...  None could do better by the estate than you—­not I nor
     any other.  So I beg of you to stay, dear Strickland, who
     have stayed by us so long!

There followed a page of business detail—­inquiries—­expressed wishes.  Glenfernie paused.  Before him, propped against a volume of old lore, stood a small picture;—­Orestes asleep in the grove of the Furies.  He sat leaning back in his chair, regarding it.  He had found it and purchased it months before, and still he studied it.  His eyes fell to the page; he wrote on: 

You ask no questions, and yet I know that you question.  Well, I will tell you—­knowing that you will strain out and give to others only what should be given....  He has been, and I have been, in Paris a year.  He and I have fought three times—­fought, that is, as men call fighting.  Once upon that mountain-side at home, twice here.  Now he is going—­and I am going—­to Rome.  Shall I fight him again—­with metal digged from the earth, fashioned and sharpened in some red-lighted shop of the earth?  I am not sure that I shall—­rather, I think that I shall not....  Is there ever a place where a kind of growth does not go on?  There is a moonrise in me that tells me that that fighting is to be scorned.  But what shall I do, seeing that he is my foe?...  Ah, I do not know—­save haunt him, save bring and bring again my inner man, to clinch and wrestle with and throw, if may be, his inner man.  And to see that he knows that I do this—­that it tells back upon him—­through and through tells back!...  It has been a strange year.  Now and then I am aware of curious far tides, effects from some giant orb of being.  But I go on....  For my daily life in Paris—­here it is, your open page!...  You see, I still seek knowledge, for all your gibe that I sought darkness.  And now, as I go to Rome—­

He wrote on, changing now to details as to communication, placing of moneys, and such matters.  At length came references to the last home news, expressions of trust and affection.  He signed his name, folded, superscribed and sealed the letter, then sat on, studying the picture before him.

Monseigneur, with gold, with fine horses, with an eery, swooping, steadiness of direction, journeyed fast.  He and his traveling companion reached Rome early in February.  There was a villa, there were attendants, there was the Frenchman’s especial circle, set with bizarre jewels, princes of the Church, Italian nobles of his acquaintance, exiles, a charlatan of immense note, certain ladies.  He only asked of his guest, Monsieur Rullock, that he help him to entertain the whole chaplet, giving to his residence in Rome a certain splendid virility.

February showed skies like sapphire.  There drew on carnival week.  Masks and a wildness of riot—­childish, too—­

Ian leaned against the broken base of an ancient statue, set in the villa garden, at a point that gave a famous view.  Around, the almond-trees were in bloom.  The marble Diana had gazed hence for so many years, had seen so much that might make the dewy greenwood forgotten!  It was mid-afternoon and flooding light.  Here Rome basked, half-asleep in a dream of sense; here the ant city worked and worked.