It was their own fault, of course, but the Baroness was sorry for them, for she was not quite heartless, in spite of her hard face.  The gloomiest landscape must have a ray of light in it, somewhere.  It was all their own fault; they should have known better; they should have counted what they had instead of spending what they had not.  But their fall was great, as everything had been in their prosperity, and it was interesting to be connected with it.  She faintly hoped Volterra would keep the palace now that they could certainly never pay any more interest on the mortgage, and it was barely possible that she might some day live in it herself, though she understood that it would be in very bad taste to occupy it at once.  But this was unlikely, for her husband had a predilection for a new house, in the new part of the city, full of new furniture and modern French pictures.  He had a pronounced dislike for old things, including old pictures and old jewellery, though he knew much about both.  Possibly they reminded him of that absurd story, and of his duel at forty paces.

Volterra would sell the palace to the Vatican, with everything in it, and would look about for another lucrative investment.  The Vatican bought all the palaces in the market for religious institutions, and when there were not enough “it” built the finest buildings in Rome for its own purposes.  Volterra was mildly anti-clerical in politics, but he was particularly fond of dealing with the Vatican for real estate.  The Vatican was a most admirable house of business, in his estimation, keen, punctual and always solvent; it was good for a financier to be associated with such an institution.  It drove a hard bargain, but there was never any hesitation about fulfilling its obligations to the last farthing.  Dreaming over one of his enormous Havanas after a perfect dinner, Baron Volterra, Senator of the Kingdom of Italy, often wondered whether the prosperity of the whole world would not be vastly increased if the Vatican would consent to be the general financial agent for the European nations.  Such stability as there would be, such order!  Above all, such guarantees of good faith!  Besides all that, there were its cordial relations with the United States, that is to say, with the chief source of the world’s future wealth!  The Senator’s strongly-marked face grew sweetly thoughtful as he followed his own visions in the air, and when his wife spoke of living in an antiquated Roman palace and buying an estate with an old title attached to it, which the King might graciously be pleased to ratify, he playfully tapped his wife’s sallow cheek with two fat fingers and smiled in a way that showed how superior he was to such weakness.  It was not even worth while to say anything.

Once more the Baroness sighed as she turned from the window.  She meant to have her own way in the end, but it was hard to wait so long.  She turned from the window, glanced at a beautiful holy family by Bonifazio which hung on the opposite wall above an alabaster table, estimated its value instinctively and went on into the next drawing-room.