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I nodded gravely.

`Ah; I wasn’t sure,’ said Maltby, `whether it was ever published. A dreary affair, wasn’t it? I knew a great deal about suburban life. But–well, I suppose one can’t really understand what one doesn’t love, and one can’t make good fun without real understanding. Besides, what chance of virtue is there for a book written merely to distract the author’s mind? I had hoped to be healed by sea and sunshine and solitude. These things were useless. The labour of “Mr. and Mrs. Robinson” did help, a little. When I had finished it, I thought I might as well send it off to my publisher. He had given me a large sum of money, down, after “Ariel,” for my next book–so large that I was rather loth to disgorge. In the note I sent with the manuscript, I gave no address, and asked that the proofs should be read in the office. I didn’t care whether the thing were published or not. I knew it would be a dead failure if it were. What mattered one more drop in the foaming cup of my humiliation? I knew Braxton would grin and gloat. I didn’t mind even that.’

`Oh, well,’ I said, `Braxton was in no mood for grinning and gloating. “The Drones” had already appeared.’

Maltby had never heard of `The Drones’–which I myself had remembered only in the course of his disclosures. I explained to him that it was Braxton’s second novel, and was by way of being a savage indictment of the British aristocracy; that it was written in the worst possible taste, but was so very dull that it fell utterly flat; that Braxton had forthwith taken, with all of what Maltby had called `the passionate force and intensity of his nature,’ to drink, and had presently gone under and not re-emerged.

Maltby gave signs of genuine, though not deep, emotion, and cited two or three of the finest passages from `A Faun on the Cotswolds.’ He even expressed a conviction that `The Drones’ must have been misjudged. He said he blamed himself more than ever for yielding to that bad impulse at that Soiree.

`And yet,’ he mused, `and yet, honestly, I can’t find it in my heart to regret that I did yield. I can only wish that all had turned out as well, in the end, for Braxton as for me. I wish he could have won out, as I did, into a great and lasting felicity. For about a year after I had finished “Mr. and Mrs. Robinson” I wandered from place to place, trying to kill memory, shunning all places frequented by the English. At last I found myself in Lucca. Here, if anywhere, I thought, might a bruised and tormented spirit find gradual peace. I determined to move out of my hotel into some permanent lodging. Not for felicity, not for any complete restoration of self-respect, was I hoping; only for peace. A “mezzano” conducted me to a noble and ancient house, of which, he told me, the owner was anxious to let the first floor. It was in much disrepair, but even so seemed to me very cheap. According to the simple Luccan standard, I am rich. I took that first floor for a year, had it repaired, and engaged two servants. My “padrona” inhabited the ground floor. From time to time she allowed me to visit her there. She was the Contessa Adriano- Rizzoli, the last of her line. She is the Contessa Adriano-Rizzoli- Maltby. We have been married fifteen years.’

Maltby looked at his watch. He rose and took tenderly from the table his great bunch of roses. `She is a lineal descendant,’ he said, `of the Emperor Hadrian.’