The Countess talked to us all the way, pointing out the objects of
interest in the long row of peaks which backed the Val Bergel with their
snows and flashing Alpine steeps. I longed to ask a question, but dared
not. "Hotel" was what she had said, yet this place had scarcely the look
of one. But she afforded us an answer of her own accord.

"You must know that my brother has a fancy of playing at landlord," she
said, looking at us in a playful way. "He has built a hostel for the
English and the Italians of the Court. It was to be a new Paris, was it
not so? And no doubt it would have been, but that the distance was over
great. It was indeed almost a Paris in the happy days of one summer. But
since then I have been almost the only guest."

"It is marvellously beautiful," I replied. "I would that we might be
permitted to become guests as well."

"As to that, my brother will have no objections, I am sure," replied the
Countess, "specially if you tell your countrymen on your return to your
own country. He counts on the English to get him his money back. The
French have no taste for scenery. They care only for theatres and pretty
women, and the Italians have no money--alas! poor Castel del Monte!"

I understood that she was referring to her husband, and said hastily--

"Madame is Italian?"

"Who knows?" she returned, with a pretty, indescribable movement of her
shoulders. "My father was a Russian of rank. He married an Englishwoman.
I was born in Italy, educated in England. I married an Italian of rank
at seventeen; at nineteen I found myself a widow, and free to choose the