news as Lory de Vasselot received it. For a time he could only think that
this was a great and glorious moment in his life. He hurried in to tell
his father, but the count failed to rise to the occasion.

"War!" he said. "Yes; there have been many in my time. They have not
affected me--or my carnations."

"And I go to it to-night," announced Lory, watching his father with eyes
suddenly grave and anxious.

"Ah!" said the count, and made no farther comment.

Then, without pausing to consider his own motives, Lory hurried up to the
Casa Perucca to tell the ladies there his great news. He must, it seemed,
tell somebody, and he knew no one else within reach, except perhaps the
Abbe Susini, who did not pretend to be a Frenchman.

"Is it peace?" asked Mademoiselle Brun, who, having seen him climbing the
steep slope in the glaring sunshine, was waiting for him by the open
side-door when he arrived there.

He took her withered hand, and bowed over it as gallantly as if it had
been soft and young.

"What do you mean?" he asked, looking at her curiously.

"Well, it seems that the Casa Perucca and the Chateau de Vasselot are not
on visiting terms. We only call on each other with a gun."

"It is odd that you should have asked me that," said Lory, "for it is not