without a distinct feeling of disapproving aversion. The old Prince
had been different. In him Sassi had still been able to respect those
traditional Ciceronian virtues which were inculcated with terrific
severity in the Roman youth of fifty years ago. But the Prince had
died prematurely at the age of fifty, and with him the Ciceronian
traditions had ended in Casa Conti, and their place had been taken by
the caprices of the big, healthy, indolent, extravagant Polish woman,
by the miserable weaknesses of a degenerate heir, and the fanatic
religious practices of Donna Clementina.

Sassi was sure that they all three hated him or despised him, or both;
yet they could not spare him. For different reasons, they all needed
money, and they had long been used to believing that no one but Sassi
could get it for them, since no one else knew how deeply the family
was involved. He always made difficulties, he protested, he wrung his
hands, he warned, he implored; but caprice, vice and devotion always
overcame his objections, and year after year the exhausted estate was
squeezed and pressed and mortgaged and sold, till it had yielded the
uttermost farthing.

Then, one day, the whole organization of Casa Conti stood still; the
unpaid servants fled, the unpaid tradesmen refused to trust any
longer, the unpaid holders of mortgages foreclosed, the Princess
departed to Poland, the Prince slunk away to live on what was left of
his wife's small estate, Donna Clementina buried herself in a convent
to which she had given immense sums, the Conti palace was for sale,
and Pompeo Sassi sat alone in his office, tearing his hair, while the
old porter sat in his lodge downstairs peeling potatoes.

It was not for himself that the old steward of the estate was in