Then, as he sat in his old place, the ruin of the great house had
enacted itself again before his eyes, so vividly that the pain had
been almost physical. And then, he had fallen to thinking of Sabina,
and wondering what was to become of her. That was the history of one
half-hour in his life, on a May afternoon; but the whole man was in
it, what he had been thirty years earlier, and a month ago, what he
was to-day and what he would be to the end of his life.





CHAPTER III




If Sabina had known what was before her when she got into the Baroness
Volterra's carriage and was driven up to the Via Ludovisi, followed by
a cab with her luggage, she would probably have begged leave to go
with her elder sister to the convent. Her mother would most likely
have refused the permission, and she would have been obliged to accept
the Volterras' hospitality after all, but she would have had the
satisfaction of having made an effort to keep her freedom before
entering into what she soon looked upon as slavery.

Her mother would have considered this another evidence of the folly
inherent in all the Conti family. Sabina lived in a luxurious house,
she was treated with consideration, she saw her friends, and desirable
young men saw her. What more could she wish?