Over it more cypresses
looked, and at the base of it, near the house, were a flight of worn
steps disappearing into the lake, and an arched doorway with an
elaborately-wrought iron grille. Beneath the photograph was written,
"/Casa Felice/."
"Casa Felice, h'm!" said Carey, with his eyes on the photograph.
"You think the name inappropriate?"
"Who knows? One can be wretched among sunbeams. One might be gay among
cypresses. And Casa Felice belongs to you?"
"From to-day."
"Old--of course?"
"Yes. There is a romance connected with the house."
"What is it?"
"Long ago two guilty lovers deserted their respective mates and the
brilliant world they had figured in, and fled there together."
"And quarrelled and were generally wretched there for how many months?"
"For eight years."
"The devil! Fidelity gone mad!"
"It is said that during those years the mistress never left the garden,
except to plunge into the lake on moonlight nights and swim through the
silver with her lover."
Carey was silent. He did not take his eyes from the photograph, which
seemed to fascinate him. When the servant came in with the
whisky-and-soda he started.
"Not a place to be alone in," he said.
He drank, and stared again at the photograph.
"There's something about the place that holds one even in a photograph,"
he added.
"One can feel the strange intrigue that made the house a hermitage. It
has been a hermitage ever since.
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