at all events, that there hung about his person the traditions of the versatile colonists on the shores of Magna Graecia who, freed by legions of slaves from the trivial vexations which beset modern lives, were able to create in their golden leisure those monuments of beauty which are the envy and despair of our generation.  On all that concerned the history and technique of ancient bronzes, more especially, he was facile PRINCEPS in the land, and it was hinted, after the sale of his property, that Count Caloveglia would not be low to retrieve the fortunes of his family by putting into exercise those talents for metal-working of which, as a gifted boy, he had already shown himself to be possessed.

In this they were disappointed.  He spoke of these things as “sins of his youth,” professing an invincible distaste, in these later years, for the drudgery of work.  He called himself an old dreamer.  There was a shed, it is true, attached to the house, a shed which went by the name of a studio.  All visitors were taken to see this atelier.  It was smothered in dust and cobwebs.  Clearly, as the Count himself would explain with a honeyed smile, it had not been in use for twenty years or more.

Mr. van Koppen knew all this.

He knew about that strip of land which the old man had reserved for himself at the sale of his ancestral domain.  It lay among the hills, some twenty or thirty miles above the classic site of Locri.  On this spot, people were given to understand, fragments of old marbles and vases had been picked up by the peasantry within the last years.  Things of small worth—­pottery mostly; they lay about Count Caloveglia’s Nepenthe courtyard and were given by him, as keepsakes, to any visitor who showed an interest in them.  He attached no value to these trifles.

“From my little place on the hills,” he would say.  “Pray take it as a memento of the pleasure which your visit has given me!  Oh, it is quite a small property, you know; just a few acres, with a meager soil; in good years it produces a little oil and a barrel or two of wine.  And that is all.  I only kept back this morsel from the general ruin of my property—­well, for sentimental reasons.  One likes to feel that one is still tied—­by a slender thread, it is true—­to the land of one’s ancestors.  There is certainly no wealth to be obtained above ground.  But it is quite possible that something might emerge from below, given the energy and the means to make systematic excavations.  The whole country is so rich in remains of Hellenic life!  The countrymen, ploughing my few fields, often stumble upon some odd trifle of this kind.  There was that Demeter you may have heard about; sadly mutilated, alas!”

Before the discovery of the Locri Faun on this site the only find of any value had been a battered head—­a Demeter, presumably.  It was sold to a Paris collection for a few thousand francs, and had thereafter attracted no further attention.  It was not worth talking about.