“And I have heard much of you since you came to Milan,” the other returned. “But I never recognised you without the title; nor in the dim light of the other night did I see my old comrade in your face. But I see him now. By my faith! you take me back thirty years. And pictures of you--marvellous pictures--have I seen in the newspapers. I remember one in particular,” he ran on, a gleam in his eye. “It portrayed the Honourable Forza in action, if you please. I think he was performing a feat no more difficult than getting out of a carriage; but the camera immortalised him as an expert in the art of standing on one foot and placing the other in his overcoat pocket.” Hera was with them now joining in the laughter. Donna Beatrice thanked Mario effusively for saving the life of Hera. The more she had reflected on the deed the more heroic it had grown in her sight. Her gratitude had its golden grain, for the fact loomed large to her mind that but for his timely action there might have been no forthcoming marriage with Antonio Tarsis, no saving of the Barbiondi ship. She was prodigal in her praise of his knightly valour, as she called it, and declared that the age of chivalry still lived. At this point a footman came to Mario’s rescue by announcing that the vermouth was served. “And what of the progress toward peace in the human family, Honourable?” asked Don Riccardo, merrily, as they took their places at table. Mario answered that the progress, as to the branch of the human family known as Italian, was for the time being somewhat backward. “The trouble with our party,” he said, “is that we can’t break ourselves of the habit of being right at the wrong time. Our foes are better strategists. They are wise enough to be wrong at the right time.” “And what is this New Democracy all about, Signor Forza?” asked Donna Beatrice, as she might have asked concerning some doing on the island of Guam. “It is an effort to mend a social machine that is badly out of repair,” he answered. “The hewer of wood is demanding a fire, the drawer of water a drink. The producer is striving to keep a little more of what he produces.” He held up a side of the industrial picture that was the reverse of what Don Riccardo’s prospective son-in-law liked to present. His words did not square with Tarsis’s assertion that the heart of a statesman should be in his head. He gave reasons why some are rich and some are poor, and though new to those at the table, they felt that they were listening to no sentimental dreamer. He struck the key-note of the century’s new thought. If his head did lift itself toward the clouds at times, his feet remained firmly planted on the earth, and his ideals were those of a man determined to be useful in the world.