"Four desperate and brave men may be much," he mused, half aloud. "One will do enough for my purpose."
There was a ghastly humor in that speech which was nearly too much for Signor Bartlezzi. He was within an ace of collapsing, but he saved himself by a quick glance at that worn old man. His visitor was living in the light of five-and-twenty years ago. The awakening would come. It was at hand.
"Signor Bartlezzi," the Count said, pausing suddenly in his restless walk, "I have a confession to make."
"So had he," Signor Bartlezzi mused, though his would keep.
"Proceed," he begged, with a wave of his hand and a touch of his old bombast, which had collapsed so suddenly. "Proceed, I am all attention."
The Count stood in the middle of the room, with his left hand thrust into the bosom of his coat, and the right stretched out toward the Professor. It was his old attitude of bygone days into which he had unconsciously fallen, but his expression was no longer threatening, and his voice, though indeed it quivered, was free from the passion and fire of his youth. He was apologetic now, rather than denunciatory. It was a great change.
"You will doubtless imagine, Signor Bartlezzi," he said, "from my presence here, from my seeking you out immediately upon my release, that the old fires burn still in my heart; that my enthusiasm for the cause still survives the chill of five-and-twenty years. Alas! that I should confess it, but it is not so!"
"Then what the mischief does he want here?" mused the Professor. "An account of his money, I suppose. Oh, damn those meddlesome Italians who set him free."
"I am sorry, but it is natural," he remarked aloud, wagging his head sagely. "Five-and-twenty years is a devil of a time!"
"You will not misunderstand me, Professor," he went on almost pleadingly. "You will not imagine for one moment that the 'Order of the White Hyacinth' and everything connected with it, is not still dear to me, very dear. I am an old man, and my time for usefulness is past. Yet there is one demand which I have to make of the association which I have faithfully served and suffered for. Doubtless you know full well what I mean. Will you hear it now, or shall I wait and lay it before the meeting to-night?"