's evident triumph, the other would always harbour deep
within her heart an endless grief at being the elder yet the vassal.

"However, you may rely on me," Pierre affectionately resumed. "This
quarrel between the two countries is certainly a great source of grief
and a great peril. And assuredly I will only say what I think to be the
truth about you. At the same time I fear that you hardly like the truth,
for temperament and custom have hardly prepared you for it. The poets of
every nation who at various times have written on Rome have intoxicated
you with so much praise that you are scarcely fitted to hear the real
truth about your Rome of to-day. No matter how superb a share of praise
one may accord you, one must all the same look at the reality of things,
and this reality is just what you won't admit, lovers of the beautiful as
you ever are, susceptible too like women, whom the slightest hint of a
wrinkle sends into despair."

Orlando began to laugh. "Well, certainly, one must always beautify things
a little," said he. "Why speak of ugly faces at all? We in our theatres
only care for pretty music, pretty dancing, pretty pieces which please
one. As for the rest, whatever is disagreeable let us hide it, for
mercy's sake!"

"On the other hand," the priest continued, "I will cheerfully confess the
great error of my book. The Italian Rome which I neglected and sacrificed
to papal Rome not only exists but is already so powerful and triumphant
that it is surely the other one which is bound to disappear in course of
time. However much the Pope may strive to remain immutable within his
Vatican, a steady evolution goes on around him, and the black world, by
mingling with the white, has already become a grey world. I never
realised that more acutely than at the _fete_ given by Prince
Buongiovanni for the betrothal of his daughter to your grand-nephew. I
came away quite enchanted, won over to the cause of your resurrection."

The old man's eyes sparkled. "Ah! you were present?" said he, "and you
witnessed a never-to-be-forgotten scene, did you not, and you no longer
doubt our vitality, our growth into a great people when the difficulties
of to-day are overcome? What does a quarter of a century, what does even
a century matter! Italy will again rise to her old glory, as soon as the
great people of to-morrow shall have sprung from the soil. And if I
detest that man Sacco it is because to my mind he is the incarnation of
all th