, risking everything with the calm determination and cool judgment
which lay at the root of his strong character. He was immensely
successful, but though he had been bold to recklessness at the right
moment, he saw the great crash looming in the near future, and when the
many were frantic to buy and invest, no matter at what loss, his
millions were in part safely deposited in national bonds, and in part as
securely invested in solid and profitable buildings of which the rents
are little liable to fluctuation. Brought up to know what money means,
he is not easily carried away by enthusiastic reports. He knows that
when the hour of fortune is at hand no price is too great to pay for
ready capital, but he understands that when the great rush for success
begins the psychological moment of finance is already passed. When he
dies, if such strength as his can yield to death, he will die the
richest man in Italy, and he will leave what is rare in Italian finance,
a stainless name.

Of one person more I must speak, who has played a part in this family
history. The melancholy Spicca still lives his lonely life in the midst
of the social world. He affects to be a little old-fashioned in his
dress. His tall thin body stoops ominously and his cadaverous face is
more grave and ascetic than ever. He is said to have been suffering from
a mortal disease these fifteen years, but still he goes everywhere,
reads everything and knows every one. He is between sixty and seventy
years old, but no one knows his precise age. The foils he once used so
well hang untouched and rusty above his fireplace, but his reputation
survives the lost strength of his supple wrist, and there are few in
Rome, brave men or hairbrained youths, who would willingly anger him
even now. He is still the great duellist of his day; the emaciated
fingers might still find their old grip upon a sword hilt, the long,
listless arm might perhaps once more shoot out with lightning speed, the
dull eye might once again light up at the clash of steel. Peaceable,
charitable when none are at hand to see him give, gravely gentle now in
manner, Count Spicca is thought dangerous still. But he is indeed very
lonely in his old age, and if the truth be told his fortune seems to
have suffered sadly of late years, so that he rarely leaves Rome, even
in the hot summer, and it is very long since he spent six weeks in Paris
or risked a handful of gold at Monte Carlo. Yet his life is not over,