ained a passport at Naples."

Baynton eyed him suspiciously as he spoke, and as he sipped his wine
continued to regard him with a keen glance.

"And how did you manage to get a Neapolitan passport?"

"Our Minister, Sir Horace Upton, managed that for me."

"Oh, you are known to Sir Horace, then?"

"Yes."

A quick interchange of looks between my lord and his friend showed that
they were by no means satisfied that the young sculptor was simply a
worker in marble and a fashioner in modelling-clay.

"Have you heard from Sir Horace lately?" asked Lord Selby.

"I received this letter to-day, but I have not read it;" and he showed
the unopened letter as he spoke.

"The police may, then, have some reasonable suspicions about your
residence here," said his Lordship, slowly.

"My Lord," said Massy, rising, "I have had enough of this kind of
examination from the Podesta himself this morning, not to care to pass
my evening in a repetition of it. Who I am, what I am, and with what
object here, are scarcely matters in which you have any interest, and
assuredly were not the subjects on which I expected you should address
me. I beg now to take my leave." He moved towards the garden as he
spoke, bowing respectfully to each.

"Wait a moment; pray don't go,--sit down again,--I never meant,--of
course I could n't mean so,--eh, Baynton?" said his Lordship,
stammering in great confusion.

"Of course not," broke in Baynton; "his Lordship's inquiries were really
prompted by a sincere desire to serve you."

"Just so,--a sincere desire to serve you."

"In fact, seeing you, as I may say, in the toils."

"Exactly so,--in the toils."

"He thought very naturally that his influence and his position
might,--you understand,--for these fellows know perfectly well what
an English peer is,--they take a proper estimate of the power of Great
Britain."

His Lordship nodded assentingly, as though any stronger corroboration
might not be exactly graceful on his part, and Baynton went on:--

"Now you perfectly comprehend why,--you see at once the whole thing; and
I 'm sure, instead of feeling any soreness or irritation at my lord's
interference, that in point of fact--"

"Just so," broke in his Lordship, pressing Massy into a seat at his
side,--"just so; that's it!"

It requires no ordinary tact for any man to reseat himself at a table
from which he has risen in anger or irritation, and Massy had far too
little knowledge of life to overc