“It was during our sojourn in this city that I gradually learned—what I was very unwilling to believe and very deeply distressed to know—namely, the nature of those resources of which Luigi had spoken to me; they were the gaming tables, at which he was almost always a successful player. My hero, and martyr, and patriot was a gambler! “It was a great grief, and I never really recovered from it. “He won large sums of money, and lavished gifts upon me which gave me no pleasure. “About the middle of February we went to Rome for the carnival, for Lent was rather late this year. “And, after the week of orgies, we still remained in the ‘Eternal City’ until the end of March, that I might see all its glories, and, ah me! not a few of its shames. “In April we went to Venice—the city of a hundred isles. I thought I had seen the most marvelous and enchanting things in the world, but here again wonder upon wonder burst upon my amazed soul. “Why should I go on writing all this like the index of a guidebook? “You and I have gone over Europe together. You know me, and may judge what it was to me the first time. “Let me be brief now. “Luigi, wherever we went, pursued his profession, and was never without ‘revenues.’ I looked in vain for any sign of heroism, self-devotion or patriotism in him. “Sometimes in the cities we passed through, in the public gardens, or the parlors of hotels, I heard questions discussed which stirred my blood—questions of the rights of man in all its ramifications—questions that made my heart beat in sympathy. “They never moved him. “And I wondered. Once I asked him if he really had lost all interest in the welfare of the world. “He shrugged his shoulders, and replied that he never had felt any. “On another occasion, when I spoke of the elevation of mankind, he answered: “‘We are young. We are fair. We are healthy. We are happy. Let us enjoy ourselves, and let mankind go to Hades.’ “My dark-eyed Luigi was neither hero nor martyr; neither patriot nor humanitarian. He was only a beautiful and joyous youth, bent on making the merriest of every hour of life at cost of anybody else, except of himself and me. “Oh, how I was disappointed in him! A broken idol is a very sad event in the life of a romantic dreamer, I fancy. “I began to try to remember how I had ever got the idea that he was a patriot and a political refugee, and the rest of it. And I recollected that it was from Anglesea and from Madame de la Champe. “He—Luigi—had never pretended to be anything but my lover. And he was my lover still. He continued to be my lover to the last of his short, young life. “I must pass on now to the tragedy of our marriage.” CHAPTER XXX AWAKENING