“Have you nothing to tell me, Giulio?” as if to ask the road to right or left.  Out it all came.  And no sermon, no!  He set me the hardest task I could have.  That was a penance!—­to go to his wife, and tell it all to her.  Then I did think it an easier thing to go and face death—­and death had been my nightmare.  I went, she listened, she took my hand she said:  “You will never do this again, I know, Giulio.”  She told me no English girl would ever look on a man who was a coward and lied.  From that day I have made Truth my bride.  And what the consequence?  I know not fear!  I could laugh, knowing I was to lie down in my six-foot measure to-morrow.  If I have done my duty and look in the face of my dear Matthew and his wife!  Ah, those two!  They are loved.  They will be loved all over Europe.  He works for Europe and America—­all civilized people—­to be one country.  He is the comrade of his boys.  Out of school hours, it is Christian names all round—­Matthew, Emile, Adolf, Emilio, Giulio, Robert, Marcel, Franz, et caetera.  Games or lessons, a boy can’t help learning with him.  He makes happy fellows and brave soldiers of them without drill.  Sir, do I presume when I say I have your excuse for addressing you because you are his countryman?  I drive to the old school in half an hour, and next week he and his dear wife and a good half of the boys will be on the tramp over the Simplon, by Lago Maggiore, to my uncle’s house in Milan for a halt.  I go to Matthew before I see my own people.’

He swept another bow of apology, chiefly to Philippa, as representative of the sex claiming homage.

Lord Ormont had not greatly relished certain of the flowery phrases employed by this young foreigner.  ‘Truth his bride,’ was damnable:  and if a story had to be told, he liked it plain, without jerks and evolutions.  Many offences to our taste have to be overlooked in foreigners—­Italians! considered, before they were proved in fire, a people classed by nature as operatic declaimers.  Bobby had shown himself on the road out to Bern a difficult boy, and stupefyingly ignorant.  My lord had two or three ideas working to cloudy combination in his head when he put a question, referring to the management of the dormitories at the school.  Whereupon the young Italian introduced himself as Giulio Calliani, and proposed a drive to inspect the old school, with its cricket and football fields, lake for rowing and swimming, gymnastic fixtures, carpenter’s shed, bowling alley, and four European languages in the air by turns daily; and the boys, too, all the boys rosy and jolly, according to the last report received of them from his friend Matthew.  Enthusiasm struck and tightened the loose chord of scepticism in Lord Ormont; somewhat as if a dancing beggar had entered a kennel-dog’s yard, designing to fascinate the faithful beast.  It is a chord of one note, that is tightened to sound by the violent summons to accept, which is a provocation to deny.  At the same time,