To his landlady, who liked to think that intellectuals were helpless and inferior beings, Orlando Fosca seemed the type of the absent-minded professor. Actually his life was as tightly organized as a fugue, in which a number of themes wove themselves in and out under expert control. Now, for instance, when Mrs. Cram had taken his supper tray down, he would smoke one pipe and read some poetry (a volume of Leopardi was open beside him) or listen to records, Vivaldi or Mozart. Then he would work for three hours before going to bed. “Work is my rest, you know,” he was fond of saying, a slightly mischievous look coming into his blue eyes. “It’s what keeps me alive.”

He had laid down the volume of poems and sat smoking, looking around this room which had become like another self. Every wall was lined with books to the ceiling, and between and among the books were photographs, one of his wife taken many years ago before her death, one of Goethe, one of Mazzini, several of associates, among them Edward Cavan standing under a tree by the Charles. Fosca’s eyes rested on it a moment, seeing it freshly, as one may at times see a familiar object as if for the first time. Damon had given it to him in memory of a long walk they had taken that day, a spring day long ago. Damon and Edward had been young men then, enthusiasts—yes, he smiled a slight smile—but he himself had already been old, old enough to be armed against all that had happened since. It was some time since Edward had dropped in to drink cup after cup of coffee, to wander about picking out books from the shelves, often sitting on the floor—perhaps a month or more. And now Fosca’s eyes rested on the photograph because he was expecting Edward in a few minutes.