“I will be there.”

They shook hands and parted; the door was shut.  Then, in the street outside, Calabressa glanced up at the drawing-room windows just for a second.

“Ah, little daughter,” he said to himself as he turned away, “you do not know the power of the talisman I have given you.  But you will not use it.  You will be happy; you will marry the Englishman; you will have little children round your knee; and you will lead so busy and glad a life, year after year, that you will never have a minute to sit down and think of old Calabressa, or of the stupid little map of Naples he left with you.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

AN ALTERNATIVE.

Once again the same great city held these two.  When George Brand looked out in the morning on the broad river, and the bridges, and the hurrying cabs and trains and steamers, he knew that this flood of dusky sunshine was falling also on the quieter ways of Hyde Park and semi-silent thoroughfares adjoining.  They were in the same city, but they were far apart.  An invisible barrier separated them.  It was not to Curzon Street that he directed his steps when he went out into the still, close air and the misty sunlight.

It was to Lisle Street that he walked; and all the way he was persuading himself to follow Calabressa’s advice.  He would betray no impatience, however specious Lind might be.  He would shut down that distrust of Natalie’s father that was continually springing up in his mind.  He would be considerate to the difficulties of his position, ready to admit the reasonableness of his arguments, mindful of the higher duties demanded of himself.  But then—­but then—­he bethought him of that evening at the theatre; he remembered what she had said; how she had looked.  He was not going to give up his beautiful, proud-natured sweetheart as a mere matter of expediency, as the conclusion of a clever bit of argument.

When he entered Mr. Lind’s room he found Heinrich Reitzei its sole occupant.  Lind had not yet arrived:  the pallid-faced young man with the pince-nez was in possession of his chair.  And no sooner had George Brand made his appearance than Reitzei rose, and, with a significant smile, motioned the new-comer to take the vacant seat he had just quitted.

“What do you mean?” Brand said, naturally taking another chair, which was much nearer him.

“Will you not soon be occupying this seat en permanence?” Reitzei said, with affected nonchalance.

“Lind has abdicated, then, I presume,” said Brand, coldly:  this young man’s manner had never been very grateful to him.

Reitzei sunk into the seat again, and twirled at his little black waxed mustache.

“Abdicated?  No; not yet,” he said with an air of indifference.  “But if one were to be translated to a higher sphere?—­there is a vacancy in the Council.”

“Then he would have to live abroad,” said Brand, quickly.