"I fancy that this is not the kind of handling it requires," he mused aloud, as if to himself.

And when she wondered frankly that a man of character should devote his energies to plotting and intrigues, Charles would remark, with a gentle concern that understood her wonder, "You must not forget that he was born there." She would set her quick mind to work upon that, and then make the inconsequent retort, which he accepted as perfectly sagacious, because, in fact, it was so-- "Well, and you?
You were born there, too." He knew his answer.
"That's different.

I've been away ten years.

Dad never had such a long spell; and it was more than thirty years ago." She was the first person to whom he opened his lips after receiving the news of his father's death.
"It has killed him!" he said.
He had walked straight out of town with the news, straight out before him in the noonday sun on the white road, and his feet had brought him face to face with her in the hall of the ruined palazzo, a room magnificent and naked, with here and there a long strip of damask, black with damp and age, hanging down on a bare panel of the wall.

It was furnished with exactly one gilt armchair, with a broken back, and an octagon columnar stand bearing a heavy marble vase ornamented with sculptured masks and garlands of flowers, and cracked from top to bottom.