CHAPTER II




Signor Pompeo Sassi sat in his dingy office and tore his hair, in the
good old literal Italian sense. His elbows rested on the shabby black
oilcloth glued to the table, and his long knotted fingers twisted his
few remaining locks, on each side of his head, in a way that was
painful to see. From time to time he desisted for an instant, and held
up his open hands, the fingers quivering with emotion, and his watery
eyes were turned upwards, too, as if directing an unspoken prayer to
the dusty rafters of the ceiling. The furrows had deepened of late in
his respectable, trust-inspiring face, and he was as thin as a
skeleton in leather.

His heart was broken. On the big sheet of thick hand-made paper, that
lay on the desk, scribbled over with rough calculations in violet ink,
there were a number of trial impressions of the old stamp he had once
been so proud to use. It bore a rough representation of the Conti
eagle, encircled by the legend: "Eccellentissima Casa Conti." When his
eyes fell upon it, they filled with tears. The Most Excellent House of
Conti had come to a pitiful end, and it had been Pompeo Sassi's
unhappy fate to see its fall. Judging from his looks, he was not to
survive the catastrophe very long.

He loved the family, and yet he disliked every member of it personally
except Sabina. He loved the "Eccellentissima Casa," the checky eagle,
the Velasquez portraits and his dingy office, but he never had spoken
with the Princess, her son, his wife, or his sister Clementina,