I could hardly do less than call at Lady Rollinson's house next day to inquire after the sufferer's condition; and yet I went with great reluctance. I was so eager to be there, I was so willing to spend every hour in Miss Rossano's company, that I was afraid of being intrusive, and my very anxiety to be near her kept me away from her in this foolish fashion many a time.
The Baroness Bonnar was before me when I called, and I found her there in the daintiest and most becoming of visiting costumes, chatting away with excellent tact and unfailing vivacity.
She gave Miss Rossano time to welcome me, and then assailed me at once with laudation's of my devotion and courage, which I received, I know, with an extremely evil grace. I resemble my neighbors in liking to have credit for what I have done, but I know nothing more hateful than unmerited praise. I silenced her at last, and she turned upon Miss Rossano with a stage-whisper intended for my hearing: “I adore these brave men who are too modest to endure praise.”
“You are too oily for my personal taste, madame,” I said to myself, and my earlier dislike for her came back again.
The count, I learned, was better. Immediately on his arrival at Lady Rollinson's the family doctor had been sent for. Like a wise man, he had prescribed rest and complete freedom from all excitement. There were to be no more public meetings, and the sufferer was seriously warned against all stress of emotion.
“We have had great difficulty,” said Miss Rossano, “in bringing him to reason. The enthusiasm of last night's meeting has convinced him that a great uprising is near at hand, and that in a year or two at the outside Italy will have her freedom back again. He would die for that,” she said, with a flash of her beautiful eyes, and her face suddenly pale with feeling. “The house was overrun with Italians yesterday,” she added. “My father saw some of them, and they are all full of the news that Charles Albert is ready to march into Piedmont, and that the Pope is favorable to devolution. One never knows how much truth there is in these stories, but I have lived in an atmosphere of them all my life.” Then she laughed on a sudden, and, clapping her hands together, turned on me with a swift gesture like that of a pleased child. “You saw the Count Ruffiano yesterday?” she asked; and I, answering in the affirmative, she laughed again. “The poor dear old gentleman,” she said, “is my father's one surviving comrade, and ever since I have been able to understand he has talked to me about Italy and The Cause. He is in fiery earnest, and such a dreamer that he has been looking forward to every month of his life as the date of Italy's liberty. I have had a great deal of influence with the count”—she was serious again by this time—“and through him over the Italian revolutionists in London, and I have always counselled them not to strike until they were sure of their aim. An unsuccessful revolution is a crime. You think it strange that a girl should be thinking of these things.”
“Indeed, no,” I answered. “I should think it strange in your case if you had no such thoughts. And let me tell you, Miss Rossano, that I think your friend Count Rumano's dream is coming near at last. He may wake any fine morning to find it very near indeed.”
“You think so?” she cried, with a restrained vehemence. “You have heard news while you were abroad?”
“No news,” I answered; “but I can see the general trend of things. There is an awakening spirit of liberty on the Continent, and unless I am much mistaken, a map of Europe of this date will be a surprising thing to look at in half a dozen years.”
I should be a fool to pretend that I foresaw all the political changes which have taken place since then, but I should have been blind if I had not foreseen some of them. Liberty was in the air; there was an underlying strife and turmoil in the world's affairs which was not evident to everybody, though a soldier of fortune like myself, who made the cause of liberty his trade, was bound to be aware of it. The great politicians knew it all, no doubt; but they kept their knowledge to themselves, and waited, as we know now, with a bitter anxiety and fear for what events might bring. For the great politicians were, for the most part, then, as now, afraid of liberty, and looked on it as being very much of a curse rather than a blessing.