This phlegmatic, philosophical attitude of mind had been bred in him. Some remote ancestor, cool, daring, possibly with a touch of colder blood in his ancestry, had transmitted to this calm youth some of the power of detachment.

He knew his father hated the old professor of anthropology at Florence; for the Festinis, even to this day, preserved the spirit of antagonism which the Sienese of half a thousand years ago had adopted to the Florentine.

There were schools enough in Siena; a college most famous for its lawyers and its doctors.

Simone was graduating there, and what was good enough for Simone should surely be good enough for Antonio.

But the elder son had chosen Florence with that deliberation which had always been his peculiarity, even from his earliest childhood, and in face of all opposition, in defiance of all the Festini tradition, it was to Florence he went.

Tillizini, that remarkable scientist, had conceived a friendship for the boy; had taken him under his wing, and had trained him in his own weird, irregular, and inconsequent way.

Tillizini was a master of crime, and he possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of men. He was at the beck and call of the secret police from one end of Italy to the other, and, so rumour said, was in receipt of retaining fees from the governments of other nations.

It was Tillizini who had set himself to work to track down the “Red Hand” which had terrorized the South of Italy for so many years, and had now extended its sphere of operations to the north.

And it was a hateful fact that his work had been crowned with success. His investigations had laid by the heels no less a person than the considerable Matteo degli Orsoni, the Roman lawyer, who, for so many years, had directed the operations of one of the most powerful sections of the “Red Hand.”

There was something like fear in the old man’s breast, though he was too good a Festini to display it; and it was fear which leavened his rage.

“You shall hear a different tale of this Tillizini,” he growled, “mark you that, Antonio. Some day he will be found dead—a knife in his heart, or his throat cut, or a bullet wound in his head—who knows? The ‘Red Hand’ is no amusing organization.” He looked long and keenly at his son. Simone leant over, his elbows on the table, his chin resting on his hands, and eyed his brother with dispassionate interest.

“What does Tillizini know of me?” asked the old man suddenly. “What have you told him?”

Antonio smiled.

“That is an absurd question, father,” he said; “you do not imagine that I should speak to Signor Tillizini of you?”

“Why not?” said the other gruffly. “Oh! I know your breed. There is something of your mother in you. Those Bonnichi would sell their wives for a hundred lira!”

Not even the reference to his mother aroused the young man to anger. He sat with his hands thrust into the pockets of his riding breeches, his head bent a little forward, looking at his father steadily, speculatively, curiously.

For a few minutes they stared at one another, and the boy on the other side of the table glanced from father to brother, from brother to father, eagerly.

At last the old man withdrew his eyes with a shrug, and Antonio leant across the table, and plucked two grapes from a big silver dish in the centre, with a hand to which neither annoyance nor fear contributed a tremor.

The old man turned to his favourite.

“You may expect the birri here to-day or to-morrow,” he said. “There will be a search for papers. A crowd of dirty Neapolitans will go rummaging through this house. I suppose you would like me to ask your friend, Tillizini, to stay to dinner?” he said, turning to the other with a little sneer.

“As to that, you must please yourself, father; I should be very delighted if you did.”

“By faith, you would,” snarled the old man. “If I had an assurance that the old dog would choke, I’d invite him. I know your Tillizini,” he said gratingly, “Paulo Tillizini.” He laughed, but there was no humour in his laughter.

Antonio rose from the table, folded his serviette into a square and placed it neatly between the two Venetian goblets which were in front of him.

“I have your permission to retire?” he said, with a ceremonious little bow.

A jerk of the head was the only answer.

With another little bow to his brother, the young man left the room. He walked through the flagged and gloomy hall to the ponderous door of the Palazzo.

A servant in faded livery opened the door, and he stepped out into the blinding sunlight. The heat struck up at him from the paved street as from a blast furnace.

He had no definite plans for spending the afternoon, but he was anxious to avoid any further conflict with his father; and though he himself did not approve of the association which his house had formed with the many desperate, guilty bands which tyrannized over Italy, yet he was anxious to think out a method by which the inevitable exposure and disgrace might be avoided.

There was no question of sentiment as far as he was concerned. He had reached the point where he had come to regard not only his father, but his younger brother, so eager to assist and so anxious for the day when he would be able to take an active part in the operations of the League, as people outside the range of his affections.

It was natural that he should gravitate towards the Piazza del Campo. All Siena moved naturally to this historic fan-like space, with its herring-boned brick pavement, and its imperishable association with the trials and triumphs of Siena.

He stood by the broad central pavement which marks the course of the Pallio, deep in thought, oblivious of the many curious glances which were thrown in his direction. For despite the heat of the day, all Siena was abroad.

Had he been less engrossed by his thoughts, he might have regarded it as curious that the Sienese, who hold this hour sacred to the siesta, should have so thronged the square and the street, on a hot June afternoon.

Standing there, absorbed by his thoughts, he heard his name spoken softly behind him, and turned.

He snatched off his soft felt hat with a smile, and extended his hand.

“I did not expect to see you, Signor Tillizini,” he said.

The pleasure of the meeting, however, was over-clouded a second later, as he realized with a sense of apprehension that the old professor’s visit was not without gloomy significance to his house.

Professor Tillizini, at that time, was in his eightieth year. As straight as a die, his emaciated and aesthetic face was relieved by two burning eyes in which the soul of the man throbbed and lived.

He took the arm of his pupil and led him across the piazza at a slow pace.

“Antonio mio,” he said with grave affection, “I am come because the Government desires certain information. You know, although I have not told you, that we are inquiring into a certain organization.”

He laid his thin white hand upon the other’s shoulder, and stopped, peering down into the boy’s face with keen attention.

“Antonio,” he said slowly, “that investigation is to be directed toward your father and his actions.”

The other nodded. “I know,” he said simply.

“I am glad you know,” said Tillizini, with a little sigh of relief. “It has rather worried me. I wanted to tell you some time ago that such an inquiry was inevitable, but I did not think I would be doing my duty to the State if I gave that information.”

Antonio smiled a little sadly.

“It does not matter, Signor,” he said; “as a matter of fact, my father knows, and is expecting you.”

Tillizini nodded.

“That I expected too,” he said, “or rather let me be frank—I hoped he would be; for a policeman expected is a policeman defeated,” he smiled.

They walked a little way in silence, then—

“Are you satisfied in your mind that my father is concerned in all these outrages?” asked Antonio.

The old man looked at him sharply.

“Are you not also?” he asked.

The heir of the Festinis made no reply. As if by mutual consent they changed the subject and spoke of other matters.

The old man was awaiting the arrival of the police officers; that much Antonio guessed.

They spoke of the college at Florence and of mutual friends. Then, by easy stages, the professor approached his favourite subject—the subject of his life-work.

“It is a thousand pities, is it not?” he said, “that, having got so far, the good God will not give me another hundred years of life?”

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“At the end of which time I should require another hundred,” he said philosophically. “It is as well, perhaps, that we cannot have our desires. “It would have satisfied me,” he continued, “had I a son to carry on my work.