them, for she was not quite heartless, in spite of her hard face. The
gloomiest landscape must have a ray of light in it, somewhere. It was
all their own fault; they should have known better; they should have
counted what they had instead of spending what they had not. But their
fall was great, as everything had been in their prosperity, and it was
interesting to be connected with it. She faintly hoped Volterra would
keep the palace now that they could certainly never pay any more
interest on the mortgage, and it was barely possible that she might
some day live in it herself, though she understood that it would be in
very bad taste to occupy it at once. But this was unlikely, for her
husband had a predilection for a new house, in the new part of the
city, full of new furniture and modern French pictures. He had a
pronounced dislike for old things, including old pictures and old
jewellery, though he knew much about both. Possibly they reminded him
of that absurd story, and of his duel at forty paces.

Volterra would sell the palace to the Vatican, with everything in it,
and would look about for another lucrative investment. The Vatican
bought all the palaces in the market for religious institutions, and
when there were not enough "it" built the finest buildings in Rome for
its own purposes. Volterra was mildly anti-clerical in politics, but
he was particularly fond of dealing with the Vatican for real estate.
The Vatican was a most admirable house of business, in his estimation,
keen, punctual and always solvent; it was good for a financier to be
associated with such an institution. It drove a hard bargain, but
there was never any hesitation about fulfilling its obligations to the
last farthing. Dreaming over one of his enormous Havanas after a
perfect dinner, Baron Volterra, Senator of the Kingdom of Italy, often
wondered whether the prosperity of the whole world would not be vastly
increased if the Vatican would consent to be the general financial