrid addressed her.

"Not mad about anything, I hope. If I am to choose, I prefer the
Austrians. A very gentlemanly set of men! At least, so I find them
always. Capital horsemen!"

"I will explain to you how it must be," said Mr. Powys to Emilia. "An
artistic people cannot hate long. Hotly for the time, but the oppression
gone, and even in the dream of its going, they are too human to be
revengeful."

"Do we understand such very deep things?" said Lady Gosstre, who was
near enough to hear clearly.

"Yes: for if I ask her whether she can hate when her mind is given to
music, she knows that she cannot. She can love."

"Yet I think I have heard some Italian operatic spitfires, and of some!"
said Lady Charlotte.

"What opinion do you pronounce in this controversy?" Cornelia made
appeal to Sir Twickenham.

"There are multitudes of cases," he began: and took up another end of
his statement: "It has been computed that five-and-twenty murders per
month to a population...to a population of ninety thousand souls, is a
fair reckoning in a Southern latitude."

"Then we must allow for the latitude?"

"I think so."

"And also for the space into which the ninety thousand souls are
packed," quoth Tracy Runningbrook.

"Well! well!" went Sir Twickenham.

"The knife is the law to an Italian of the South," said Mr. Powys. "He
distrusts any other, because he never gets it. Where law is established,
or tolerably secure, the knife is not used. Duels are rare. There