“But,” suggested Del Ferice, who listened patiently enough, “supposing the Government passed a law forcing all of you proprietors to plant trees and dig ditches, it would have some effect.”

“The law cannot force us to sacrifice men’s lives.  The Trappist monks at the Tre Fontane are trying it, and dying by scores.  Do you think I, or any other Roman, would send peasants to such a place, or could induce them to go?”

“Well, it is one of a great many questions which will be settled some day,” said Del Fence.  “You will not deny that there is room for much improvement in our country, and that an infusion of some progressist ideas would be wholesome.”

“Perhaps so; but you understand one thing by progress, and I understand quite another,” replied Giovanni, eyeing in the bright distance the figures of Donna Tullia and her friends, and regulating his pace so as not to lessen the distance which separated them from him.  He preferred talking political economy with a man he disliked, to being obliged to make conversation for Madame Mayer.

“I mean by progress, positive improvement without revolutionary change,” explained Del Ferice, using the phrase he had long since constructed as his profession of faith to the world.  Giovanni eyed him keenly for a moment.  He cared nothing for Ugo or his ideas, but he suspected him of very different principles.

“You will pardon me,” he said, civilly, “if I venture to doubt whether you have frankly expressed your views.  I am under the impression that you really connect the idea of improvement with a very positive revolutionary change.”

Del Ferice did not wince, but he involuntarily cast a glance behind him.  Those were times when people were cautious of being overheard.  But Del Ferice knew his man, and he knew that the only way in which he could continue the interview was to accept the imputation as though trusting implicitly to the discretion of his companion.

“Will you give me a fair answer to a fair question?” he asked, very gravely.

“Let me hear the question,” returned Giovanni, indifferently.  He also knew his man, and attached no more belief to anything he said than to the chattering of a parrot.  And yet Del Ferice had not the reputation of a liar in the world at large.

“Certainly,” answered Ugo.  “You are the heir of a family which from immemorial time has opposed the popes.  You cannot be supposed to feel any kind of loyal attachment to the temporal power.  I do not know whether you individually would support it or not.  But frankly, how would you regard such a revolutionary change as you suspect me of desiring?”

“I have no objection to telling you that.  I would simply make the best of it.”

Del Ferice laughed at the ambiguous answer, affecting to consider it as a mere evasion.

“We should all try to do that,” he answered; “but what I mean to ask is, whether you would personally take up arms to fight for the temporal power, or whether you would allow events to take their course?  I fancy that would be the ultimate test of loyalty.”