ber what a life mine has been. I have seen more
of the world than most people, playwrights included. I have had
strange adventures; I have heard remarkable stories; I have observed; I
have remembered. Are there no materials, here in my head, for writing
a play--if the opportunity is granted to me?' She waited a moment, and
suddenly repeated her strange question about Agnes.

'When is Miss Lockwood expected to be in Venice?'

'What has that to do with your new play, Countess?'

The Countess appeared to feel some difficulty in giving that question
its fit reply. She mixed another tumbler full of maraschino punch, and
drank one good half of it before she spoke again.

'It has everything to do with my new play,' was all she said. 'Answer
me.' Francis answered her.

'Miss Lockwood may be here in a week. Or, for all I know to the
contrary, sooner than that.'

'Very well. If I am a living woman and a free woman in a week's
time--or if I am in possession of my senses in a week's time (don't
interrupt me; I know what I am talking about)--I shall have a sketch or
outline of my play ready, as a specimen of what I can do. Once again,
will you read it?'

'I will certainly read it. But, Countess, I don't understand--'

She held up her hand for silence, and finished the second tumbler of
maraschino punch.

'I am a living enigma--and you want to know the right reading of me,'
she said. 'Here is the reading, as your English phrase goes, in a
nutshell. There is a foolish idea in the minds of many persons that
the natives of the warm climates are imaginative people. There never
was a greater mistake. You will find no such unimaginative people
anywhere as you find in Italy, Spain, Greece, and the other Southern
countries. To anything fanciful, to anything spiritual, their minds
are deaf and blind by nature. Now and then, in the course of
centuries, a great genius springs up among them; and he is the
exception which proves the rule. Now see! I, though I am no genius--I
am, in my little way (as I suppose), an exception too. To my sorrow, I
have some of that imagination which is so common among the English and
the Germans--so rare among the Italians, the Spaniards, and the rest of
them! And what is the result? I think it has become a disease in me.
I am filled with presentiments which make this wicked life of mine one
long terror to me. It doesn't matter, just now, what they are. Enough
that they absolutely govern me--they drive me