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"Everything seems to decay up here in sober and gracious fashion. I am
delighted, Count, with your Old Town. There is an autumnal flavour
about the place. It is a poet's dream. Some philosopher might dwell
here--some sage who has grown weary of disentangling life's threads."
Rarely did Mr. Heard use florid and sentimental language like this. The
soft light, the reposeful surroundings, the homelike influence of the
Villa Mon Repos--all had conspired to put him into an uncommonly idyllic
mood of mind. He felt disposed to linger with the kindly stranger who
seemed so much more communicative and affable than on the occasion of
those theatricals. He lit a cigarette and watched, for a while, the
flow of life through that gateway. Its passage was pierced, like the
eye of a needle, with a slender shaft of light from the westering sun.
Fine particles of dust, suspended overhead, enveloped the homeward
moving peasantry in a tender mist of gold.
"Yes," replied the Count. "This citadel is a microcosm of what the
world might be, if men were reasonable.


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