'I pay liberally--in my own interests.'

'If I write the play, will you read it?'
Francis hesitated. 'What has put writing a play into your head?'

he asked.
'Mere accident,' she answered. 'I had once occasion to tell my late

brother of a visit which I paid to Miss Lockwood, when I was last
in England. He took no interest at what happened at the interview,

but something struck him in my way of relating it. He said,
"You describe what passed between you and the lady with the point

and contrast of good stage dialogue. You have the dramatic instinct--
try if you can write a play. You might make money." That put it into

my head.'
Those last words seemed to startle Francis. 'Surely you don't

want money!' he exclaimed.
'I always want money. My tastes are expensive. I have nothing

but my poor little four hundred a year--and the wreck that is left
of the other money: about two hundred pounds in circular notes--

no more.'
Francis knew that she was referring to the ten thousand pounds paid

by the insurance offices. 'All those thousands gone already!'
he exclaimed.

She blew a little puff of air over her fingers. 'Gone like that!'
she answered coolly.

'Baron Rivar?'
She looked at him with a flash of anger in her hard black eyes.

'My affairs are my own secret, Mr. Westwick. I have made you
a proposal--and you have not answered me yet. Don't say No,

without thinking first. Remember what a life mine has been.
I have seen more of the world than most people, playwrights included.

I have had strange adventures; I have heard remarkable stories;
I have observed; I have remembered. Are there no materials, here in

my head, for writing a play--if the opportunity is granted to me?'
She waited a moment, and suddenly repeated her strange question

about Agnes.
'When is Miss Lockwood expected to be in Venice?'

'What has that to do with your new play, Countess?'
The Countess appeared to feel some difficulty in giving that question

its fit reply. She mixed another tumbler full of maraschino punch,
and drank one good half of it before she spoke again.

'It has everything to do with my new play,' was all she said.
'Answer me.' Francis answered her.

'Miss Lockwood may be here in a week. Or, for all I know
to the contrary, sooner than that.'

'Very well. If I am a living woman and a free woman in a week's time--
or if I am in possession of my senses in a week's time (don't interrupt me;

I know what I am talking about)--I shall have a sketch or outline
of my play ready, as a specimen of what I can do. Once again,

will you read it?'
'I will certainly read it. But, Countess, I don't understand--'

She held up her hand for silence, and finished the second tumbler
of maraschino punch.

'I am a living enigma--and you want to know the right reading of me,'
she said. 'Here is the reading, as your English phrase goes,

in a nutshell. There is a foolish idea in the minds of many persons
that the natives of the warm climates are imaginative people.

There never was a greater mistake. You will find no such
unimaginative people anywhere as you find in Italy, Spain, Greece,

and the other Southern countries. To anything fanciful,
to anything spiritual, their minds are deaf and blind by nature.

Now and then, in the course of centuries, a great genius springs
up among them; and he is the exception which proves the rule.

Now see! I, though I am no genius--I am, in my little way
(as I suppose), an exception too. To my sorrow, I have some of that

imagination which is so common among the English and the Germans--
so rare among the Italians, the Spaniards, and the rest of them!

And what is the result? I think it has become a disease in me.
I am filled with presentiments which make this wicked life of mine

one long terror to me. It doesn't matter, just now, what they are.
Enough that they absolutelygovern me--they drive me over land

and sea at their own horrible will; they are in me, and torturing me,
at this moment! Why don't I resist them? Ha! but I do resist them.

I am trying (with the help of the good punch) to resist them now.
At intervals I cultivate the difficult virtue of common sense.

Sometimes, sound sense makes a hopeful woman of me. At one time,
I had the hope that what seemed reality to me was only mad delusion,

after all--I even asked the question of an English doctor!
At other times, other sensible doubts of myself beset me.

Never mind dwelling on them now--it always ends in the old terrors
and superstitions taking possession of me again. In a week's time,

I shall know whether Destiny does indeed decide my future for me,
or whether I decide it for myself. In the last case, my resolution

is to absorb this self-tormenting fancy of mine in the occupation
that I have told you of already. Do you understand me a little

better now? And, our business being settled, dear Mr. Westwick,
shall we get out of this hot room into the nice cool air

again?'
They rose to leave the cafe. Francis privately concluded that

the maraschino punch offered the only discoverable explanation
of what the Countess had said to him.

CHAPTER XX
'Shall I see you again?' she asked, as she held out her hand

to take leave. 'It is quite understood between us, I suppose,
about the play?'

Francis recalled his extraordinary experience of that evening in
the re-numbered room. 'My stay in Venice is uncertain,' he replied.

'If you have anything more to say about this dramaticventure of yours,
it may be as well to say it now. Have you decided on a subject already?

I know the public taste in England better than you do--I might save
you some waste of time and trouble, if you have not chosen your

subject wisely.'
'I don't care what subject I write about, so long as I write,'

she answered carelessly. 'If you have got a subject in your head,
give it to me. I answer for the characters and the dialogue.'

'You answer for the characters and the dialogue,' Francis repeated.
'That's a bold way of speaking for a beginner! I wonder if I

should shake your sublime confidence in yourself, if I suggested
the most ticklish subject to handle which is known to the stage?

What do you say, Countess, to entering the lists with Shakespeare,
and trying a drama with a ghost in it? A true story, mind! founded

on events in this very city in which you and I are interested.'
She caught him by the arm, and drew him away from the crowded

colonnade into the solitary middle space of the square.
'Now tell me!' she said eagerly. 'Here, where nobody is near us.

How am I interested in it? How? how?'
Still holding his arm, she shook him in her impatience to hear

the coming disclosure. For a moment he hesitated. Thus far,
amused by her ignorantbelief in herself, he had merely spoken in jest.

Now, for the first time, impressed by her irresistible earnestness,
he began to consider what he was about from a more serious point of view.

With her knowledge of all that had passed in the old palace,
before its transformation into an hotel, it was surely possible that she

might suggest some explanation of what had happened to his brother,
and sister, and himself. Or, failing to do this, she might accidentally

reveal some event in her own experience which, acting as a hint
to a competentdramatist, might prove to be the making of a play.

The prosperity of his theatre was his one serious object in life.
'I may be on the trace of another "Corsican Brothers,"' he thought.

'A new piece of that sort would be ten thousand pounds in my pocket,
at least.'

With these motives (worthy of the single-hearted devotion
to dramatic business which made Francis a successful manager)