"Domicilio Coatto--a devilish and insane device," said the American
Ambassador.
"Was that the fate of Prince Volonna?"
"Just so," said the Roman. "But ten or twelve years after he disappeared
from the scene a beautiful girl was brought to Rome and presented as his
daughter."
"Donna Roma?"
"Yes. It turned out that the Baron was a kinsman of the refugee, and
going to London he discovered that the Prince had married an English
wife during the period of his exile, and left a friendless daughter. Out
of pity for a great name he undertook the guardianship of the girl, sent
her to school in France, finally brought her to Rome, and established
her in an apartment on the Trinità de' Monti, under the care of an old
aunt, poor as herself, and once a great coquette, but now a faded rose
which has long since seen its June."
"And then?"
"Then? Ah, who shall say what then, dear friend? We can only judge by
what appears--Donna Roma's elegant figure, dressed in silk by the best
milliners Paris can provide, queening it over half the women of Rome."
"And now her aunt is conveniently bedridden," said the little Princess,
"and she goes about alone like an Englishwoman; and to account for her
extravagance, while everybody knows her father's estate was confiscated,
she is by way of being a sculptor, and has set up a gorgeous studio,
full of nymphs and cupids and limbs."
"And all by virtue of--what?" said the Englishman.
"By virtue of being--the good friend of the Baron Bonelli!"
"Meaning by that?"
"Nothing--and everything!" said the Princess with another trill of
laughter.
"In Rome, dear friend," said Don Camillo, "a woman can do anything she
likes as long as she can keep people from talking about her."
"Oh, you never do that apparently," said the Englishman. "But why
doesn't the Baron make her a Baroness and have done with the danger?"
"Because the Baron has a Baroness already."
"A wife living?"
"Living and yet dead--an imbecile, a maniac, twenty years a prisoner in
his castle in the Alban hills."
IV
The curtain parted over the inner doorway, and three gentlemen came out.
The first was a tall, spare man, about fifty years of age, with an
intellectual head, features cut clear and hard like granite, glittering
eyes under overhanging brows, black moustaches turned up at the ends,
and iron-grey hair cropped very short over a high forehead. It was the
Baron Bonelli.