“What is the use?” I asked.  “We shall never find them.”

“‘Never’ is a great word,’” said Benoni.  “You do not know what it means.  I do.  But as for finding them, you shall see.  In the first place, I have talked with their banker.  He says the count gave the strictest orders to have his address kept a secret.  But, being one of my people he allowed himself to make an accidental allusion which gave me a clue to what I wanted.  They are hidden somewhere in the mountains.”

“Diavolo! among the brigands:  they will not be very well treated,” said I.

“The old man will be careful.  He will keep clear of danger.  The only thing is to find them.”

“And what then?” I asked.

“That depends on the most illustrious Signor Cardegna,” said Benoni, smiling.  “He only asked you to find them.  He probably did not anticipate that I would help you.”

It did not appear to me that Benoni had helped me much, after all.  You might as well look for a needle in a haystack as try to find anyone who goes to the Italian mountains.  The baron offered no further advice, and sat calmly smoking and looking at me.  I felt uneasy, opposite him.  He was a mysterious person, and I thought him disguised.  It was really not possible that, with his youthful manner, his hair should be naturally so white, or that he should be so old as he seemed.  I asked him the question we always find it interesting to ask foreigners, hoping to lead him into conversation.

“How do you like our Rome, Baron Benoni?”

“Rome?  I loathe and detest it,” he said, with a smile.  “There is only one place in the whole world that I hate more.”

“What place is that?” I asked, remembering that he had made the same remark to Nino before.

“Jerusalem,” he answered, and the smile faded on his face.  I thought I guessed the reason of his dislike in his religious views.  But I am very liberal about those things.

“I think I understand you,” I said; “you are a Hebrew, and the prevailing form of religion is disagreeable to you.”

“No, it is not exactly that,—­and yet, perhaps, it is.”  He seemed to be pondering on the reason of his dislike.

“But why do you visit these places if they do not please you?”

“I come here because I have so many agreeable acquaintances.  I never go to Jerusalem.  I also come here from time to time to take a bath.  The water of the Trevi has a peculiarly rejuvenating effect upon me, and something impels me to bathe in it.”

“Do you mean in the fountain?  Ah, foreigners say that if you drink the water by moonlight you will return to Rome.”

“Foreigners are all weak-minded fools.  I like that word.  The human race ought to be called fools generically, as distinguished from the more intelligent animals.  If you went to England you would be as great a fool as any Englishman that comes here and drinks Trevi water by moonlight.  But I assure you I do nothing so vulgar as to patronise the fountain, any more than I would patronise Mazzarino’s church, hard by.  I go to the source, the spring, the well where it rises.”