He didn't answer, but his face was as grave as if I had just invited him to a funeral, and as even Job couldn't have kept my features from playing (why shouldn't features play, if they can work?), I hastily sought the first excuse for laughter I could find lying about loose. "Oh, how _funny_!" I exclaimed. "Ha, ha, ha, how _funny_!" "What is funny?" drearily demanded our chauffeur. "Why, that queer little grey-brown town we're coming to. It looks for all the world like an exhibition of patent beehives at a country fair." "That is Tenda," volunteered Mr. Barrymore, still plunged in the depths of gloom. "Your unfortunate namesake, poor Beatrice di Tenda, would have been surprised to hear such a simile applied to her native town." "Who was she?" I felt bound to inquire. "I was telling Miss Destrey about her yesterday. She seemed interested. Miss Destrey is very fond of history, isn't she?" "Yes. But I'm tired talking of her now. I want to hear about the other Beatrice. I suppose, if she was Italian, she was Bice too; but I'm sure her friends never made her rhyme with mice." "Her husband made her rhyme with murder. Did you never hear of the opera of Beatrice di Tenda? Her story is one of the most romantic tragedies in history. Well, there she was born, and there she lived as a beautiful young woman in that old castle whose ruined tower soars so high above your collection of beehives. When she was in her gentle prime of beauty, the ferocious Duke Filippo Maria Visconti came riding here from Milan to court the sweetest lady of her day. She didn't care for him, of course, but young women of high rank had less choice in those times than they have in these, and that was the way all the mischief began. She did love somebody else, and the wicked Duke starved her to death in the tower of another old castle. When we get to Pavia, which we shall pass on the way to Milan, I'll show you and Miss Destrey where your namesake lived when she was a duchess, and died when her duke would have her for a duchess no more, but wanted somebody else. Poor Beatrice, I wonder if her spirit has ever been present at the performance of the opera, and whether she approved." "I hope she came with the man she loved, and sat in a box, and that the duke was down in--in--" "The pit," said Mr. Barrymore, laughing, and giving a glance back over his shoulder for Maida and Sir Ralph, as he stopped the car in front of a machinist's place. "Here we are, Joseph," he called to the Prince's chauffeur, who was steering the broken car. "Now, how soon do you expect to finish your job?" "With proper tools, it should be no more than an hour's work," said Joseph, jumping down. "An hour? Why, I should have thought three would be more like it," exclaimed Mr. Barrymore. "I am confident that I can do it in one all little hour," reiterated Joseph, and for once the Prince regarded him benignly.