"WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD\n\nBy E. M. Forster\n\n\n\n\nChapter 1\n\nThey were all at Charing Cross to see Lilia off--Philip, Harriet, Irma,\nMrs. Herriton herself. Even Mrs. Theobald, squired by Mr. Kingcroft,\nhad braved the journey from Yorkshire to bid her only daughter good-bye.\nMiss Abbott was likewise attended by numerous relatives, and the sight\nof so many people talking at once and saying such different things\ncaused Lilia to break into ungovernable peals of laughter.\n\n\"Quite an ovation,\" she cried, sprawling out of her first-class\ncarriage. \"They'll take us for royalty. Oh, Mr. Kingcroft, get us\nfoot-warmers.\"\n\nThe good-natured young man hurried away, and Philip, taking his place,\nflooded her with a final stream of advice and injunctions--where to\nstop, how to learn Italian, when to use mosquito-nets, what pictures\nto look at. \"Remember,\" he concluded, \"that it is only by going off the\ntrack that you get to know the country. See the little towns--Gubbio,\nPienza, Cortona, San Gemignano, Monteriano. And don't, let me beg\nyou, go with that awful tourist idea that Italy's only a museum of\nantiquities and art. Love and understand the Italians, for the people\nare more marvellous than the land.\"\n\n\"How I wish you were coming, Philip,\" she said, flattered at the\nunwonted notice her brother-in-law was giving her.\n\n\"I wish I were.\" He could have managed it without great difficulty,\nfor his career at the Bar was not so intense as to prevent occasional\nholidays. But his family disliked his continual visits to the Continent,\nand he himself often found pleasure in the idea that he was too busy to\nleave town.\n\n\"Good-bye, dear every one. What a whirl!\" She caught sight of her little\ndaughter Irma, and felt that a touch of maternal solemnity was required.\n\"Good-bye, darling. Mind you're always good, and do what Granny tells\nyou.\"\n\nShe referred not to her own mother, but to her mother-in-law, Mrs.\nHerriton, who hated the title of Granny.\n\nIrma lifted a serious face to be kissed, and said cautiously, \"I'll do\nmy best.\"\n\n\"She is sure to be good,\" said Mrs. Herriton, who was standing pensively\na little out of the hubbub. But Lilia was already calling to Miss\nAbbott, a tall, grave, rather nice-looking young lady who was conducting\nher adieus in a more decorous manner on the platform.\n\n\"Caroline, my Caroline! Jump in, or your chaperon will go off without\nyou.\"\n\nAnd Philip, whom the idea of Italy always intoxicated, had started\nagain, telling her of the supreme moments of her coming journey--the\nCampanile of Airolo, which would burst on her when she emerged from the\nSt. Gothard tunnel, presaging the future; the view of the Ticino and\nLago Maggiore as the train climbed the slopes of Monte Cenere; the view\nof Lugano, the view of Como--Italy gathering thick around her now--the\narrival at her first resting-place, when, after long driving through\ndark and dirty streets, she should at last behold, amid the roar of\ntrams and the glare of arc lamps, the buttresses of the cathedral of\nMilan.\n\n\"Handkerchiefs and collars,\" screamed Harriet, \"in my inlaid box! I've\nlent you my inlaid box.\"\n\n\"Good old Harry!\" She kissed every one again, and there was a moment's\nsilence. They all smiled steadily, excepting Philip, who was choking in\nthe fog, and old Mrs. Theobald, who had begun to cry. Miss Abbott got\ninto the carriage. The guard himself shut the door, and told Lilia that\nshe would be all right. Then the train moved, and they all moved with it\na couple of steps, and waved their handkerchiefs, and uttered cheerful\nlittle cries. At that moment Mr. Kingcroft reappeared, carrying a\nfootwarmer by both ends, as if it was a tea-tray. He was sorry that\nhe was too late, and called out in a quivering voice, \"Good-bye, Mrs.\nCharles. May you enjoy yourself, and may God bless you.\"\n\nLilia smiled and nodded, and then the absurd position of the foot-warmer\novercame her, and she began to laugh again.\n\n\"Oh, I am so sorry,\" she cried back, \"but you do look so funny. Oh, you\nall look so funny waving! Oh, pray!\" And laughing helplessly, she was\ncarried out into the fog.\n\n\"High spirits to begin so long a journey,\" said Mrs. Theobald, dabbing\nher eyes.\n\nMr. Kingcroft solemnly moved his head in token of agreement. \"I wish,\"\nsaid he, \"that Mrs. Charles had gotten the footwarmer. These London\nporters won't take heed to a country chap.\"\n\n\"But you did your best,\" said Mrs. Herriton. \"And I think it simply\nnoble of you to have brought Mrs. Theobald all the way here on such a\nday as this.\" Then, rather hastily, she shook hands, and left him to\ntake Mrs. Theobald all the way back.\n\nSawston, her own home, was within easy reach of London, and they were\nnot late for tea. Tea was in the dining-room, with an egg for Irma, to\nkeep up the child's spirits. The house seemed strangely quiet after a\nfortnight's bustle, and their conversation was spasmodic and subdued.\nThey wondered whether the travellers had got to Folkestone, whether it\nwould be at all rough, and if so what would happen to poor Miss Abbott.\n\n\"And, Granny, when will the old ship get to Italy?\" asked Irma.\n\n\"'Grandmother,' dear; not 'Granny,'\" said Mrs. Herriton, giving her\na kiss. \"And we say 'a boat' or 'a steamer,' not 'a ship.' Ships have\nsails. And mother won't go all the way by sea. You look at the map of\nEurope, and you'll see why. Harriet, take her. Go with Aunt Harriet, and\nshe'll show you the map.\"\n\n\"Righto!\" said the little girl, and dragged the reluctant Harriet\ninto the library. Mrs. Herriton and her son were left alone. There was\nimmediately confidence between them.\n\n\"Here beginneth the New Life,\" said Philip.\n\n\"Poor child, how vulgar!\" murmured Mrs. Herriton. \"It's surprising that\nshe isn't worse. But she has got a look of poor Charles about her.\"\n\n\"And--alas, alas!--a look of old Mrs. Theobald. What appalling\napparition was that! I did think the lady was bedridden as well as\nimbecile. Why ever did she come?\"\n\n\"Mr. Kingcroft made her. I am certain of it. He wanted to see Lilia\nagain, and this was the only way.\"\n\n\"I hope he is satisfied. I did not think my sister-in-law distinguished\nherself in her farewells.\"\n\nMrs. Herriton shuddered. \"I mind nothing, so long as she has gone--and\ngone with Miss Abbott. It is mortifying to think that a widow of\nthirty-three requires a girl ten years younger to look after her.\"\n\n\"I pity Miss Abbott. Fortunately one admirer is chained to England. Mr.\nKingcroft cannot leave the crops or the climate or something. I don't\nthink, either, he improved his chances today. He, as well as Lilia, has\nthe knack of being absurd in public.\"\n\nMrs. Herriton replied, \"When a man is neither well bred, nor well\nconnected, nor handsome, nor clever, nor rich, even Lilia may discard\nhim in time.\"\n\n\"No. I believe she would take any one. Right up to the last, when her\nboxes were packed, she was 'playing' the chinless curate. Both the\ncurates are chinless, but hers had the dampest hands. I came on them in\nthe Park. They were speaking of the Pentateuch.\"\n\n\"My dear boy! If possible, she has got worse and worse. It was your idea\nof Italian travel that saved us!\"\n\nPhilip brightened at the little compliment. \"The odd part is that she\nwas quite eager--always asking me for information; and of course I was\nvery glad to give it. I admit she is a Philistine, appallingly ignorant,\nand her taste in art is false. Still, to have any taste at all is\nsomething. And I do believe that Italy really purifies and ennobles all\nwho visit her. She is the school as well as the playground of the world.\nIt is really to Lilia's credit that she wants to go there.\"\n\n\"She would go anywhere,\" said his mother, who had heard enough of the\npraises of Italy. \"I and Caroline Abbott had the greatest difficulty in\ndissuading her from the Riviera.\"\n\n\"No, Mother; no. She was really keen on Italy. This travel is quite a\ncrisis for her.\" He found the situation full of whimsical romance: there\nwas something half attractive, half repellent in the thought of this\nvulgar woman journeying to places he loved and revered. Why should she\nnot be transfigured? The same had happened to the Goths.\n\nMrs. Herriton did not believe in romance nor in transfiguration, nor in\nparallels from history, nor in anything else that may disturb domestic\nlife. She adroitly changed the subject before Philip got excited. Soon\nHarriet returned, having given her lesson in geography. Irma went to bed\nearly, and was tucked up by her grandmother. Then the two ladies worked\nand played cards. Philip read a book. And so they all settled down to\ntheir quiet, profitable existence, and continued it without interruption\nthrough the winter.\n\nIt was now nearly ten years since Charles had fallen in love with Lilia\nTheobald because she was pretty, and during that time Mrs. Herriton had\nhardly known a moment's rest. For six months she schemed to prevent\nthe match, and when it had taken place she turned to another task--the\nsupervision of her daughter-in-law. Lilia must be pushed through life\nwithout bringing discredit on the family into which she had married. She\nwas aided by Charles, by her daughter Harriet, and, as soon as he was\nold enough, by the clever one of the family, Philip. The birth of Irma\nmade things still more difficult. But fortunately old Mrs. Theobald, who\nhad attempted interference, began to break up. It was an effort to her\nto leave Whitby, and Mrs. Herriton discouraged the effort as far as\npossible. That curious duel which is fought over every baby was fought\nand decided early. Irma belonged to her father's family, not to her\nmother's.\n\nCharles died, and the struggle recommenced. Lilia tried to assert\nherself, and said that she should go to take care of Mrs. Theobald.\nIt required all Mrs. Herriton's kindness to prevent her. A house was\nfinally taken for her at Sawston, and there for three years she lived\nwith Irma, continually subject to the refining influences of her late\nhusband's family.\n\nDuring one of her rare Yorkshire visits trouble began again. Lilia\nconfided to a friend that she liked a Mr. Kingcroft extremely, but\nthat she was not exactly engaged to him. The news came round to Mrs.\nHerriton, who at once wrote, begging for information, and pointing out\nthat Lilia must either be engaged or not, since no intermediate state\nexisted. It was a good letter, and flurried Lilia extremely. She left\nMr. Kingcroft without even the pressure of a rescue-party. She cried a\ngreat deal on her return to Sawston, and said she was very sorry. Mrs.\nHerriton took the opportunity of speaking more seriously about the\nduties of widowhood and motherhood than she had ever done before. But\nsomehow things never went easily after. Lilia would not settle down in\nher place among Sawston matrons. She was a bad housekeeper, always in\nthe throes of some domestic crisis, which Mrs. Herriton, who kept her\nservants for years, had to step across and adjust. She let Irma stop\naway from school for insufficient reasons, and she allowed her to wear\nrings. She learnt to bicycle, for the purpose of waking the place up,\nand coasted down the High Street one Sunday evening, falling off at the\nturn by the church. If she had not been a relative, it would have been\nentertaining. But even Philip, who in theory loved outraging English\nconventions, rose to the occasion, and gave her a talking which she\nremembered to her dying day. It was just then, too, that they discovered\nthat she still allowed Mr. Kingcroft to write to her \"as a gentleman\nfriend,\" and to send presents to Irma.\n\nPhilip thought of Italy, and the situation was saved. Caroline,\ncharming, sober, Caroline Abbott, who lived two turnings away, was\nseeking a companion for a year's travel. Lilia gave up her house, sold\nhalf her furniture, left the other half and Irma with Mrs. Herriton, and\nhad now departed, amid universal approval, for a change of scene.\n\nShe wrote to them frequently during the winter--more frequently than she\nwrote to her mother. Her letters were always prosperous. Florence she\nfound perfectly sweet, Naples a dream, but very whiffy. In Rome one had\nsimply to sit still and feel. Philip, however, declared that she was\nimproving. He was particularly gratified when in the early spring she\nbegan to visit the smaller towns that he had recommended. \"In a place\nlike this,\" she wrote, \"one really does feel in the heart of things, and\noff the beaten track. Looking out of a Gothic window every morning, it\nseems impossible that the middle ages have passed away.\" The letter was\nfrom Monteriano, and concluded with a not unsuccessful description of\nthe wonderful little town.\n\n\"It is something that she is contented,\" said Mrs. Herriton. \"But no one\ncould live three months with Caroline Abbott and not be the better for\nit.\"\n\nJust then Irma came in from school, and she read her mother's letter to\nher, carefully correcting any grammatical errors, for she was a loyal\nsupporter of parental authority--Irma listened politely, but soon\nchanged the subject to hockey, in which her whole being was absorbed.\nThey were to vote for colours that afternoon--yellow and white or yellow\nand green. What did her grandmother think?\n\nOf course Mrs. Herriton had an opinion, which she sedately expounded, in\nspite of Harriet, who said that colours were unnecessary for children,\nand of Philip, who said that they were ugly. She was getting proud of\nIrma, who had certainly greatly improved, and could no longer be called\nthat most appalling of things--a vulgar child. She was anxious to form\nher before her mother returned. So she had no objection to the leisurely\nmovements of the travellers, and even suggested that they should\noverstay their year if it suited them.\n\nLilia's next letter was also from Monteriano, and Philip grew quite\nenthusiastic.\n\n\"They've stopped there over a week!\" he cried. \"Why! I shouldn't have\ndone as much myself. They must be really keen, for the hotel's none too\ncomfortable.\"\n\n\"I cannot understand people,\" said Harriet. \"What can they be doing all\nday? And there is no church there, I suppose.\"\n\n\"There is Santa Deodata, one of the most beautiful churches in Italy.\"\n\n\"Of course I mean an English church,\" said Harriet stiffly. \"Lilia\npromised me that she would always be in a large town on Sundays.\"\n\n\"If she goes to a service at Santa Deodata's, she will find more beauty\nand sincerity than there is in all the Back Kitchens of Europe.\"\n\nThe Back Kitchen was his nickname for St. James's, a small depressing\nedifice much patronized by his sister. She always resented any slight on\nit, and Mrs. Herriton had to intervene.\n\n\"Now, dears, don't. Listen to Lilia's letter. 'We love this place, and\nI do not know how I shall ever thank Philip for telling me it. It is\nnot only so quaint, but one sees the Italians unspoiled in all their\nsimplicity and charm here. The frescoes are wonderful. Caroline, who\ngrows sweeter every day, is very busy sketching.'\"\n\n\"Every one to his taste!\" said Harriet, who always delivered a platitude\nas if it was an epigram. She was curiously virulent about Italy, which\nshe had never visited, her only experience of the Continent being an\noccasional six weeks in the Protestant parts of Switzerland.\n\n\"Oh, Harriet is a bad lot!\" said Philip as soon as she left the room.\nHis mother laughed, and told him not to be naughty; and the appearance\nof Irma, just off to school, prevented further discussion. Not only in\nTracts is a child a peacemaker.\n\n\"One moment, Irma,\" said her uncle. \"I'm going to the station. I'll give\nyou the pleasure of my company.\"\n\nThey started together. Irma was gratified; but conversation flagged,\nfor Philip had not the art of talking to the young. Mrs. Herriton sat\na little longer at the breakfast table, re-reading Lilia's letter. Then\nshe helped the cook to clear, ordered dinner, and started the housemaid\nturning out the drawing-room, Tuesday being its day. The weather was\nlovely, and she thought she would do a little gardening, as it was quite\nearly. She called Harriet, who had recovered from the insult to St.\nJames's, and together they went to the kitchen garden and began to sow\nsome early vegetables.\n\n\"We will save the peas to the last; they are the greatest fun,\" said\nMrs. Herriton, who had the gift of making work a treat. She and her\nelderly daughter always got on very well, though they had not a great\ndeal in common. Harriet's education had been almost too successful. As\nPhilip once said, she had \"bolted all the cardinal virtues and couldn't\ndigest them.\" Though pious and patriotic, and a great moral asset for\nthe house, she lacked that pliancy and tact which her mother so much\nvalued, and had expected her to pick up for herself. Harriet, if she had\nbeen allowed, would have driven Lilia to an open rupture, and, what was\nworse, she would have done the same to Philip two years before, when he\nreturned full of passion for Italy, and ridiculing Sawston and its ways.\n\n\"It's a shame, Mother!\" she had cried. \"Philip laughs at everything--the\nBook Club, the Debating Society, the Progressive Whist, the bazaars.\nPeople won't like it. We have our reputation. A house divided against\nitself cannot stand.\"\n\nMrs. Herriton replied in the memorable words, \"Let Philip say what he\nlikes, and he will let us do what we like.\" And Harriet had acquiesced.\n\nThey sowed the duller vegetables first, and a pleasant feeling of\nrighteous fatigue stole over them as they addressed themselves to the\npeas. Harriet stretched a string to guide the row straight, and Mrs.\nHerriton scratched a furrow with a pointed stick. At the end of it she\nlooked at her watch.\n\n\"It's twelve! The second post's in. Run and see if there are any\nletters.\"\n\nHarriet did not want to go. \"Let's finish the peas. There won't be any\nletters.\"\n\n\"No, dear; please go. I'll sow the peas, but you shall cover them\nup--and mind the birds don't see 'em!\"\n\nMrs. Herriton was very careful to let those peas trickle evenly from\nher hand, and at the end of the row she was conscious that she had never\nsown better. They were expensive too.\n\n\"Actually old Mrs. Theobald!\" said Harriet, returning.\n\n\"Read me the letter. My hands are dirty. How intolerable the crested\npaper is.\"\n\nHarriet opened the envelope.\n\n\"I don't understand,\" she said; \"it doesn't make sense.\"\n\n\"Her letters never did.\"\n\n\"But it must be sillier than usual,\" said Harriet, and her voice began\nto quaver. \"Look here, read it, Mother; I can't make head or tail.\"\n\nMrs. Herriton took the letter indulgently. \"What is the difficulty?\" she\nsaid after a long pause. \"What is it that puzzles you in this letter?\"\n\n\"The meaning--\" faltered Harriet. The sparrows hopped nearer and began\nto eye the peas.\n\n\"The meaning is quite clear--Lilia is engaged to be married. Don't cry,\ndear; please me by not crying--don't talk at all. It's more than I could\nbear. She is going to marry some one she has met in a hotel. Take the\nletter and read for yourself.\" Suddenly she broke down over what might\nseem a small point. \"How dare she not tell me direct! How dare she\nwrite first to Yorkshire! Pray, am I to hear through Mrs. Theobald--a\npatronizing, insolent letter like this? Have I no claim at all? Bear\nwitness, dear\"--she choked with passion--\"bear witness that for this\nI'll never forgive her!\"\n\n\"Oh, what is to be done?\" moaned Harriet. \"What is to be done?\"\n\n\"This first!\" She tore the letter into little pieces and scattered it\nover the mould. \"Next, a telegram for Lilia! No! a telegram for Miss\nCaroline Abbott. She, too, has something to explain.\"\n\n\"Oh, what is to be done?\" repeated Harriet, as she followed her mother\nto the house. She was helpless before such effrontery. What awful\nthing--what awful person had come to Lilia? \"Some one in the hotel.\" The\nletter only said that. What kind of person? A gentleman? An Englishman?\nThe letter did not say.\n\n\"Wire reason of stay at Monteriano. Strange rumours,\" read Mrs.\nHerriton, and addressed the telegram to Abbott, Stella d'Italia,\nMonteriano, Italy. \"If there is an office there,\" she added, \"we might\nget an answer this evening. Since Philip is back at seven, and the\neight-fifteen catches the midnight boat at Dover--Harriet, when you go\nwith this, get 100 pounds in 5 pound notes at the bank.\"\n\n\"Go, dear, at once; do not talk. I see Irma coming back; go quickly....\nWell, Irma dear, and whose team are you in this afternoon--Miss Edith's\nor Miss May's?\"\n\nBut as soon as she had behaved as usual to her grand-daughter, she went\nto the library and took out the large atlas, for she wanted to know\nabout Monteriano. The name was in the smallest print, in the midst of a\nwoolly-brown tangle of hills which were called the \"Sub-Apennines.\" It\nwas not so very far from Siena, which she had learnt at school. Past it\nthere wandered a thin black line, notched at intervals like a saw,\nand she knew that this was a railway. But the map left a good deal to\nimagination, and she had not got any. She looked up the place in \"Childe\nHarold,\" but Byron had not been there. Nor did Mark Twain visit it in\nthe \"Tramp Abroad.\" The resources of literature were exhausted: she\nmust wait till Philip came home. And the thought of Philip made her try\nPhilip's room, and there she found \"Central Italy,\" by Baedeker, and\nopened it for the first time in her life and read in it as follows:--\n\n\nMONTERIANO (pop. 4800). Hotels: Stella d'Italia, moderate only; Globo,\ndirty. * Caffe Garibaldi. Post and Telegraph office in Corso Vittorio\nEmmanuele, next to theatre. Photographs at Seghena's (cheaper in\nFlorence). Diligence (1 lira) meets principal trains.\n\nChief attractions (2-3 hours): Santa Deodata, Palazzo Pubblico, Sant'\nAgostino, Santa Caterina, Sant' Ambrogio, Palazzo Capocchi. Guide\n(2 lire) unnecessary. A walk round the Walls should on no account be\nomitted. The view from the Rocca (small gratuity) is finest at sunset.\n\nHistory: Monteriano, the Mons Rianus of Antiquity, whose Ghibelline\ntendencies are noted by Dante (Purg. xx.), definitely emancipated itself\nfrom Poggibonsi in 1261. Hence the distich, \"POGGIBONIZZI, FAUI IN LA,\nCHE MONTERIANO SI FA CITTA!\" till recently enscribed over the Siena\ngate. It remained independent till 1530, when it was sacked by the Papal\ntroops and became part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It is now of small\nimportance, and seat of the district prison. The inhabitants are still\nnoted for their agreeable manners.\n\n                    *****\n\nThe traveller will proceed direct from the Siena gate to the Collegiate\nChurch of Santa Deodata, and inspect (5th chapel on right) the charming\nFrescoes....\n\n\nMrs. Herriton did not proceed. She was not one to detect the hidden\ncharms of Baedeker. Some of the information seemed to her unnecessary,\nall of it was dull. Whereas Philip could never read \"The view from the\nRocca (small gratuity) is finest at sunset\" without a catching at the\nheart. Restoring the book to its place, she went downstairs, and looked\nup and down the asphalt paths for her daughter. She saw her at last,\ntwo turnings away, vainly trying to shake off Mr. Abbott, Miss Caroline\nAbbott's father. Harriet was always unfortunate. At last she returned,\nhot, agitated, crackling with bank-notes, and Irma bounced to greet her,\nand trod heavily on her corn.\n\n\"Your feet grow larger every day,\" said the agonized Harriet, and gave\nher niece a violent push. Then Irma cried, and Mrs. Herriton was annoyed\nwith Harriet for betraying irritation. Lunch was nasty; and during\npudding news arrived that the cook, by sheer dexterity, had broken\na very vital knob off the kitchen-range. \"It is too bad,\" said Mrs.\nHerriton. Irma said it was three bad, and was told not to be rude. After\nlunch Harriet would get out Baedeker, and read in injured tones about\nMonteriano, the Mons Rianus of Antiquity, till her mother stopped her.\n\n\"It's ridiculous to read, dear. She's not trying to marry any one in the\nplace. Some tourist, obviously, who's stopping in the hotel. The place\nhas nothing to do with it at all.\"\n\n\"But what a place to go to! What nice person, too, do you meet in a\nhotel?\"\n\n\"Nice or nasty, as I have told you several times before, is not the\npoint. Lilia has insulted our family, and she shall suffer for it. And\nwhen you speak against hotels, I think you forget that I met your father\nat Chamounix. You can contribute nothing, dear, at present, and I think\nyou had better hold your tongue. I am going to the kitchen, to speak\nabout the range.\"\n\nShe spoke just too much, and the cook said that if she could not give\nsatisfaction--she had better leave. A small thing at hand is greater\nthan a great thing remote, and Lilia, misconducting herself upon a\nmountain in Central Italy, was immediately hidden. Mrs. Herriton flew to\na registry office, failed; flew to another, failed again; came home,\nwas told by the housemaid that things seemed so unsettled that she had\nbetter leave as well; had tea, wrote six letters, was interrupted by\ncook and housemaid, both weeping, asking her pardon, and imploring to\nbe taken back. In the flush of victory the door-bell rang, and there was\nthe telegram: \"Lilia engaged to Italian nobility. Writing. Abbott.\"\n\n\"No answer,\" said Mrs. Herriton. \"Get down Mr. Philip's Gladstone from\nthe attic.\"\n\nShe would not allow herself to be frightened by the unknown. Indeed\nshe knew a little now. The man was not an Italian noble, otherwise the\ntelegram would have said so. It must have been written by Lilia. None\nbut she would have been guilty of the fatuous vulgarity of \"Italian\nnobility.\" She recalled phrases of this morning's letter: \"We love this\nplace--Caroline is sweeter than ever, and busy sketching--Italians full\nof simplicity and charm.\" And the remark of Baedeker, \"The inhabitants\nare still noted for their agreeable manners,\" had a baleful meaning now.\nIf Mrs. Herriton had no imagination, she had intuition, a more useful\nquality, and the picture she made to herself of Lilia's FIANCE did not\nprove altogether wrong.\n\nSo Philip was received with the news that he must start in half an hour\nfor Monteriano. He was in a painful position. For three years he had\nsung the praises of the Italians, but he had never contemplated having\none as a relative. He tried to soften the thing down to his mother, but\nin his heart of hearts he agreed with her when she said, \"The man may\nbe a duke or he may be an organ-grinder. That is not the point. If Lilia\nmarries him she insults the memory of Charles, she insults Irma, she\ninsults us. Therefore I forbid her, and if she disobeys we have done\nwith her for ever.\"\n\n\"I will do all I can,\" said Philip in a low voice. It was the first time\nhe had had anything to do. He kissed his mother and sister and puzzled\nIrma. The hall was warm and attractive as he looked back into it from\nthe cold March night, and he departed for Italy reluctantly, as for\nsomething commonplace and dull.\n\nBefore Mrs. Herriton went to bed she wrote to Mrs. Theobald, using plain\nlanguage about Lilia's conduct, and hinting that it was a question on\nwhich every one must definitely choose sides. She added, as if it was an\nafterthought, that Mrs. Theobald's letter had arrived that morning.\n\nJust as she was going upstairs she remembered that she never covered\nup those peas. It upset her more than anything, and again and again she\nstruck the banisters with vexation. Late as it was, she got a lantern\nfrom the tool-shed and went down the garden to rake the earth over them.\nThe sparrows had taken every one. But countless fragments of the letter\nremained, disfiguring the tidy ground.\n\n\n\nChapter 2\n\nWhen the bewildered tourist alights at the station of Monteriano, he\nfinds himself in the middle of the country. There are a few houses round\nthe railway, and many more dotted over the plain and the slopes of the\nhills, but of a town, mediaeval or otherwise, not the slightest sign. He\nmust take what is suitably termed a \"legno\"--a piece of wood--and\ndrive up eight miles of excellent road into the middle ages. For it is\nimpossible, as well as sacrilegious, to be as quick as Baedeker.\n\nIt was three in the afternoon when Philip left the realms of\ncommonsense. He was so weary with travelling that he had fallen asleep\nin the train. His fellow-passengers had the usual Italian gift of\ndivination, and when Monteriano came they knew he wanted to go there,\nand dropped him out. His feet sank into the hot asphalt of the platform,\nand in a dream he watched the train depart, while the porter who ought\nto have been carrying his bag, ran up the line playing touch-you-last\nwith the guard. Alas! he was in no humour for Italy. Bargaining for a\nlegno bored him unutterably. The man asked six lire; and though Philip\nknew that for eight miles it should scarcely be more than four, yet he\nwas about to give what he was asked, and so make the man discontented\nand unhappy for the rest of the day. He was saved from this social\nblunder by loud shouts, and looking up the road saw one cracking his\nwhip and waving his reins and driving two horses furiously, and behind\nhim there appeared the swaying figure of a woman, holding star-fish\nfashion on to anything she could touch. It was Miss Abbott, who had just\nreceived his letter from Milan announcing the time of his arrival, and\nhad hurried down to meet him.\n\nHe had known Miss Abbott for years, and had never had much opinion about\nher one way or the other. She was good, quiet, dull, and amiable,\nand young only because she was twenty-three: there was nothing in her\nappearance or manner to suggest the fire of youth. All her life had\nbeen spent at Sawston with a dull and amiable father, and her pleasant,\npallid face, bent on some respectable charity, was a familiar object\nof the Sawston streets. Why she had ever wished to leave them was\nsurprising; but as she truly said, \"I am John Bull to the backbone, yet\nI do want to see Italy, just once. Everybody says it is marvellous, and\nthat one gets no idea of it from books at all.\" The curate suggested\nthat a year was a long time; and Miss Abbott, with decorous playfulness,\nanswered him, \"Oh, but you must let me have my fling! I promise to have\nit once, and once only. It will give me things to think about and talk\nabout for the rest of my life.\" The curate had consented; so had Mr.\nAbbott. And here she was in a legno, solitary, dusty, frightened, with\nas much to answer and to answer for as the most dashing adventuress\ncould desire.\n\nThey shook hands without speaking. She made room for Philip and his\nluggage amidst the loud indignation of the unsuccessful driver, whom it\nrequired the combined eloquence of the station-master and the station\nbeggar to confute. The silence was prolonged until they started. For\nthree days he had been considering what he should do, and still more\nwhat he should say. He had invented a dozen imaginary conversations, in\nall of which his logic and eloquence procured him certain victory. But\nhow to begin? He was in the enemy's country, and everything--the hot\nsun, the cold air behind the heat, the endless rows of olive-trees,\nregular yet mysterious--seemed hostile to the placid atmosphere of\nSawston in which his thoughts took birth. At the outset he made one\ngreat concession. If the match was really suitable, and Lilia were bent\non it, he would give in, and trust to his influence with his mother to\nset things right. He would not have made the concession in England;\nbut here in Italy, Lilia, however wilful and silly, was at all events\ngrowing to be a human being.\n\n\"Are we to talk it over now?\" he asked.\n\n\"Certainly, please,\" said Miss Abbott, in great agitation. \"If you will\nbe so very kind.\"\n\n\"Then how long has she been engaged?\"\n\nHer face was that of a perfect fool--a fool in terror.\n\n\"A short time--quite a short time,\" she stammered, as if the shortness\nof the time would reassure him.\n\n\"I should like to know how long, if you can remember.\"\n\nShe entered into elaborate calculations on her fingers. \"Exactly eleven\ndays,\" she said at last.\n\n\"How long have you been here?\"\n\nMore calculations, while he tapped irritably with his foot. \"Close on\nthree weeks.\"\n\n\"Did you know him before you came?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Oh! Who is he?\"\n\n\"A native of the place.\"\n\nThe second silence took place. They had left the plain now and\nwere climbing up the outposts of the hills, the olive-trees still\naccompanying. The driver, a jolly fat man, had got out to ease the\nhorses, and was walking by the side of the carriage.\n\n\"I understood they met at the hotel.\"\n\n\"It was a mistake of Mrs. Theobald's.\"\n\n\"I also understand that he is a member of the Italian nobility.\"\n\nShe did not reply.\n\n\"May I be told his name?\"\n\nMiss Abbott whispered, \"Carella.\" But the driver heard her, and a grin\nsplit over his face. The engagement must be known already.\n\n\"Carella? Conte or Marchese, or what?\"\n\n\"Signor,\" said Miss Abbott, and looked helplessly aside.\n\n\"Perhaps I bore you with these questions. If so, I will stop.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, please; not at all. I am here--my own idea--to give all\ninformation which you very naturally--and to see if somehow--please ask\nanything you like.\"\n\n\"Then how old is he?\"\n\n\"Oh, quite young. Twenty-one, I believe.\"\n\nThere burst from Philip the exclamation, \"Good Lord!\"\n\n\"One would never believe it,\" said Miss Abbott, flushing. \"He looks much\nolder.\"\n\n\"And is he good-looking?\" he asked, with gathering sarcasm.\n\nShe became decisive. \"Very good-looking. All his features are good, and\nhe is well built--though I dare say English standards would find him too\nshort.\"\n\nPhilip, whose one physical advantage was his height, felt annoyed at her\nimplied indifference to it.\n\n\"May I conclude that you like him?\"\n\nShe replied decisively again, \"As far as I have seen him, I do.\"\n\nAt that moment the carriage entered a little wood, which lay brown and\nsombre across the cultivated hill. The trees of the wood were small and\nleafless, but noticeable for this--that their stems stood in violets as\nrocks stand in the summer sea. There are such violets in England,\nbut not so many. Nor are there so many in Art, for no painter has the\ncourage. The cart-ruts were channels, the hollow lagoons; even the\ndry white margin of the road was splashed, like a causeway soon to be\nsubmerged under the advancing tide of spring. Philip paid no attention\nat the time: he was thinking what to say next. But his eyes had\nregistered the beauty, and next March he did not forget that the road to\nMonteriano must traverse innumerable flowers.\n\n\"As far as I have seen him, I do like him,\" repeated Miss Abbott, after\na pause.\n\nHe thought she sounded a little defiant, and crushed her at once.\n\n\"What is he, please? You haven't told me that. What's his position?\"\n\nShe opened her mouth to speak, and no sound came from it. Philip waited\npatiently. She tried to be audacious, and failed pitiably.\n\n\"No position at all. He is kicking his heels, as my father would say.\nYou see, he has only just finished his military service.\"\n\n\"As a private?\"\n\n\"I suppose so. There is general conscription. He was in the Bersaglieri,\nI think. Isn't that the crack regiment?\"\n\n\"The men in it must be short and broad. They must also be able to walk\nsix miles an hour.\"\n\nShe looked at him wildly, not understanding all that he said, but\nfeeling that he was very clever. Then she continued her defence of\nSignor Carella.\n\n\"And now, like most young men, he is looking out for something to do.\"\n\n\"Meanwhile?\"\n\n\"Meanwhile, like most young men, he lives with his people--father,\nmother, two sisters, and a tiny tot of a brother.\"\n\nThere was a grating sprightliness about her that drove him nearly mad.\nHe determined to silence her at last.\n\n\"One more question, and only one more. What is his father?\"\n\n\"His father,\" said Miss Abbott. \"Well, I don't suppose you'll think it\na good match. But that's not the point. I mean the point is not--I mean\nthat social differences--love, after all--not but what--I--\"\n\nPhilip ground his teeth together and said nothing.\n\n\"Gentlemen sometimes judge hardly. But I feel that you, and at\nall events your mother--so really good in every sense, so really\nunworldly--after all, love-marriages are made in heaven.\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss Abbott, I know. But I am anxious to hear heaven's choice. You\narouse my curiosity. Is my sister-in-law to marry an angel?\"\n\n\"Mr. Herriton, don't--please, Mr. Herriton--a dentist. His father's a\ndentist.\"\n\nPhilip gave a cry of personal disgust and pain. He shuddered all over,\nand edged away from his companion. A dentist! A dentist at Monteriano. A\ndentist in fairyland! False teeth and laughing gas and the tilting\nchair at a place which knew the Etruscan League, and the Pax Romana,\nand Alaric himself, and the Countess Matilda, and the Middle Ages, all\nfighting and holiness, and the Renaissance, all fighting and beauty! He\nthought of Lilia no longer. He was anxious for himself: he feared that\nRomance might die.\n\nRomance only dies with life. No pair of pincers will ever pull it out of\nus. But there is a spurious sentiment which cannot resist the unexpected\nand the incongruous and the grotesque. A touch will loosen it, and the\nsooner it goes from us the better. It was going from Philip now, and\ntherefore he gave the cry of pain.\n\n\"I cannot think what is in the air,\" he began. \"If Lilia was determined\nto disgrace us, she might have found a less repulsive way. A boy of\nmedium height with a pretty face, the son of a dentist at Monteriano.\nHave I put it correctly? May I surmise that he has not got one penny?\nMay I also surmise that his social position is nil? Furthermore--\"\n\n\"Stop! I'll tell you no more.\"\n\n\"Really, Miss Abbott, it is a little late for reticence. You have\nequipped me admirably!\"\n\n\"I'll tell you not another word!\" she cried, with a spasm of terror.\nThen she got out her handkerchief, and seemed as if she would shed\ntears. After a silence, which he intended to symbolize to her the\ndropping of a curtain on the scene, he began to talk of other subjects.\n\nThey were among olives again, and the wood with its beauty and wildness\nhad passed away. But as they climbed higher the country opened out, and\nthere appeared, high on a hill to the right, Monteriano. The hazy green\nof the olives rose up to its walls, and it seemed to float in isolation\nbetween trees and sky, like some fantastic ship city of a dream. Its\ncolour was brown, and it revealed not a single house--nothing but the\nnarrow circle of the walls, and behind them seventeen towers--all that\nwas left of the fifty-two that had filled the city in her prime. Some\nwere only stumps, some were inclining stiffly to their fall, some were\nstill erect, piercing like masts into the blue. It was impossible to\npraise it as beautiful, but it was also impossible to damn it as quaint.\n\nMeanwhile Philip talked continually, thinking this to be great evidence\nof resource and tact. It showed Miss Abbott that he had probed her to\nthe bottom, but was able to conquer his disgust, and by sheer force of\nintellect continue to be as agreeable and amusing as ever. He did not\nknow that he talked a good deal of nonsense, and that the sheer force\nof his intellect was weakened by the sight of Monteriano, and by the\nthought of dentistry within those walls.\n\nThe town above them swung to the left, to the right, to the left again,\nas the road wound upward through the trees, and the towers began to glow\nin the descending sun. As they drew near, Philip saw the heads of people\ngathering black upon the walls, and he knew well what was happening--how\nthe news was spreading that a stranger was in sight, and the beggars\nwere aroused from their content and bid to adjust their deformities; how\nthe alabaster man was running for his wares, and the Authorized Guide\nrunning for his peaked cap and his two cards of recommendation--one from\nMiss M'Gee, Maida Vale, the other, less valuable, from an Equerry to the\nQueen of Peru; how some one else was running to tell the landlady of the\nStella d'Italia to put on her pearl necklace and brown boots and empty\nthe slops from the spare bedroom; and how the landlady was running to\ntell Lilia and her boy that their fate was at hand.\n\nPerhaps it was a pity Philip had talked so profusely. He had driven\nMiss Abbott half demented, but he had given himself no time to concert\na plan. The end came so suddenly. They emerged from the trees on to the\nterrace before the walk, with the vision of half Tuscany radiant in the\nsun behind them, and then they turned in through the Siena gate, and\ntheir journey was over. The Dogana men admitted them with an air of\ngracious welcome, and they clattered up the narrow dark street, greeted\nby that mixture of curiosity and kindness which makes each Italian\narrival so wonderful.\n\nHe was stunned and knew not what to do. At the hotel he received no\nordinary reception. The landlady wrung him by the hand; one person\nsnatched his umbrella, another his bag; people pushed each other out of\nhis way. The entrance seemed blocked with a crowd. Dogs were barking,\nbladder whistles being blown, women waving their handkerchiefs, excited\nchildren screaming on the stairs, and at the top of the stairs was Lilia\nherself, very radiant, with her best blouse on.\n\n\"Welcome!\" she cried. \"Welcome to Monteriano!\" He greeted her, for he\ndid not know what else to do, and a sympathetic murmur rose from the\ncrowd below.\n\n\"You told me to come here,\" she continued, \"and I don't forget it. Let\nme introduce Signor Carella!\"\n\nPhilip discerned in the corner behind her a young man who might\neventually prove handsome and well-made, but certainly did not seem so\nthen. He was half enveloped in the drapery of a cold dirty curtain, and\nnervously stuck out a hand, which Philip took and found thick and damp.\nThere were more murmurs of approval from the stairs.\n\n\"Well, din-din's nearly ready,\" said Lilia. \"Your room's down the\npassage, Philip. You needn't go changing.\"\n\nHe stumbled away to wash his hands, utterly crushed by her effrontery.\n\n\"Dear Caroline!\" whispered Lilia as soon as he had gone. \"What an angel\nyou've been to tell him! He takes it so well. But you must have had a\nMAUVAIS QUART D'HEURE.\"\n\nMiss Abbott's long terror suddenly turned into acidity. \"I've told\nnothing,\" she snapped. \"It's all for you--and if it only takes a quarter\nof an hour you'll be lucky!\"\n\nDinner was a nightmare. They had the smelly dining-room to themselves.\nLilia, very smart and vociferous, was at the head of the table; Miss\nAbbott, also in her best, sat by Philip, looking, to his irritated\nnerves, more like the tragedy confidante every moment. That scion of the\nItalian nobility, Signor Carella, sat opposite. Behind him loomed a bowl\nof goldfish, who swam round and round, gaping at the guests.\n\nThe face of Signor Carella was twitching too much for Philip to study\nit. But he could see the hands, which were not particularly clean, and\ndid not get cleaner by fidgeting amongst the shining slabs of hair.\nHis starched cuffs were not clean either, and as for his suit, it had\nobviously been bought for the occasion as something really English--a\ngigantic check, which did not even fit. His handkerchief he had\nforgotten, but never missed it. Altogether, he was quite unpresentable,\nand very lucky to have a father who was a dentist in Monteriano. And\nwhy, even Lilia--But as soon as the meal began it furnished Philip with\nan explanation.\n\nFor the youth was hungry, and his lady filled his plate with spaghetti,\nand when those delicious slippery worms were flying down his throat, his\nface relaxed and became for a moment unconscious and calm. And Philip\nhad seen that face before in Italy a hundred times--seen it and loved\nit, for it was not merely beautiful, but had the charm which is the\nrightful heritage of all who are born on that soil. But he did not want\nto see it opposite him at dinner. It was not the face of a gentleman.\n\nConversation, to give it that name, was carried on in a mixture of\nEnglish and Italian. Lilia had picked up hardly any of the latter\nlanguage, and Signor Carella had not yet learnt any of the former.\nOccasionally Miss Abbott had to act as interpreter between the lovers,\nand the situation became uncouth and revolting in the extreme. Yet\nPhilip was too cowardly to break forth and denounce the engagement. He\nthought he should be more effective with Lilia if he had her alone,\nand pretended to himself that he must hear her defence before giving\njudgment.\n\nSignor Carella, heartened by the spaghetti and the throat-rasping wine,\nattempted to talk, and, looking politely towards Philip, said, \"England\nis a great country. The Italians love England and the English.\"\n\nPhilip, in no mood for international amenities, merely bowed.\n\n\"Italy too,\" the other continued a little resentfully, \"is a great\ncountry. She has produced many famous men--for example Garibaldi and\nDante. The latter wrote the 'Inferno,' the 'Purgatorio,' the 'Paradiso.'\nThe 'Inferno' is the most beautiful.\" And with the complacent tone of\none who has received a solid education, he quoted the opening lines--\n\n  Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita\n  Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura\n  Che la diritta via era smarrita--\n\na quotation which was more apt than he supposed.\n\nLilia glanced at Philip to see whether he noticed that she was\nmarrying no ignoramus. Anxious to exhibit all the good qualities of her\nbetrothed, she abruptly introduced the subject of pallone, in which,\nit appeared, he was a proficient player. He suddenly became shy and\ndeveloped a conceited grin--the grin of the village yokel whose cricket\nscore is mentioned before a stranger. Philip himself had loved to watch\npallone, that entrancing combination of lawn-tennis and fives. But he\ndid not expect to love it quite so much again.\n\n\"Oh, look!\" exclaimed Lilia, \"the poor wee fish!\"\n\nA starved cat had been worrying them all for pieces of the purple\nquivering beef they were trying to swallow. Signor Carella, with the\nbrutality so common in Italians, had caught her by the paw and flung her\naway from him. Now she had climbed up to the bowl and was trying to\nhook out the fish. He got up, drove her off, and finding a large glass\nstopper by the bowl, entirely plugged up the aperture with it.\n\n\"But may not the fish die?\" said Miss Abbott. \"They have no air.\"\n\n\"Fish live on water, not on air,\" he replied in a knowing voice, and sat\ndown. Apparently he was at his ease again, for he took to spitting on\nthe floor. Philip glanced at Lilia but did not detect her wincing. She\ntalked bravely till the end of the disgusting meal, and then got up\nsaying, \"Well, Philip, I am sure you are ready for by-bye. We shall meet\nat twelve o'clock lunch tomorrow, if we don't meet before. They give us\ncaffe later in our rooms.\"\n\nIt was a little too impudent. Philip replied, \"I should like to see you\nnow, please, in my room, as I have come all the way on business.\" He\nheard Miss Abbott gasp. Signor Carella, who was lighting a rank cigar,\nhad not understood.\n\nIt was as he expected. When he was alone with Lilia he lost all\nnervousness. The remembrance of his long intellectual supremacy\nstrengthened him, and he began volubly--\n\n\"My dear Lilia, don't let's have a scene. Before I arrived I thought I\nmight have to question you. It is unnecessary. I know everything. Miss\nAbbott has told me a certain amount, and the rest I see for myself.\"\n\n\"See for yourself?\" she exclaimed, and he remembered afterwards that she\nhad flushed crimson.\n\n\"That he is probably a ruffian and certainly a cad.\"\n\n\"There are no cads in Italy,\" she said quickly.\n\nHe was taken aback. It was one of his own remarks. And she further upset\nhim by adding, \"He is the son of a dentist. Why not?\"\n\n\"Thank you for the information. I know everything, as I told you before.\nI am also aware of the social position of an Italian who pulls teeth in\na minute provincial town.\"\n\nHe was not aware of it, but he ventured to conclude that it was pretty,\nlow. Nor did Lilia contradict him. But she was sharp enough to say,\n\"Indeed, Philip, you surprise me. I understood you went in for equality\nand so on.\"\n\n\"And I understood that Signor Carella was a member of the Italian\nnobility.\"\n\n\"Well, we put it like that in the telegram so as not to shock dear Mrs.\nHerriton. But it is true. He is a younger branch. Of course families\nramify--just as in yours there is your cousin Joseph.\" She adroitly\npicked out the only undesirable member of the Herriton clan. \"Gino's\nfather is courtesy itself, and rising rapidly in his profession. This\nvery month he leaves Monteriano, and sets up at Poggibonsi. And for\nmy own poor part, I think what people are is what matters, but I don't\nsuppose you'll agree. And I should like you to know that Gino's uncle is\na priest--the same as a clergyman at home.\"\n\nPhilip was aware of the social position of an Italian priest, and said\nso much about it that Lilia interrupted him with, \"Well, his cousin's a\nlawyer at Rome.\"\n\n\"What kind of 'lawyer'?\"\n\n\"Why, a lawyer just like you are--except that he has lots to do and can\nnever get away.\"\n\nThe remark hurt more than he cared to show. He changed his method, and\nin a gentle, conciliating tone delivered the following speech:--\n\n\"The whole thing is like a bad dream--so bad that it cannot go on. If\nthere was one redeeming feature about the man I might be uneasy. As it\nis I can trust to time. For the moment, Lilia, he has taken you in,\nbut you will find him out soon. It is not possible that you, a lady,\naccustomed to ladies and gentlemen, will tolerate a man whose position\nis--well, not equal to the son of the servants' dentist in Coronation\nPlace. I am not blaming you now. But I blame the glamour of Italy--I\nhave felt it myself, you know--and I greatly blame Miss Abbott.\"\n\n\"Caroline! Why blame her? What's all this to do with Caroline?\"\n\n\"Because we expected her to--\" He saw that the answer would involve him\nin difficulties, and, waving his hand, continued, \"So I am confident,\nand you in your heart agree, that this engagement will not last. Think\nof your life at home--think of Irma! And I'll also say think of us; for\nyou know, Lilia, that we count you more than a relation. I should feel\nI was losing my own sister if you did this, and my mother would lose a\ndaughter.\"\n\nShe seemed touched at last, for she turned away her face and said, \"I\ncan't break it off now!\"\n\n\"Poor Lilia,\" said he, genuinely moved. \"I know it may be painful. But\nI have come to rescue you, and, book-worm though I may be, I am not\nfrightened to stand up to a bully. He's merely an insolent boy. He\nthinks he can keep you to your word by threats. He will be different\nwhen he sees he has a man to deal with.\"\n\nWhat follows should be prefaced with some simile--the simile of a\npowder-mine, a thunderbolt, an earthquake--for it blew Philip up in the\nair and flattened him on the ground and swallowed him up in the depths.\nLilia turned on her gallant defender and said--\n\n\"For once in my life I'll thank you to leave me alone. I'll thank your\nmother too. For twelve years you've trained me and tortured me, and I'll\nstand it no more. Do you think I'm a fool? Do you think I never felt?\nAh! when I came to your house a poor young bride, how you all looked me\nover--never a kind word--and discussed me, and thought I might just do;\nand your mother corrected me, and your sister snubbed me, and you said\nfunny things about me to show how clever you were! And when Charles died\nI was still to run in strings for the honour of your beastly family,\nand I was to be cooped up at Sawston and learn to keep house, and all my\nchances spoilt of marrying again. No, thank you! No, thank you! 'Bully?'\n'Insolent boy?' Who's that, pray, but you? But, thank goodness, I can\nstand up against the world now, for I've found Gino, and this time I\nmarry for love!\"\n\nThe coarseness and truth of her attack alike overwhelmed him. But her\nsupreme insolence found him words, and he too burst forth.\n\n\"Yes! and I forbid you to do it! You despise me, perhaps, and think\nI'm feeble. But you're mistaken. You are ungrateful and impertinent and\ncontemptible, but I will save you in order to save Irma and our name.\nThere is going to be such a row in this town that you and he'll be sorry\nyou came to it. I shall shrink from nothing, for my blood is up. It is\nunwise of you to laugh. I forbid you to marry Carella, and I shall tell\nhim so now.\"\n\n\"Do,\" she cried. \"Tell him so now. Have it out with him. Gino! Gino!\nCome in! Avanti! Fra Filippo forbids the banns!\"\n\nGino appeared so quickly that he must have been listening outside the\ndoor.\n\n\"Fra Filippo's blood's up. He shrinks from nothing. Oh, take care he\ndoesn't hurt you!\" She swayed about in vulgar imitation of Philip's\nwalk, and then, with a proud glance at the square shoulders of her\nbetrothed, flounced out of the room.\n\nDid she intend them to fight? Philip had no intention of doing so; and\nno more, it seemed, had Gino, who stood nervously in the middle of the\nroom with twitching lips and eyes.\n\n\"Please sit down, Signor Carella,\" said Philip in Italian. \"Mrs.\nHerriton is rather agitated, but there is no reason we should not be\ncalm. Might I offer you a cigarette? Please sit down.\"\n\nHe refused the cigarette and the chair, and remained standing in the\nfull glare of the lamp. Philip, not averse to such assistance, got his\nown face into shadow.\n\nFor a long time he was silent. It might impress Gino, and it also gave\nhim time to collect himself. He would not this time fall into the error\nof blustering, which he had caught so unaccountably from Lilia. He would\nmake his power felt by restraint.\n\nWhy, when he looked up to begin, was Gino convulsed with silent\nlaughter? It vanished immediately; but he became nervous, and was even\nmore pompous than he intended.\n\n\"Signor Carella, I will be frank with you. I have come to prevent you\nmarrying Mrs. Herriton, because I see you will both be unhappy together.\nShe is English, you are Italian; she is accustomed to one thing, you to\nanother. And--pardon me if I say it--she is rich and you are poor.\"\n\n\"I am not marrying her because she is rich,\" was the sulky reply.\n\n\"I never suggested that for a moment,\" said Philip courteously. \"You are\nhonourable, I am sure; but are you wise? And let me remind you that we\nwant her with us at home. Her little daughter will be motherless,\nour home will be broken up. If you grant my request you will earn our\nthanks--and you will not be without a reward for your disappointment.\"\n\n\"Reward--what reward?\" He bent over the back of a chair and looked\nearnestly at Philip. They were coming to terms pretty quickly. Poor\nLilia!\n\nPhilip said slowly, \"What about a thousand lire?\"\n\nHis soul went forth into one exclamation, and then he was silent, with\ngaping lips. Philip would have given double: he had expected a bargain.\n\n\"You can have them tonight.\"\n\nHe found words, and said, \"It is too late.\"\n\n\"But why?\"\n\n\"Because--\" His voice broke. Philip watched his face,--a face without\nrefinement perhaps, but not without expression,--watched it quiver and\nre-form and dissolve from emotion into emotion. There was avarice at one\nmoment, and insolence, and politeness, and stupidity, and cunning--and\nlet us hope that sometimes there was love. But gradually one emotion\ndominated, the most unexpected of all; for his chest began to heave and\nhis eyes to wink and his mouth to twitch, and suddenly he stood erect\nand roared forth his whole being in one tremendous laugh.\n\nPhilip sprang up, and Gino, who had flung wide his arms to let the\nglorious creature go, took him by the shoulders and shook him, and said,\n\"Because we are married--married--married as soon as I knew you were,\ncoming. There was no time to tell you. Oh. oh! You have come all the way\nfor nothing. Oh! And oh, your generosity!\" Suddenly he became grave, and\nsaid, \"Please pardon me; I am rude. I am no better than a peasant, and\nI--\" Here he saw Philip's face, and it was too much for him. He gasped\nand exploded and crammed his hands into his mouth and spat them out in\nanother explosion, and gave Philip an aimless push, which toppled him on\nto the bed. He uttered a horrified Oh! and then gave up, and bolted away\ndown the passage, shrieking like a child, to tell the joke to his wife.\n\nFor a time Philip lay on the bed, pretending to himself that he was hurt\ngrievously. He could scarcely see for temper, and in the passage he ran\nagainst Miss Abbott, who promptly burst into tears.\n\n\"I sleep at the Globo,\" he told her, \"and start for Sawston tomorrow\nmorning early. He has assaulted me. I could prosecute him. But shall\nnot.\"\n\n\"I can't stop here,\" she sobbed. \"I daren't stop here. You will have to\ntake me with you!\"\n\n\n\nChapter 3\n\nOpposite the Volterra gate of Monteriano, outside the city, is a very\nrespectable white-washed mud wall, with a coping of red crinkled tiles\nto keep it from dissolution. It would suggest a gentleman's garden if\nthere was not in its middle a large hole, which grows larger with every\nrain-storm. Through the hole is visible, firstly, the iron gate that is\nintended to close it; secondly, a square piece of ground which, though\nnot quite, mud, is at the same time not exactly grass; and finally,\nanother wall, stone this time, which has a wooden door in the middle and\ntwo wooden-shuttered windows each side, and apparently forms the facade\nof a one-storey house.\n\nThis house is bigger than it looks, for it slides for two storeys down\nthe hill behind, and the wooden door, which is always locked, really\nleads into the attic. The knowing person prefers to follow the\nprecipitous mule-track round the turn of the mud wall till he can take\nthe edifice in the rear. Then--being now on a level with the cellars--he\nlifts up his head and shouts. If his voice sounds like something\nlight--a letter, for example, or some vegetables, or a bunch of\nflowers--a basket is let out of the first-floor windows by a string,\ninto which he puts his burdens and departs. But if he sounds like\nsomething heavy, such as a log of wood, or a piece of meat, or a\nvisitor, he is interrogated, and then bidden or forbidden to ascend.\nThe ground floor and the upper floor of that battered house are alike\ndeserted, and the inmates keep the central portion, just as in a dying\nbody all life retires to the heart. There is a door at the top of the\nfirst flight of stairs, and if the visitor is admitted he will find a\nwelcome which is not necessarily cold. There are several rooms, some\ndark and mostly stuffy--a reception-room adorned with horsehair chairs,\nwool-work stools, and a stove that is never lit--German bad taste\nwithout German domesticity broods over that room; also a living-room,\nwhich insensibly glides into a bedroom when the refining influence of\nhospitality is absent, and real bedrooms; and last, but not least, the\nloggia, where you can live day and night if you feel inclined, drinking\nvermouth and smoking cigarettes, with leagues of olive-trees and\nvineyards and blue-green hills to watch you.\n\nIt was in this house that the brief and inevitable tragedy of Lilia's\nmarried life took place. She made Gino buy it for her, because it was\nthere she had first seen him sitting on the mud wall that faced the\nVolterra gate. She remembered how the evening sun had struck his hair,\nand how he had smiled down at her, and being both sentimental and\nunrefined, was determined to have the man and the place together. Things\nin Italy are cheap for an Italian, and, though he would have preferred\na house in the piazza, or better still a house at Siena, or, bliss above\nbliss, a house at Leghorn, he did as she asked, thinking that perhaps\nshe showed her good taste in preferring so retired an abode.\n\nThe house was far too big for them, and there was a general concourse of\nhis relatives to fill it up. His father wished to make it a patriarchal\nconcern, where all the family should have their rooms and meet together\nfor meals, and was perfectly willing to give up the new practice at\nPoggibonsi and preside. Gino was quite willing too, for he was an\naffectionate youth who liked a large home-circle, and he told it as\na pleasant bit of news to Lilia, who did not attempt to conceal her\nhorror.\n\nAt once he was horrified too; saw that the idea was monstrous; abused\nhimself to her for having suggested it; rushed off to tell his father\nthat it was impossible. His father complained that prosperity was\nalready corrupting him and making him unsympathetic and hard; his mother\ncried; his sisters accused him of blocking their social advance. He\nwas apologetic, and even cringing, until they turned on Lilia. Then\nhe turned on them, saying that they could not understand, much less\nassociate with, the English lady who was his wife; that there should be\none master in that house--himself.\n\nLilia praised and petted him on his return, calling him brave and a hero\nand other endearing epithets. But he was rather blue when his clan left\nMonteriano in much dignity--a dignity which was not at all impaired\nby the acceptance of a cheque. They took the cheque not to Poggibonsi,\nafter all, but to Empoli--a lively, dusty town some twenty miles off.\nThere they settled down in comfort, and the sisters said they had been\ndriven to it by Gino.\n\nThe cheque was, of course, Lilia's, who was extremely generous, and was\nquite willing to know anybody so long as she had not to live with them,\nrelations-in-law being on her nerves. She liked nothing better than\nfinding out some obscure and distant connection--there were several of\nthem--and acting the lady bountiful, leaving behind her bewilderment,\nand too often discontent. Gino wondered how it was that all his people,\nwho had formerly seemed so pleasant, had suddenly become plaintive\nand disagreeable. He put it down to his lady wife's magnificence, in\ncomparison with which all seemed common. Her money flew apace, in\nspite of the cheap living. She was even richer than he expected; and he\nremembered with shame how he had once regretted his inability to accept\nthe thousand lire that Philip Herriton offered him in exchange for her.\nIt would have been a shortsighted bargain.\n\nLilia enjoyed settling into the house, with nothing to do except give\norders to smiling workpeople, and a devoted husband as interpreter. She\nwrote a jaunty account of her happiness to Mrs. Herriton, and Harriet\nanswered the letter, saying (1) that all future communications should be\naddressed to the solicitors; (2) would Lilia return an inlaid box which\nHarriet had lent her--but not given--to keep handkerchiefs and collars\nin?\n\n\"Look what I am giving up to live with you!\" she said to Gino, never\nomitting to lay stress on her condescension. He took her to mean the\ninlaid box, and said that she need not give it up at all.\n\n\"Silly fellow, no! I mean the life. Those Herritons are very well\nconnected. They lead Sawston society. But what do I care, so long as I\nhave my silly fellow!\" She always treated him as a boy, which he was,\nand as a fool, which he was not, thinking herself so immeasurably\nsuperior to him that she neglected opportunity after opportunity of\nestablishing her rule. He was good-looking and indolent; therefore he\nmust be stupid. He was poor; therefore he would never dare to criticize\nhis benefactress. He was passionately in love with her; therefore she\ncould do exactly as she liked.\n\n\"It mayn't be heaven below,\" she thought, \"but it's better than\nCharles.\"\n\nAnd all the time the boy was watching her, and growing up.\n\nShe was reminded of Charles by a disagreeable letter from the\nsolicitors, bidding her disgorge a large sum of money for Irma, in\naccordance with her late husband's will. It was just like Charles's\nsuspicious nature to have provided against a second marriage. Gino was\nequally indignant, and between them they composed a stinging reply,\nwhich had no effect. He then said that Irma had better come out and live\nwith them. \"The air is good, so is the food; she will be happy here, and\nwe shall not have to part with the money.\" But Lilia had not the courage\neven to suggest this to the Herritons, and an unexpected terror seized\nher at the thought of Irma or any English child being educated at\nMonteriano.\n\nGino became terribly depressed over the solicitors' letter, more\ndepressed than she thought necessary. There was no more to do in the\nhouse, and he spent whole days in the loggia leaning over the parapet or\nsitting astride it disconsolately.\n\n\"Oh, you idle boy!\" she cried, pinching his muscles. \"Go and play\npallone.\"\n\n\"I am a married man,\" he answered, without raising his head. \"I do not\nplay games any more.\"\n\n\"Go and see your friends then.\"\n\n\"I have no friends now.\"\n\n\"Silly, silly, silly! You can't stop indoors all day!\"\n\n\"I want to see no one but you.\" He spat on to an olive-tree.\n\n\"Now, Gino, don't be silly. Go and see your friends, and bring them to\nsee me. We both of us like society.\"\n\nHe looked puzzled, but allowed himself to be persuaded, went out, found\nthat he was not as friendless as he supposed, and returned after several\nhours in altered spirits. Lilia congratulated herself on her good\nmanagement.\n\n\"I'm ready, too, for people now,\" she said. \"I mean to wake you all up,\njust as I woke up Sawston. Let's have plenty of men--and make them bring\ntheir womenkind. I mean to have real English tea-parties.\"\n\n\"There is my aunt and her husband; but I thought you did not want to\nreceive my relatives.\"\n\n\"I never said such a--\"\n\n\"But you would be right,\" he said earnestly. \"They are not for you.\nMany of them are in trade, and even we are little more; you should have\ngentlefolk and nobility for your friends.\"\n\n\"Poor fellow,\" thought Lilia. \"It is sad for him to discover that his\npeople are vulgar.\" She began to tell him that she loved him just for\nhis silly self, and he flushed and began tugging at his moustache.\n\n\"But besides your relatives I must have other people here. Your friends\nhave wives and sisters, haven't they?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes; but of course I scarcely know them.\"\n\n\"Not know your friends' people?\"\n\n\"Why, no. If they are poor and have to work for their living I may see\nthem--but not otherwise. Except--\" He stopped. The chief exception was\na young lady, to whom he had once been introduced for matrimonial\npurposes. But the dowry had proved inadequate, and the acquaintance\nterminated.\n\n\"How funny! But I mean to change all that. Bring your friends to see me,\nand I will make them bring their people.\"\n\nHe looked at her rather hopelessly.\n\n\"Well, who are the principal people here? Who leads society?\"\n\nThe governor of the prison, he supposed, and the officers who assisted\nhim.\n\n\"Well, are they married?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"There we are. Do you know them?\"\n\n\"Yes--in a way.\"\n\n\"I see,\" she exclaimed angrily. \"They look down on you, do they, poor\nboy? Wait!\" He assented. \"Wait! I'll soon stop that. Now, who else is\nthere?\"\n\n\"The marchese, sometimes, and the canons of the Collegiate Church.\"\n\n\"Married?\"\n\n\"The canons--\" he began with twinkling eyes.\n\n\"Oh, I forgot your horrid celibacy. In England they would be the centre\nof everything. But why shouldn't I know them? Would it make it easier if\nI called all round? Isn't that your foreign way?\"\n\nHe did not think it would make it easier.\n\n\"But I must know some one! Who were the men you were talking to this\nafternoon?\"\n\nLow-class men. He could scarcely recollect their names.\n\n\"But, Gino dear, if they're low class, why did you talk to them? Don't\nyou care about your position?\"\n\nAll Gino cared about at present was idleness and pocket-money, and his\nway of expressing it was to exclaim, \"Ouf-pouf! How hot it is in here.\nNo air; I sweat all over. I expire. I must cool myself, or I shall never\nget to sleep.\" In his funny abrupt way he ran out on to the loggia,\nwhere he lay full length on the parapet, and began to smoke and spit\nunder the silence of the stars.\n\nLilia gathered somehow from this conversation that Continental society\nwas not the go-as-you-please thing she had expected. Indeed she could\nnot see where Continental society was. Italy is such a delightful place\nto live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite\nluxury of Socialism--that true Socialism which is based not on equality\nof income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the democracy\nof the caffe or the street the great question of our life has been\nsolved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But is accomplished at\nthe expense of the sisterhood of women. Why should you not make friends\nwith your neighbour at the theatre or in the train, when you know and\nhe knows that feminine criticism and feminine insight and feminine\nprejudice will never come between you? Though you become as David and\nJonathan, you need never enter his home, nor he yours. All your lives\nyou will meet under the open air, the only roof-tree of the South, under\nwhich he will spit and swear, and you will drop your h's, and nobody\nwill think the worse of either.\n\nMeanwhile the women--they have, of course, their house and their church,\nwith its admirable and frequent services, to which they are escorted by\nthe maid. Otherwise they do not go out much, for it is not genteel to\nwalk, and you are too poor to keep a carriage. Occasionally you will\ntake them to the caffe or theatre, and immediately all your wonted\nacquaintance there desert you, except those few who are expecting\nand expected to marry into your family. It is all very sad. But one\nconsolation emerges--life is very pleasant in Italy if you are a man.\n\nHitherto Gino had not interfered with Lilia. She was so much older than\nhe was, and so much richer, that he regarded her as a superior being who\nanswered to other laws. He was not wholly surprised, for strange rumours\nwere always blowing over the Alps of lands where men and women had the\nsame amusements and interests, and he had often met that privileged\nmaniac, the lady tourist, on her solitary walks. Lilia took solitary\nwalks too, and only that week a tramp had grabbed at her watch--an\nepisode which is supposed to be indigenous in Italy, though really less\nfrequent there than in Bond Street. Now that he knew her better, he\nwas inevitably losing his awe: no one could live with her and keep it,\nespecially when she had been so silly as to lose a gold watch and chain.\nAs he lay thoughtful along the parapet, he realized for the first time\nthe responsibilities of monied life. He must save her from dangers,\nphysical and social, for after all she was a woman. \"And I,\" he\nreflected, \"though I am young, am at all events a man, and know what is\nright.\"\n\nHe found her still in the living-room, combing her hair, for she had\nsomething of the slattern in her nature, and there was no need to keep\nup appearances.\n\n\"You must not go out alone,\" he said gently. \"It is not safe. If you\nwant to walk, Perfetta shall accompany you.\" Perfetta was a widowed\ncousin, too humble for social aspirations, who was living with them as\nfactotum.\n\n\"Very well,\" smiled Lilia, \"very well\"--as if she were addressing a\nsolicitous kitten. But for all that she never took a solitary walk\nagain, with one exception, till the day of her death.\n\nDays passed, and no one called except poor relatives. She began to feel\ndull. Didn't he know the Sindaco or the bank manager? Even the landlady\nof the Stella d'Italia would be better than no one. She, when she went\ninto the town, was pleasantly received; but people naturally found a\ndifficulty in getting on with a lady who could not learn their language.\nAnd the tea-party, under Gino's adroit management, receded ever and ever\nbefore her.\n\nHe had a good deal of anxiety over her welfare, for she did not\nsettle down in the house at all. But he was comforted by a welcome and\nunexpected visitor. As he was going one afternoon for the letters--they\nwere delivered at the door, but it took longer to get them at the\noffice--some one humorously threw a cloak over his head, and when he\ndisengaged himself he saw his very dear friend Spiridione Tesi of the\ncustom-house at Chiasso, whom he had not met for two years. What joy!\nwhat salutations! so that all the passersby smiled with approval on the\namiable scene. Spiridione's brother was now station-master at Bologna,\nand thus he himself could spend his holiday travelling over Italy at the\npublic expense. Hearing of Gino's marriage, he had come to see him on\nhis way to Siena, where lived his own uncle, lately monied too.\n\n\"They all do it,\" he exclaimed, \"myself excepted.\" He was not quite\ntwenty-three. \"But tell me more. She is English. That is good, very\ngood. An English wife is very good indeed. And she is rich?\"\n\n\"Immensely rich.\"\n\n\"Blonde or dark?\"\n\n\"Blonde.\"\n\n\"Is it possible!\"\n\n\"It pleases me very much,\" said Gino simply. \"If you remember, I always\ndesired a blonde.\" Three or four men had collected, and were listening.\n\n\"We all desire one,\" said Spiridione. \"But you, Gino, deserve your good\nfortune, for you are a good son, a brave man, and a true friend, and\nfrom the very first moment I saw you I wished you well.\"\n\n\"No compliments, I beg,\" said Gino, standing with his hands crossed on\nhis chest and a smile of pleasure on his face.\n\nSpiridione addressed the other men, none of whom he had ever seen\nbefore. \"Is it not true? Does not he deserve this wealthy blonde?\"\n\n\"He does deserve her,\" said all the men.\n\nIt is a marvellous land, where you love it or hate it.\n\nThere were no letters, and of course they sat down at the Caffe\nGaribaldi, by the Collegiate Church--quite a good caffe that for so\nsmall a city. There were marble-topped tables, and pillars terra-cotta\nbelow and gold above, and on the ceiling was a fresco of the battle of\nSolferino. One could not have desired a prettier room. They had vermouth\nand little cakes with sugar on the top, which they chose gravely at\nthe counter, pinching them first to be sure they were fresh. And though\nvermouth is barely alcoholic, Spiridione drenched his with soda-water to\nbe sure that it should not get into his head.\n\nThey were in high spirits, and elaborate compliments alternated\ncuriously with gentle horseplay. But soon they put up their legs on a\npair of chairs and began to smoke.\n\n\"Tell me,\" said Spiridione--\"I forgot to ask--is she young?\"\n\n\"Thirty-three.\"\n\n\"Ah, well, we cannot have everything.\"\n\n\"But you would be surprised. Had she told me twenty-eight, I should not\nhave disbelieved her.\"\n\n\"Is she SIMPATICA?\" (Nothing will translate that word.)\n\nGino dabbed at the sugar and said after a silence, \"Sufficiently so.\"\n\n\"It is a most important thing.\"\n\n\"She is rich, she is generous, she is affable, she addresses her\ninferiors without haughtiness.\"\n\nThere was another silence. \"It is not sufficient,\" said the other. \"One\ndoes not define it thus.\" He lowered his voice to a whisper. \"Last month\na German was smuggling cigars. The custom-house was dark. Yet I\nrefused because I did not like him. The gifts of such men do not bring\nhappiness. NON ERA SIMPATICO. He paid for every one, and the fine for\ndeception besides.\"\n\n\"Do you gain much beyond your pay?\" asked Gino, diverted for an instant.\n\n\"I do not accept small sums now. It is not worth the risk. But the\nGerman was another matter. But listen, my Gino, for I am older than\nyou and more full of experience. The person who understands us at first\nsight, who never irritates us, who never bores, to whom we can pour\nforth every thought and wish, not only in speech but in silence--that is\nwhat I mean by SIMPATICO.\"\n\n\"There are such men, I know,\" said Gino. \"And I have heard it said of\nchildren. But where will you find such a woman?\"\n\n\"That is true. Here you are wiser than I. SONO POCO SIMPATICHE LE DONNE.\nAnd the time we waste over them is much.\" He sighed dolefully, as if he\nfound the nobility of his sex a burden.\n\n\"One I have seen who may be so. She spoke very little, but she was a\nyoung lady--different to most. She, too, was English, the companion of\nmy wife here. But Fra Filippo, the brother-in-law, took her back with\nhim. I saw them start. He was very angry.\"\n\nThen he spoke of his exciting and secret marriage, and they made fun of\nthe unfortunate Philip, who had travelled over Europe to stop it.\n\n\"I regret though,\" said Gino, when they had finished laughing, \"that I\ntoppled him on to the bed. A great tall man! And when I am really amused\nI am often impolite.\"\n\n\"You will never see him again,\" said Spiridione, who carried plenty of\nphilosophy about him. \"And by now the scene will have passed from his\nmind.\"\n\n\"It sometimes happens that such things are recollected longest. I shall\nnever see him again, of course; but it is no benefit to me that he\nshould wish me ill. And even if he has forgotten, I am still sorry that\nI toppled him on to the bed.\"\n\nSo their talk continued, at one moment full of childishness and\ntender wisdom, the next moment scandalously gross. The shadows of the\nterra-cotta pillars lengthened, and tourists, flying through the Palazzo\nPubblico opposite, could observe how the Italians wasted time.\n\nThe sight of tourists reminded Gino of something he might say. \"I\nwant to consult you since you are so kind as to take an interest in my\naffairs. My wife wishes to take solitary walks.\"\n\nSpiridione was shocked.\n\n\"But I have forbidden her.\"\n\n\"Naturally.\"\n\n\"She does not yet understand. She asked me to accompany her\nsometimes--to walk without object! You know, she would like me to be\nwith her all day.\"\n\n\"I see. I see.\" He knitted his brows and tried to think how he could\nhelp his friend. \"She needs employment. Is she a Catholic?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"That is a pity. She must be persuaded. It will be a great solace to her\nwhen she is alone.\"\n\n\"I am a Catholic, but of course I never go to church.\"\n\n\"Of course not. Still, you might take her at first. That is what my\nbrother has done with his wife at Bologna and he has joined the Free\nThinkers. He took her once or twice himself, and now she has acquired\nthe habit and continues to go without him.\"\n\n\"Most excellent advice, and I thank you for it. But she wishes to give\ntea-parties--men and women together whom she has never seen.\"\n\n\"Oh, the English! they are always thinking of tea. They carry it by the\nkilogramme in their trunks, and they are so clumsy that they always pack\nit at the top. But it is absurd!\"\n\n\"What am I to do about it?\"\n\n\"Do nothing. Or ask me!\"\n\n\"Come!\" cried Gino, springing up. \"She will be quite pleased.\"\n\nThe dashing young fellow coloured crimson. \"Of course I was only\njoking.\"\n\n\"I know. But she wants me to take my friends. Come now! Waiter!\"\n\n\"If I do come,\" cried the other, \"and take tea with you, this bill must\nbe my affair.\"\n\n\"Certainly not; you are in my country!\"\n\nA long argument ensued, in which the waiter took part, suggesting\nvarious solutions. At last Gino triumphed. The bill came to\neightpence-halfpenny, and a halfpenny for the waiter brought it up\nto ninepence. Then there was a shower of gratitude on one side and of\ndeprecation on the other, and when courtesies were at their height they\nsuddenly linked arms and swung down the street, tickling each other with\nlemonade straws as they went.\n\nLilia was delighted to see them, and became more animated than Gino had\nknown her for a long time. The tea tasted of chopped hay, and they asked\nto be allowed to drink it out of a wine-glass, and refused milk; but, as\nshe repeatedly observed, this was something like. Spiridione's manners\nwere very agreeable. He kissed her hand on introduction, and as his\nprofession had taught him a little English, conversation did not flag.\n\n\"Do you like music?\" she asked.\n\n\"Passionately,\" he replied. \"I have not studied scientific music, but\nthe music of the heart, yes.\"\n\nSo she played on the humming piano very badly, and he sang, not so\nbadly. Gino got out a guitar and sang too, sitting out on the loggia. It\nwas a most agreeable visit.\n\nGino said he would just walk his friend back to his lodgings. As they\nwent he said, without the least trace of malice or satire in his voice,\n\"I think you are quite right. I shall not bring people to the house any\nmore. I do not see why an English wife should be treated differently.\nThis is Italy.\"\n\n\"You are very wise,\" exclaimed the other; \"very wise indeed. The more\nprecious a possession the more carefully it should be guarded.\"\n\nThey had reached the lodging, but went on as far as the Caffe Garibaldi,\nwhere they spent a long and most delightful evening.\n\n\n\nChapter 4\n\nThe advance of regret can be so gradual that it is impossible to say\n\"yesterday I was happy, today I am not.\" At no one moment did Lilia\nrealize that her marriage was a failure; yet during the summer and\nautumn she became as unhappy as it was possible for her nature to be.\nShe had no unkind treatment, and few unkind words, from her husband.\nHe simply left her alone. In the morning he went out to do \"business,\"\nwhich, as far as she could discover, meant sitting in the Farmacia. He\nusually returned to lunch, after which he retired to another room and\nslept. In the evening he grew vigorous again, and took the air on\nthe ramparts, often having his dinner out, and seldom returning till\nmidnight or later. There were, of course, the times when he was away\naltogether--at Empoli, Siena, Florence, Bologna--for he delighted in\ntravel, and seemed to pick up friends all over the country. Lilia often\nheard what a favorite he was.\n\nShe began to see that she must assert herself, but she could not see\nhow. Her self-confidence, which had overthrown Philip, had gradually\noozed away. If she left the strange house there was the strange little\ntown. If she were to disobey her husband and walk in the country, that\nwould be stranger still--vast slopes of olives and vineyards, with\nchalk-white farms, and in the distance other slopes, with more olives\nand more farms, and more little towns outlined against the cloudless\nsky. \"I don't call this country,\" she would say. \"Why, it's not as wild\nas Sawston Park!\" And, indeed, there was scarcely a touch of wildness\nin it--some of those slopes had been under cultivation for two thousand\nyears. But it was terrible and mysterious all the same, and its\ncontinued presence made Lilia so uncomfortable that she forgot her\nnature and began to reflect.\n\nShe reflected chiefly about her marriage. The ceremony had been hasty\nand expensive, and the rites, whatever they were, were not those of the\nChurch of England. Lilia had no religion in her; but for hours at a\ntime she would be seized with a vulgar fear that she was not \"married\nproperly,\" and that her social position in the next world might be as\nobscure as it was in this. It might be safer to do the thing thoroughly,\nand one day she took the advice of Spiridione and joined the Roman\nCatholic Church, or as she called it, \"Santa Deodata's.\" Gino approved;\nhe, too, thought it safer, and it was fun confessing, though the priest\nwas a stupid old man, and the whole thing was a good slap in the face\nfor the people at home.\n\nThe people at home took the slap very soberly; indeed, there were few\nleft for her to give it to. The Herritons were out of the question;\nthey would not even let her write to Irma, though Irma was occasionally\nallowed to write to her. Mrs. Theobald was rapidly subsiding into\ndotage, and, as far as she could be definite about anything, had\ndefinitely sided with the Herritons. And Miss Abbott did likewise. Night\nafter night did Lilia curse this false friend, who had agreed with her\nthat the marriage would \"do,\" and that the Herritons would come round to\nit, and then, at the first hint of opposition, had fled back to England\nshrieking and distraught. Miss Abbott headed the long list of those who\nshould never be written to, and who should never be forgiven. Almost\nthe only person who was not on that list was Mr. Kingcroft, who had\nunexpectedly sent an affectionate and inquiring letter. He was quite\nsure never to cross the Channel, and Lilia drew freely on her fancy in\nthe reply.\n\nAt first she had seen a few English people, for Monteriano was not the\nend of the earth. One or two inquisitive ladies, who had heard at home\nof her quarrel with the Herritons, came to call. She was very sprightly,\nand they thought her quite unconventional, and Gino a charming boy, so\nall that was to the good. But by May the season, such as it was, had\nfinished, and there would be no one till next spring. As Mrs. Herriton\nhad often observed, Lilia had no resources. She did not like music, or\nreading, or work. Her one qualification for life was rather blowsy\nhigh spirits, which turned querulous or boisterous according to\ncircumstances. She was not obedient, but she was cowardly, and in the\nmost gentle way, which Mrs. Herriton might have envied, Gino made her do\nwhat he wanted. At first it had been rather fun to let him get the upper\nhand. But it was galling to discover that he could not do otherwise. He\nhad a good strong will when he chose to use it, and would not have had\nthe least scruple in using bolts and locks to put it into effect. There\nwas plenty of brutality deep down in him, and one day Lilia nearly\ntouched it.\n\nIt was the old question of going out alone.\n\n\"I always do it in England.\"\n\n\"This is Italy.\"\n\n\"Yes, but I'm older than you, and I'll settle.\"\n\n\"I am your husband,\" he said, smiling. They had finished their mid-day\nmeal, and he wanted to go and sleep. Nothing would rouse him up, until\nat last Lilia, getting more and more angry, said, \"And I've got the\nmoney.\"\n\nHe looked horrified.\n\nNow was the moment to assert herself. She made the statement again. He\ngot up from his chair.\n\n\"And you'd better mend your manners,\" she continued, \"for you'd find it\nawkward if I stopped drawing cheques.\"\n\nShe was no reader of character, but she quickly became alarmed. As she\nsaid to Perfetta afterwards, \"None of his clothes seemed to fit--too\nbig in one place, too small in another.\" His figure rather than his face\naltered, the shoulders falling forward till his coat wrinkled across the\nback and pulled away from his wrists. He seemed all arms. He edged round\nthe table to where she was sitting, and she sprang away and held the\nchair between them, too frightened to speak or to move. He looked at her\nwith round, expressionless eyes, and slowly stretched out his left hand.\n\nPerfetta was heard coming up from the kitchen. It seemed to wake him up,\nand he turned away and went to his room without a word.\n\n\"What has happened?\" cried Lilia, nearly fainting. \"He is ill--ill.\"\n\nPerfetta looked suspicious when she heard the account. \"What did you say\nto him?\" She crossed herself.\n\n\"Hardly anything,\" said Lilia and crossed herself also. Thus did the two\nwomen pay homage to their outraged male.\n\nIt was clear to Lilia at last that Gino had married her for money. But\nhe had frightened her too much to leave any place for contempt. His\nreturn was terrifying, for he was frightened too, imploring her pardon,\nlying at her feet, embracing her, murmuring \"It was not I,\" striving to\ndefine things which he did not understand. He stopped in the house\nfor three days, positively ill with physical collapse. But for all his\nsuffering he had tamed her, and she never threatened to cut off supplies\nagain.\n\nPerhaps he kept her even closer than convention demanded. But he was\nvery young, and he could not bear it to be said of him that he did\nnot know how to treat a lady--or to manage a wife. And his own social\nposition was uncertain. Even in England a dentist is a troublesome\ncreature, whom careful people find difficult to class. He hovers between\nthe professions and the trades; he may be only a little lower than the\ndoctors, or he may be down among the chemists, or even beneath them. The\nson of the Italian dentist felt this too. For himself nothing mattered;\nhe made friends with the people he liked, for he was that glorious\ninvariable creature, a man. But his wife should visit nowhere rather\nthan visit wrongly: seclusion was both decent and safe. The social\nideals of North and South had had their brief contention, and this time\nthe South had won.\n\nIt would have been well if he had been as strict over his own behaviour\nas he was over hers. But the incongruity never occurred to him for\na moment. His morality was that of the average Latin, and as he was\nsuddenly placed in the position of a gentleman, he did not see why he\nshould not behave as such. Of course, had Lilia been different--had\nshe asserted herself and got a grip on his character--he might\npossibly--though not probably--have been made a better husband as well\nas a better man, and at all events he could have adopted the attitude of\nthe Englishman, whose standard is higher even when his practice is the\nsame. But had Lilia been different she might not have married him.\n\nThe discovery of his infidelity--which she made by accident--destroyed\nsuch remnants of self-satisfaction as her life might yet possess. She\nbroke down utterly and sobbed and cried in Perfetta's arms. Perfetta was\nkind and even sympathetic, but cautioned her on no account to speak to\nGino, who would be furious if he was suspected. And Lilia agreed, partly\nbecause she was afraid of him, partly because it was, after all, the\nbest and most dignified thing to do. She had given up everything for\nhim--her daughter, her relatives, her friends, all the little comforts\nand luxuries of a civilized life--and even if she had the courage to\nbreak away, there was no one who would receive her now. The Herritons\nhad been almost malignant in their efforts against her, and all her\nfriends had one by one fallen off. So it was better to live on humbly,\ntrying not to feel, endeavouring by a cheerful demeanour to put things\nright. \"Perhaps,\" she thought, \"if I have a child he will be different.\nI know he wants a son.\"\n\nLilia had achieved pathos despite herself, for there are some situations\nin which vulgarity counts no longer. Not Cordelia nor Imogen more\ndeserves our tears.\n\nShe herself cried frequently, making herself look plain and old, which\ndistressed her husband. He was particularly kind to her when he hardly\never saw her, and she accepted his kindness without resentment, even\nwith gratitude, so docile had she become. She did not hate him, even as\nshe had never loved him; with her it was only when she was excited that\nthe semblance of either passion arose. People said she was headstrong,\nbut really her weak brain left her cold.\n\nSuffering, however, is more independent of temperament, and the wisest\nof women could hardly have suffered more.\n\nAs for Gino, he was quite as boyish as ever, and carried his iniquities\nlike a feather. A favourite speech of his was, \"Ah, one ought to marry!\nSpiridione is wrong; I must persuade him. Not till marriage does one\nrealize the pleasures and the possibilities of life.\" So saying, he\nwould take down his felt hat, strike it in the right place as infallibly\nas a German strikes his in the wrong place, and leave her.\n\nOne evening, when he had gone out thus, Lilia could stand it no longer.\nIt was September. Sawston would be just filling up after the summer\nholidays. People would be running in and out of each other's houses\nall along the road. There were bicycle gymkhanas, and on the 30th Mrs.\nHerriton would be holding the annual bazaar in her garden for the C.M.S.\nIt seemed impossible that such a free, happy life could exist. She\nwalked out on to the loggia. Moonlight and stars in a soft purple sky.\nThe walls of Monteriano should be glorious on such a night as this. But\nthe house faced away from them.\n\nPerfetta was banging in the kitchen, and the stairs down led past the\nkitchen door. But the stairs up to the attic--the stairs no one ever\nused--opened out of the living-room, and by unlocking the door at the\ntop one might slip out to the square terrace above the house, and thus\nfor ten minutes walk in freedom and peace.\n\nThe key was in the pocket of Gino's best suit--the English check--which\nhe never wore. The stairs creaked and the key-hole screamed; but\nPerfetta was growing deaf. The walls were beautiful, but as they faced\nwest they were in shadow. To see the light upon them she must walk round\nthe town a little, till they were caught by the beams of the rising\nmoon. She looked anxiously at the house, and started.\n\nIt was easy walking, for a little path ran all outside the ramparts.\nThe few people she met wished her a civil good-night, taking her, in her\nhatless condition, for a peasant. The walls trended round towards the\nmoon; and presently she came into its light, and saw all the rough\ntowers turn into pillars of silver and black, and the ramparts\ninto cliffs of pearl. She had no great sense of beauty, but she was\nsentimental, and she began to cry; for here, where a great cypress\ninterrupted the monotony of the girdle of olives, she had sat with Gino\none afternoon in March, her head upon his shoulder, while Caroline was\nlooking at the view and sketching. Round the corner was the Siena gate,\nfrom which the road to England started, and she could hear the rumble of\nthe diligence which was going down to catch the night train to Empoli.\nThe next moment it was upon her, for the highroad came towards her a\nlittle before it began its long zigzag down the hill.\n\nThe driver slackened, and called to her to get in. He did not know who\nshe was. He hoped she might be coming to the station.\n\n\"Non vengo!\" she cried.\n\nHe wished her good-night, and turned his horses down the corner. As the\ndiligence came round she saw that it was empty.\n\n\"Vengo...\"\n\nHer voice was tremulous, and did not carry. The horses swung off.\n\n\"Vengo! Vengo!\"\n\nHe had begun to sing, and heard nothing. She ran down the road screaming\nto him to stop--that she was coming; while the distance grew greater\nand the noise of the diligence increased. The man's back was black and\nsquare against the moon, and if he would but turn for an instant she\nwould be saved. She tried to cut off the corner of the zigzag, stumbling\nover the great clods of earth, large and hard as rocks, which lay\nbetween the eternal olives. She was too late; for, just before she\nregained the road, the thing swept past her, thunderous, ploughing up\nchoking clouds of moonlit dust.\n\nShe did not call any more, for she felt very ill, and fainted; and when\nshe revived she was lying in the road, with dust in her eyes, and dust\nin her mouth, and dust down her ears. There is something very terrible\nin dust at night-time.\n\n\"What shall I do?\" she moaned. \"He will be so angry.\"\n\nAnd without further effort she slowly climbed back to captivity, shaking\nher garments as she went.\n\nIll luck pursued her to the end. It was one of the nights when Gino\nhappened to come in. He was in the kitchen, swearing and smashing\nplates, while Perfetta, her apron over her head, was weeping violently.\nAt the sight of Lilia he turned upon her and poured forth a flood of\nmiscellaneous abuse. He was far more angry but much less alarming than\nhe had been that day when he edged after her round the table. And Lilia\ngained more courage from her bad conscience than she ever had from her\ngood one, for as he spoke she was seized with indignation and feared him\nno longer, and saw him for a cruel, worthless, hypocritical, dissolute\nupstart, and spoke in return.\n\nPerfetta screamed for she told him everything--all she knew and all\nshe thought. He stood with open mouth, all the anger gone out of\nhim, feeling ashamed, and an utter fool. He was fairly and rightfully\ncornered. When had a husband so given himself away before? She finished;\nand he was dumb, for she had spoken truly. Then, alas! the absurdity of\nhis own position grew upon him, and he laughed--as he would have laughed\nat the same situation on the stage.\n\n\"You laugh?\" stammered Lilia.\n\n\"Ah!\" he cried, \"who could help it? I, who thought you knew and saw\nnothing--I am tricked--I am conquered. I give in. Let us talk of it no\nmore.\"\n\nHe touched her on the shoulder like a good comrade, half amused and half\npenitent, and then, murmuring and smiling to himself, ran quietly out of\nthe room.\n\nPerfetta burst into congratulations. \"What courage you have!\" she cried;\n\"and what good fortune! He is angry no longer! He has forgiven you!\"\n\nNeither Perfetta, nor Gino, nor Lilia herself knew the true reason of\nall the misery that followed. To the end he thought that kindness and a\nlittle attention would be enough to set things straight. His wife was\na very ordinary woman, and why should her ideas differ from his own?\nNo one realized that more than personalities were engaged; that the\nstruggle was national; that generations of ancestors, good, bad, or\nindifferent, forbad the Latin man to be chivalrous to the northern\nwoman, the northern woman to forgive the Latin man. All this might have\nbeen foreseen: Mrs. Herriton foresaw it from the first.\n\nMeanwhile Lilia prided herself on her high personal standard, and Gino\nsimply wondered why she did not come round. He hated discomfort and\nyearned for sympathy, but shrank from mentioning his difficulties in the\ntown in case they were put down to his own incompetence. Spiridione was\ntold, and replied in a philosophical but not very helpful letter. His\nother great friend, whom he trusted more, was still serving in Eritrea\nor some other desolate outpost. And, besides, what was the good of\nletters? Friends cannot travel through the post.\n\nLilia, so similar to her husband in many ways, yearned for comfort and\nsympathy too. The night he laughed at her she wildly took up paper and\npen and wrote page after page, analysing his character, enumerating his\niniquities, reporting whole conversations, tracing all the causes and\nthe growth of her misery. She was beside herself with passion,\nand though she could hardly think or see, she suddenly attained to\nmagnificence and pathos which a practised stylist might have envied. It\nwas written like a diary, and not till its conclusion did she realize\nfor whom it was meant.\n\n\"Irma, darling Irma, this letter is for you. I almost forgot I have a\ndaughter. It will make you unhappy, but I want you to know everything,\nand you cannot learn things too soon. God bless you, my dearest, and\nsave you. God bless your miserable mother.\"\n\nFortunately Mrs. Herriton was in when the letter arrived. She seized\nit and opened it in her bedroom. Another moment, and Irma's placid\nchildhood would have been destroyed for ever.\n\nLilia received a brief note from Harriet, again forbidding direct\ncommunication between mother and daughter, and concluding with formal\ncondolences. It nearly drove her mad.\n\n\"Gently! gently!\" said her husband. They were sitting together on the\nloggia when the letter arrived. He often sat with her now, watching her\nfor hours, puzzled and anxious, but not contrite.\n\n\"It's nothing.\" She went in and tore it up, and then began to write--a\nvery short letter, whose gist was \"Come and save me.\"\n\nIt is not good to see your wife crying when she writes--especially if\nyou are conscious that, on the whole, your treatment of her has been\nreasonable and kind. It is not good, when you accidentally look over her\nshoulder, to see that she is writing to a man. Nor should she shake her\nfist at you when she leaves the room, under the impression that you are\nengaged in lighting a cigar and cannot see her.\n\nLilia went to the post herself. But in Italy so many things can be\narranged. The postman was a friend of Gino's, and Mr. Kingcroft never\ngot his letter.\n\nSo she gave up hope, became ill, and all through the autumn lay in bed.\nGino was distracted. She knew why; he wanted a son. He could talk and\nthink of nothing else. His one desire was to become the father of a man\nlike himself, and it held him with a grip he only partially understood,\nfor it was the first great desire, the first great passion of his life.\nFalling in love was a mere physical triviality, like warm sun or cool\nwater, beside this divine hope of immortality: \"I continue.\" He gave\ncandles to Santa Deodata, for he was always religious at a crisis, and\nsometimes he went to her himself and prayed the crude uncouth demands of\nthe simple. Impetuously he summoned all his relatives back to bear him\ncompany in his time of need, and Lilia saw strange faces flitting past\nher in the darkened room.\n\n\"My love!\" he would say, \"my dearest Lilia! Be calm. I have never loved\nany one but you.\"\n\nShe, knowing everything, would only smile gently, too broken by\nsuffering to make sarcastic repartees.\n\nBefore the child was born he gave her a kiss, and said, \"I have prayed\nall night for a boy.\"\n\nSome strangely tender impulse moved her, and she said faintly, \"You are\na boy yourself, Gino.\"\n\nHe answered, \"Then we shall be brothers.\"\n\nHe lay outside the room with his head against the door like a dog. When\nthey came to tell him the glad news they found him half unconscious, and\nhis face was wet with tears.\n\nAs for Lilia, some one said to her, \"It is a beautiful boy!\" But she had\ndied in giving birth to him.\n\n\n\nChapter 5\n\nAt the time of Lilia's death Philip Herriton was just twenty-four years\nof age--indeed the news reached Sawston on his birthday. He was a tall,\nweakly-built young man, whose clothes had to be judiciously padded\non the shoulders in order to make him pass muster. His face was plain\nrather than not, and there was a curious mixture in it of good and bad.\nHe had a fine forehead and a good large nose, and both observation\nand sympathy were in his eyes. But below the nose and eyes all was\nconfusion, and those people who believe that destiny resides in the\nmouth and chin shook their heads when they looked at him.\n\nPhilip himself, as a boy, had been keenly conscious of these defects.\nSometimes when he had been bullied or hustled about at school he would\nretire to his cubicle and examine his features in a looking-glass, and\nhe would sigh and say, \"It is a weak face. I shall never carve a place\nfor myself in the world.\" But as years went on he became either less\nself-conscious or more self-satisfied. The world, he found, made a\nniche for him as it did for every one. Decision of character might come\nlater--or he might have it without knowing. At all events he had got\na sense of beauty and a sense of humour, two most desirable gifts. The\nsense of beauty developed first. It caused him at the age of twenty to\nwear parti-coloured ties and a squashy hat, to be late for dinner on\naccount of the sunset, and to catch art from Burne-Jones to Praxiteles.\nAt twenty-two he went to Italy with some cousins, and there he absorbed\ninto one aesthetic whole olive-trees, blue sky, frescoes, country inns,\nsaints, peasants, mosaics, statues, beggars. He came back with the air\nof a prophet who would either remodel Sawston or reject it. All the\nenergies and enthusiasms of a rather friendless life had passed into the\nchampionship of beauty.\n\nIn a short time it was over. Nothing had happened either in Sawston or\nwithin himself. He had shocked half-a-dozen people, squabbled with his\nsister, and bickered with his mother. He concluded that nothing could\nhappen, not knowing that human love and love of truth sometimes conquer\nwhere love of beauty fails.\n\nA little disenchanted, a little tired, but aesthetically intact, he\nresumed his placid life, relying more and more on his second gift, the\ngift of humour. If he could not reform the world, he could at all\nevents laugh at it, thus attaining at least an intellectual superiority.\nLaughter, he read and believed, was a sign of good moral health, and he\nlaughed on contentedly, till Lilia's marriage toppled contentment down\nfor ever. Italy, the land of beauty, was ruined for him. She had no\npower to change men and things who dwelt in her. She, too, could produce\navarice, brutality, stupidity--and, what was worse, vulgarity. It was on\nher soil and through her influence that a silly woman had married a cad.\nHe hated Gino, the betrayer of his life's ideal, and now that the sordid\ntragedy had come, it filled him with pangs, not of sympathy, but of\nfinal disillusion.\n\nThe disillusion was convenient for Mrs. Herriton, who saw a trying\nlittle period ahead of her, and was glad to have her family united.\n\n\"Are we to go into mourning, do you think?\" She always asked her\nchildren's advice where possible.\n\nHarriet thought that they should. She had been detestable to Lilia\nwhile she lived, but she always felt that the dead deserve attention\nand sympathy. \"After all she has suffered. That letter kept me awake for\nnights. The whole thing is like one of those horrible modern plays where\nno one is in 'the right.' But if we have mourning, it will mean telling\nIrma.\"\n\n\"Of course we must tell Irma!\" said Philip.\n\n\"Of course,\" said his mother. \"But I think we can still not tell her\nabout Lilia's marriage.\"\n\n\"I don't think that. And she must have suspected something by now.\"\n\n\"So one would have supposed. But she never cared for her mother, and\nlittle girls of nine don't reason clearly. She looks on it as a long\nvisit. And it is important, most important, that she should not receive\na shock. All a child's life depends on the ideal it has of its parents.\nDestroy that and everything goes--morals, behaviour, everything.\nAbsolute trust in some one else is the essence of education. That is why\nI have been so careful about talking of poor Lilia before her.\"\n\n\"But you forget this wretched baby. Waters and Adamson write that there\nis a baby.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Theobald must be told. But she doesn't count. She is breaking\nup very quickly. She doesn't even see Mr. Kingcroft now. He, thank\ngoodness, I hear, has at last consoled himself with someone else.\"\n\n\"The child must know some time,\" persisted Philip, who felt a little\ndispleased, though he could not tell with what.\n\n\"The later the better. Every moment she is developing.\"\n\n\"I must say it seems rather hard luck, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"On Irma? Why?\"\n\n\"On us, perhaps. We have morals and behaviour also, and I don't think\nthis continual secrecy improves them.\"\n\n\"There's no need to twist the thing round to that,\" said Harriet, rather\ndisturbed.\n\n\"Of course there isn't,\" said her mother. \"Let's keep to the main issue.\nThis baby's quite beside the point. Mrs. Theobald will do nothing, and\nit's no concern of ours.\"\n\n\"It will make a difference in the money, surely,\" said he.\n\n\"No, dear; very little. Poor Charles provided for every kind of\ncontingency in his will. The money will come to you and Harriet, as\nIrma's guardians.\"\n\n\"Good. Does the Italian get anything?\"\n\n\"He will get all hers. But you know what that is.\"\n\n\"Good. So those are our tactics--to tell no one about the baby, not even\nMiss Abbott.\"\n\n\"Most certainly this is the proper course,\" said Mrs. Herriton,\npreferring \"course\" to \"tactics\" for Harriet's sake. \"And why ever\nshould we tell Caroline?\"\n\n\"She was so mixed up in the affair.\"\n\n\"Poor silly creature. The less she hears about it the better she will be\npleased. I have come to be very sorry for Caroline. She, if any one,\nhas suffered and been penitent. She burst into tears when I told her a\nlittle, only a little, of that terrible letter. I never saw such genuine\nremorse. We must forgive her and forget. Let the dead bury their dead.\nWe will not trouble her with them.\"\n\nPhilip saw that his mother was scarcely logical. But there was no\nadvantage in saying so. \"Here beginneth the New Life, then. Do you\nremember, mother, that was what we said when we saw Lilia off?\"\n\n\"Yes, dear; but now it is really a New Life, because we are all at\naccord. Then you were still infatuated with Italy. It may be full\nof beautiful pictures and churches, but we cannot judge a country by\nanything but its men.\"\n\n\"That is quite true,\" he said sadly. And as the tactics were now\nsettled, he went out and took an aimless and solitary walk.\n\nBy the time he came back two important things had happened. Irma had\nbeen told of her mother's death, and Miss Abbott, who had called for a\nsubscription, had been told also.\n\nIrma had wept loudly, had asked a few sensible questions and a good many\nsilly ones, and had been content with evasive answers. Fortunately the\nschool prize-giving was at hand, and that, together with the prospect of\nnew black clothes, kept her from meditating on the fact that Lilia, who\nhad been absent so long, would now be absent for ever.\n\n\"As for Caroline,\" said Mrs. Herriton, \"I was almost frightened. She\nbroke down utterly. She cried even when she left the house. I comforted\nher as best I could, and I kissed her. It is something that the breach\nbetween her and ourselves is now entirely healed.\"\n\n\"Did she ask no questions--as to the nature of Lilia's death, I mean?\"\n\n\"She did. But she has a mind of extraordinary delicacy. She saw that I\nwas reticent, and she did not press me. You see, Philip, I can say to\nyou what I could not say before Harriet. Her ideas are so crude. Really\nwe do not want it known in Sawston that there is a baby. All peace and\ncomfort would be lost if people came inquiring after it.\"\n\nHis mother knew how to manage him. He agreed enthusiastically. And a few\ndays later, when he chanced to travel up to London with Miss Abbott,\nhe had all the time the pleasant thrill of one who is better informed.\nTheir last journey together had been from Monteriano back across\nEurope. It had been a ghastly journey, and Philip, from the force of\nassociation, rather expected something ghastly now.\n\nHe was surprised. Miss Abbott, between Sawston and Charing Cross,\nrevealed qualities which he had never guessed her to possess. Without\nbeing exactly original, she did show a commendable intelligence, and\nthough at times she was gauche and even uncourtly, he felt that here was\na person whom it might be well to cultivate.\n\nAt first she annoyed him. They were talking, of course, about Lilia,\nwhen she broke the thread of vague commiseration and said abruptly, \"It\nis all so strange as well as so tragic. And what I did was as strange as\nanything.\"\n\nIt was the first reference she had ever made to her contemptible\nbehaviour. \"Never mind,\" he said. \"It's all over now. Let the dead bury\ntheir dead. It's fallen out of our lives.\"\n\n\"But that's why I can talk about it and tell you everything I have\nalways wanted to. You thought me stupid and sentimental and wicked and\nmad, but you never really knew how much I was to blame.\"\n\n\"Indeed I never think about it now,\" said Philip gently. He knew that\nher nature was in the main generous and upright: it was unnecessary for\nher to reveal her thoughts.\n\n\"The first evening we got to Monteriano,\" she persisted, \"Lilia went out\nfor a walk alone, saw that Italian in a picturesque position on a wall,\nand fell in love. He was shabbily dressed, and she did not even know\nhe was the son of a dentist. I must tell you I was used to this sort\nof thing. Once or twice before I had had to send people about their\nbusiness.\"\n\n\"Yes; we counted on you,\" said Philip, with sudden sharpness. After all,\nif she would reveal her thoughts, she must take the consequences.\n\n\"I know you did,\" she retorted with equal sharpness. \"Lilia saw him\nseveral times again, and I knew I ought to interfere. I called her to\nmy bedroom one night. She was very frightened, for she knew what it was\nabout and how severe I could be. 'Do you love this man?' I asked. 'Yes\nor no?' She said 'Yes.' And I said, 'Why don't you marry him if you\nthink you'll be happy?'\"\n\n\"Really--really,\" exploded Philip, as exasperated as if the thing had\nhappened yesterday. \"You knew Lilia all your life. Apart from everything\nelse--as if she could choose what could make her happy!\"\n\n\"Had you ever let her choose?\" she flashed out. \"I'm afraid that's\nrude,\" she added, trying to calm herself.\n\n\"Let us rather say unhappily expressed,\" said Philip, who always adopted\na dry satirical manner when he was puzzled.\n\n\"I want to finish. Next morning I found Signor Carella and said the same\nto him. He--well, he was willing. That's all.\"\n\n\"And the telegram?\" He looked scornfully out of the window.\n\nHitherto her voice had been hard, possibly in self-accusation, possibly\nin defiance. Now it became unmistakably sad. \"Ah, the telegram! That was\nwrong. Lilia there was more cowardly than I was. We should have told the\ntruth. It lost me my nerve, at all events. I came to the station meaning\nto tell you everything then. But we had started with a lie, and I got\nfrightened. And at the end, when you left, I got frightened again and\ncame with you.\"\n\n\"Did you really mean to stop?\"\n\n\"For a time, at all events.\"\n\n\"Would that have suited a newly married pair?\"\n\n\"It would have suited them. Lilia needed me. And as for him--I can't\nhelp feeling I might have got influence over him.\"\n\n\"I am ignorant of these matters,\" said Philip; \"but I should have\nthought that would have increased the difficulty of the situation.\"\n\nThe crisp remark was wasted on her. She looked hopelessly at the raw\nover-built country, and said, \"Well, I have explained.\"\n\n\"But pardon me, Miss Abbott; of most of your conduct you have given a\ndescription rather than an explanation.\"\n\nHe had fairly caught her, and expected that she would gape and collapse.\nTo his surprise she answered with some spirit, \"An explanation may bore\nyou, Mr. Herriton: it drags in other topics.\"\n\n\"Oh, never mind.\"\n\n\"I hated Sawston, you see.\"\n\nHe was delighted. \"So did and do I. That's splendid. Go on.\"\n\n\"I hated the idleness, the stupidity, the respectability, the petty\nunselfishness.\"\n\n\"Petty selfishness,\" he corrected. Sawston psychology had long been his\nspecialty.\n\n\"Petty unselfishness,\" she repeated. \"I had got an idea that every one\nhere spent their lives in making little sacrifices for objects they\ndidn't care for, to please people they didn't love; that they never\nlearnt to be sincere--and, what's as bad, never learnt how to enjoy\nthemselves. That's what I thought--what I thought at Monteriano.\"\n\n\"Why, Miss Abbott,\" he cried, \"you should have told me this before!\nThink it still! I agree with lots of it. Magnificent!\"\n\n\"Now Lilia,\" she went on, \"though there were things about her I didn't\nlike, had somehow kept the power of enjoying herself with sincerity. And\nGino, I thought, was splendid, and young, and strong not only in body,\nand sincere as the day. If they wanted to marry, why shouldn't they do\nso? Why shouldn't she break with the deadening life where she had got\ninto a groove, and would go on in it, getting more and more--worse\nthan unhappy--apathetic till she died? Of course I was wrong. She only\nchanged one groove for another--a worse groove. And as for him--well,\nyou know more about him than I do. I can never trust myself to judge\ncharacters again. But I still feel he cannot have been quite bad when\nwe first met him. Lilia--that I should dare to say it!--must have been\ncowardly. He was only a boy--just going to turn into something fine,\nI thought--and she must have mismanaged him. So that is the one time I\nhave gone against what is proper, and there are the results. You have an\nexplanation now.\"\n\n\"And much of it has been most interesting, though I don't understand\neverything. Did you never think of the disparity of their social\nposition?\"\n\n\"We were mad--drunk with rebellion. We had no common-sense. As soon as\nyou came, you saw and foresaw everything.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't think that.\" He was vaguely displeased at being credited\nwith common-sense. For a moment Miss Abbott had seemed to him more\nunconventional than himself.\n\n\"I hope you see,\" she concluded, \"why I have troubled you with this long\nstory. Women--I heard you say the other day--are never at ease till they\ntell their faults out loud. Lilia is dead and her husband gone to\nthe bad--all through me. You see, Mr. Herriton, it makes me specially\nunhappy; it's the only time I've ever gone into what my father calls\n'real life'--and look what I've made of it! All that winter I seemed to\nbe waking up to beauty and splendour and I don't know what; and when the\nspring came, I wanted to fight against the things I hated--mediocrity\nand dulness and spitefulness and society. I actually hated society for\na day or two at Monteriano. I didn't see that all these things are\ninvincible, and that if we go against them they will break us to pieces.\nThank you for listening to so much nonsense.\"\n\n\"Oh, I quite sympathize with what you say,\" said Philip encouragingly;\n\"it isn't nonsense, and a year or two ago I should have been saying it\ntoo. But I feel differently now, and I hope that you also will change.\nSociety is invincible--to a certain degree. But your real life is your\nown, and nothing can touch it. There is no power on earth that can\nprevent your criticizing and despising mediocrity--nothing that can stop\nyou retreating into splendour and beauty--into the thoughts and beliefs\nthat make the real life--the real you.\"\n\n\"I have never had that experience yet. Surely I and my life must be\nwhere I live.\"\n\nEvidently she had the usual feminine incapacity for grasping philosophy.\nBut she had developed quite a personality, and he must see more of her.\n\"There is another great consolation against invincible mediocrity,\" he\nsaid--\"the meeting a fellow-victim. I hope that this is only the first\nof many discussions that we shall have together.\"\n\nShe made a suitable reply. The train reached Charing Cross, and they\nparted,--he to go to a matinee, she to buy petticoats for the corpulent\npoor. Her thoughts wandered as she bought them: the gulf between herself\nand Mr. Herriton, which she had always known to be great, now seemed to\nher immeasurable.\n\nThese events and conversations took place at Christmas-time. The\nNew Life initiated by them lasted some seven months. Then a little\nincident--a mere little vexatious incident--brought it to its close.\n\nIrma collected picture post-cards, and Mrs. Herriton or Harriet always\nglanced first at all that came, lest the child should get hold of\nsomething vulgar. On this occasion the subject seemed perfectly\ninoffensive--a lot of ruined factory chimneys--and Harriet was about to\nhand it to her niece when her eye was caught by the words on the margin.\nShe gave a shriek and flung the card into the grate. Of course no fire\nwas alight in July, and Irma only had to run and pick it out again.\n\n\"How dare you!\" screamed her aunt. \"You wicked girl! Give it here!\"\n\nUnfortunately Mrs. Herriton was out of the room. Irma, who was not in\nawe of Harriet, danced round the table, reading as she did so, \"View of\nthe superb city of Monteriano--from your lital brother.\"\n\nStupid Harriet caught her, boxed her ears, and tore the post-card into\nfragments. Irma howled with pain, and began shouting indignantly, \"Who\nis my little brother? Why have I never heard of him before? Grandmamma!\nGrandmamma! Who is my little brother? Who is my--\"\n\nMrs. Herriton swept into the room, saying, \"Come with me, dear, and I\nwill tell you. Now it is time for you to know.\"\n\nIrma returned from the interview sobbing, though, as a matter of\nfact, she had learnt very little. But that little took hold of her\nimagination. She had promised secrecy--she knew not why. But what harm\nin talking of the little brother to those who had heard of him already?\n\n\"Aunt Harriet!\" she would say. \"Uncle Phil! Grandmamma! What do you\nsuppose my little brother is doing now? Has he begun to play? Do Italian\nbabies talk sooner than us, or would he be an English baby born\nabroad? Oh, I do long to see him, and be the first to teach him the Ten\nCommandments and the Catechism.\"\n\nThe last remark always made Harriet look grave.\n\n\"Really,\" exclaimed Mrs. Herriton, \"Irma is getting too tiresome. She\nforgot poor Lilia soon enough.\"\n\n\"A living brother is more to her than a dead mother,\" said Philip\ndreamily. \"She can knit him socks.\"\n\n\"I stopped that. She is bringing him in everywhere. It is most\nvexatious. The other night she asked if she might include him in the\npeople she mentions specially in her prayers.\"\n\n\"What did you say?\"\n\n\"Of course I allowed her,\" she replied coldly. \"She has a right to\nmention any one she chooses. But I was annoyed with her this morning,\nand I fear that I showed it.\"\n\n\"And what happened this morning?\"\n\n\"She asked if she could pray for her 'new father'--for the Italian!\"\n\n\"Did you let her?\"\n\n\"I got up without saying anything.\"\n\n\"You must have felt just as you did when I wanted to pray for the\ndevil.\"\n\n\"He is the devil,\" cried Harriet.\n\n\"No, Harriet; he is too vulgar.\"\n\n\"I will thank you not to scoff against religion!\" was Harriet's retort.\n\"Think of that poor baby. Irma is right to pray for him. What an\nentrance into life for an English child!\"\n\n\"My dear sister, I can reassure you. Firstly, the beastly baby is\nItalian. Secondly, it was promptly christened at Santa Deodata's, and a\npowerful combination of saints watch over--\"\n\n\"Don't, dear. And, Harriet, don't be so serious--I mean not so serious\nwhen you are with Irma. She will be worse than ever if she thinks we\nhave something to hide.\"\n\nHarriet's conscience could be quite as tiresome as Philip's\nunconventionality. Mrs. Herriton soon made it easy for her daughter to\ngo for six weeks to the Tirol. Then she and Philip began to grapple with\nIrma alone.\n\nJust as they had got things a little quiet the beastly baby sent another\npicture post-card--a comic one, not particularly proper. Irma received\nit while they were out, and all the trouble began again.\n\n\"I cannot think,\" said Mrs. Herriton, \"what his motive is in sending\nthem.\"\n\nTwo years before, Philip would have said that the motive was to give\npleasure. Now he, like his mother, tried to think of something sinister\nand subtle.\n\n\"Do you suppose that he guesses the situation--how anxious we are to\nhush the scandal up?\"\n\n\"That is quite possible. He knows that Irma will worry us about the\nbaby. Perhaps he hopes that we shall adopt it to quiet her.\"\n\n\"Hopeful indeed.\"\n\n\"At the same time he has the chance of corrupting the child's morals.\"\nShe unlocked a drawer, took out the post-card, and regarded it gravely.\n\"He entreats her to send the baby one,\" was her next remark.\n\n\"She might do it too!\"\n\n\"I told her not to; but we must watch her carefully, without, of course,\nappearing to be suspicious.\"\n\nPhilip was getting to enjoy his mother's diplomacy. He did not think of\nhis own morals and behaviour any more.\n\n\"Who's to watch her at school, though? She may bubble out any moment.\"\n\n\"We can but trust to our influence,\" said Mrs. Herriton.\n\nIrma did bubble out, that very day. She was proof against a single\npost-card, not against two. A new little brother is a valuable\nsentimental asset to a school-girl, and her school was then passing\nthrough an acute phase of baby-worship. Happy the girl who had her\nquiver full of them, who kissed them when she left home in the morning,\nwho had the right to extricate them from mail-carts in the interval, who\ndangled them at tea ere they retired to rest! That one might sing\nthe unwritten song of Miriam, blessed above all school-girls, who was\nallowed to hide her baby brother in a squashy place, where none but\nherself could find him!\n\nHow could Irma keep silent when pretentious girls spoke of baby cousins\nand baby visitors--she who had a baby brother, who wrote her post-cards\nthrough his dear papa? She had promised not to tell about him--she knew\nnot why--and she told. And one girl told another, and one girl told her\nmother, and the thing was out.\n\n\"Yes, it is all very sad,\" Mrs. Herriton kept saying. \"My\ndaughter-in-law made a very unhappy marriage, as I dare say you know.\nI suppose that the child will be educated in Italy. Possibly his\ngrandmother may be doing something, but I have not heard of it. I do not\nexpect that she will have him over. She disapproves of the father. It is\naltogether a painful business for her.\"\n\nShe was careful only to scold Irma for disobedience--that eighth deadly\nsin, so convenient to parents and guardians. Harriet would have plunged\ninto needless explanations and abuse. The child was ashamed, and talked\nabout the baby less. The end of the school year was at hand, and she\nhoped to get another prize. But she also had put her hand to the wheel.\n\nIt was several days before they saw Miss Abbott. Mrs. Herriton had not\ncome across her much since the kiss of reconciliation, nor Philip since\nthe journey to London. She had, indeed, been rather a disappointment to\nhim. Her creditable display of originality had never been repeated:\nhe feared she was slipping back. Now she came about the Cottage\nHospital--her life was devoted to dull acts of charity--and though she\ngot money out of him and out of his mother, she still sat tight in her\nchair, looking graver and more wooden than ever.\n\n\"I dare say you have heard,\" said Mrs. Herriton, well knowing what the\nmatter was.\n\n\"Yes, I have. I came to ask you; have any steps been taken?\"\n\nPhilip was astonished. The question was impertinent in the extreme. He\nhad a regard for Miss Abbott, and regretted that she had been guilty of\nit.\n\n\"About the baby?\" asked Mrs. Herriton pleasantly.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"As far as I know, no steps. Mrs. Theobald may have decided on\nsomething, but I have not heard of it.\"\n\n\"I was meaning, had you decided on anything?\"\n\n\"The child is no relation of ours,\" said Philip. \"It is therefore\nscarcely for us to interfere.\"\n\nHis mother glanced at him nervously. \"Poor Lilia was almost a daughter\nto me once. I know what Miss Abbott means. But now things have altered.\nAny initiative would naturally come from Mrs. Theobald.\"\n\n\"But does not Mrs. Theobald always take any initiative from you?\" asked\nMiss Abbott.\n\nMrs. Herriton could not help colouring. \"I sometimes have given her\nadvice in the past. I should not presume to do so now.\"\n\n\"Then is nothing to be done for the child at all?\"\n\n\"It is extraordinarily good of you to take this unexpected interest,\"\nsaid Philip.\n\n\"The child came into the world through my negligence,\" replied Miss\nAbbott. \"It is natural I should take an interest in it.\"\n\n\"My dear Caroline,\" said Mrs. Herriton, \"you must not brood over the\nthing. Let bygones be bygones. The child should worry you even less than\nit worries us. We never even mention it. It belongs to another world.\"\n\nMiss Abbott got up without replying and turned to go. Her extreme\ngravity made Mrs. Herriton uneasy. \"Of course,\" she added, \"if Mrs.\nTheobald decides on any plan that seems at all practicable--I must say\nI don't see any such--I shall ask if I may join her in it, for Irma's\nsake, and share in any possible expenses.\"\n\n\"Please would you let me know if she decides on anything. I should like\nto join as well.\"\n\n\"My dear, how you throw about your money! We would never allow it.\"\n\n\"And if she decides on nothing, please also let me know. Let me know in\nany case.\"\n\nMrs. Herriton made a point of kissing her.\n\n\"Is the young person mad?\" burst out Philip as soon as she had departed.\n\"Never in my life have I seen such colossal impertinence. She ought to\nbe well smacked, and sent back to Sunday-school.\"\n\nHis mother said nothing.\n\n\"But don't you see--she is practically threatening us? You can't put\nher off with Mrs. Theobald; she knows as well as we do that she is a\nnonentity. If we don't do anything she's going to raise a scandal--that\nwe neglect our relatives, &c., which is, of course, a lie. Still she'll\nsay it. Oh, dear, sweet, sober Caroline Abbott has a screw loose! We\nknew it at Monteriano. I had my suspicions last year one day in the\ntrain; and here it is again. The young person is mad.\"\n\nShe still said nothing.\n\n\"Shall I go round at once and give it her well? I'd really enjoy it.\"\n\nIn a low, serious voice--such a voice as she had not used to him for\nmonths--Mrs. Herriton said, \"Caroline has been extremely impertinent.\nYet there may be something in what she says after all. Ought the child\nto grow up in that place--and with that father?\"\n\nPhilip started and shuddered. He saw that his mother was not sincere.\nHer insincerity to others had amused him, but it was disheartening when\nused against himself.\n\n\"Let us admit frankly,\" she continued, \"that after all we may have\nresponsibilities.\"\n\n\"I don't understand you, Mother. You are turning absolutely round. What\nare you up to?\"\n\nIn one moment an impenetrable barrier had been erected between them.\nThey were no longer in smiling confidence. Mrs. Herriton was off on\ntactics of her own--tactics which might be beyond or beneath him.\n\nHis remark offended her. \"Up to? I am wondering whether I ought not to\nadopt the child. Is that sufficiently plain?\"\n\n\"And this is the result of half-a-dozen idiocies of Miss Abbott?\"\n\n\"It is. I repeat, she has been extremely impertinent. None the less\nshe is showing me my duty. If I can rescue poor Lilia's baby from that\nhorrible man, who will bring it up either as Papist or infidel--who will\ncertainly bring it up to be vicious--I shall do it.\"\n\n\"You talk like Harriet.\"\n\n\"And why not?\" said she, flushing at what she knew to be an insult.\n\"Say, if you choose, that I talk like Irma. That child has seen the\nthing more clearly than any of us. She longs for her little brother. She\nshall have him. I don't care if I am impulsive.\"\n\nHe was sure that she was not impulsive, but did not dare to say so. Her\nability frightened him. All his life he had been her puppet. She let him\nworship Italy, and reform Sawston--just as she had let Harriet be Low\nChurch. She had let him talk as much as he liked. But when she wanted a\nthing she always got it.\n\nAnd though she was frightening him, she did not inspire him with\nreverence. Her life, he saw, was without meaning. To what purpose was\nher diplomacy, her insincerity, her continued repression of vigour? Did\nthey make any one better or happier? Did they even bring happiness to\nherself? Harriet with her gloomy peevish creed, Lilia with her clutches\nafter pleasure, were after all more divine than this well-ordered,\nactive, useless machine.\n\nNow that his mother had wounded his vanity he could criticize her thus.\nBut he could not rebel. To the end of his days he could probably go on\ndoing what she wanted. He watched with a cold interest the duel between\nher and Miss Abbott. Mrs. Herriton's policy only appeared gradually. It\nwas to prevent Miss Abbott interfering with the child at all costs, and\nif possible to prevent her at a small cost. Pride was the only solid\nelement in her disposition. She could not bear to seem less charitable\nthan others.\n\n\"I am planning what can be done,\" she would tell people, \"and that kind\nCaroline Abbott is helping me. It is no business of either of us, but\nwe are getting to feel that the baby must not be left entirely to that\nhorrible man. It would be unfair to little Irma; after all, he is her\nhalf-brother. No, we have come to nothing definite.\"\n\nMiss Abbott was equally civil, but not to be appeased by good\nintentions. The child's welfare was a sacred duty to her, not a matter\nof pride or even of sentiment. By it alone, she felt, could she undo a\nlittle of the evil that she had permitted to come into the world. To her\nimagination Monteriano had become a magic city of vice, beneath\nwhose towers no person could grow up happy or pure. Sawston, with its\nsemi-detached houses and snobby schools, its book teas and bazaars, was\ncertainly petty and dull; at times she found it even contemptible. But\nit was not a place of sin, and at Sawston, either with the Herritons or\nwith herself, the baby should grow up.\n\nAs soon as it was inevitable, Mrs. Herriton wrote a letter for Waters\nand Adamson to send to Gino--the oddest letter; Philip saw a copy of\nit afterwards. Its ostensible purpose was to complain of the picture\npostcards. Right at the end, in a few nonchalant sentences, she offered\nto adopt the child, provided that Gino would undertake never to come\nnear it, and would surrender some of Lilia's money for its education.\n\n\"What do you think of it?\" she asked her son. \"It would not do to let\nhim know that we are anxious for it.\"\n\n\"Certainly he will never suppose that.\"\n\n\"But what effect will the letter have on him?\"\n\n\"When he gets it he will do a sum. If it is less expensive in the long\nrun to part with a little money and to be clear of the baby, he will\npart with it. If he would lose, he will adopt the tone of the loving\nfather.\"\n\n\"Dear, you're shockingly cynical.\" After a pause she added, \"How would\nthe sum work out?\"\n\n\"I don't know, I'm sure. But if you wanted to ensure the baby being\nposted by return, you should have sent a little sum to HIM. Oh, I'm not\ncynical--at least I only go by what I know of him. But I am weary of\nthe whole show. Weary of Italy. Weary, weary, weary. Sawston's a kind,\npitiful place, isn't it? I will go walk in it and seek comfort.\"\n\nHe smiled as he spoke, for the sake of not appearing serious. When he\nhad left her she began to smile also.\n\nIt was to the Abbotts' that he walked. Mr. Abbott offered him tea, and\nCaroline, who was keeping up her Italian in the next room, came in to\npour it out. He told them that his mother had written to Signor Carella,\nand they both uttered fervent wishes for her success.\n\n\"Very fine of Mrs. Herriton, very fine indeed,\" said Mr. Abbott,\nwho, like every one else, knew nothing of his daughter's exasperating\nbehaviour. \"I'm afraid it will mean a lot of expense. She will get\nnothing out of Italy without paying.\"\n\n\"There are sure to be incidental expenses,\" said Philip cautiously.\nThen he turned to Miss Abbott and said, \"Do you suppose we shall have\ndifficulty with the man?\"\n\n\"It depends,\" she replied, with equal caution.\n\n\"From what you saw of him, should you conclude that he would make an\naffectionate parent?\"\n\n\"I don't go by what I saw of him, but by what I know of him.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you conclude from that?\"\n\n\"That he is a thoroughly wicked man.\"\n\n\"Yet thoroughly wicked men have loved their children. Look at Rodrigo\nBorgia, for example.\"\n\n\"I have also seen examples of that in my district.\"\n\nWith this remark the admirable young woman rose, and returned to keep\nup her Italian. She puzzled Philip extremely. He could understand\nenthusiasm, but she did not seem the least enthusiastic. He could\nunderstand pure cussedness, but it did not seem to be that either.\nApparently she was deriving neither amusement nor profit from the\nstruggle. Why, then, had she undertaken it? Perhaps she was not sincere.\nPerhaps, on the whole, that was most likely. She must be professing one\nthing and aiming at another. What the other thing could be he did not\nstop to consider. Insincerity was becoming his stock explanation for\nanything unfamiliar, whether that thing was a kindly action or a high\nideal.\n\n\"She fences well,\" he said to his mother afterwards.\n\n\"What had you to fence about?\" she said suavely. Her son might know her\ntactics, but she refused to admit that he knew. She still pretended to\nhim that the baby was the one thing she wanted, and had always wanted,\nand that Miss Abbott was her valued ally.\n\nAnd when, next week, the reply came from Italy, she showed him no face\nof triumph. \"Read the letters,\" she said. \"We have failed.\"\n\nGino wrote in his own language, but the solicitors had sent a laborious\nEnglish translation, where \"Preghiatissima Signora\" was rendered\nas \"Most Praiseworthy Madam,\" and every delicate compliment and\nsuperlative--superlatives are delicate in Italian--would have felled an\nox. For a moment Philip forgot the matter in the manner; this grotesque\nmemorial of the land he had loved moved him almost to tears. He knew\nthe originals of these lumbering phrases; he also had sent \"sincere\nauguries\"; he also had addressed letters--who writes at home?--from the\nCaffe Garibaldi. \"I didn't know I was still such an ass,\" he thought.\n\"Why can't I realize that it's merely tricks of expression? A bounder's\na bounder, whether he lives in Sawston or Monteriano.\"\n\n\"Isn't it disheartening?\" said his mother.\n\nHe then read that Gino could not accept the generous offer. His paternal\nheart would not permit him to abandon this symbol of his deplored\nspouse. As for the picture post-cards, it displeased him greatly that\nthey had been obnoxious. He would send no more. Would Mrs. Herriton,\nwith her notorious kindness, explain this to Irma, and thank her for\nthose which Irma (courteous Miss!) had sent to him?\n\n\"The sum works out against us,\" said Philip. \"Or perhaps he is putting\nup the price.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mrs. Herriton decidedly. \"It is not that. For some perverse\nreason he will not part with the child. I must go and tell poor\nCaroline. She will be equally distressed.\"\n\nShe returned from the visit in the most extraordinary condition. Her\nface was red, she panted for breath, there were dark circles round her\neyes.\n\n\"The impudence!\" she shouted. \"The cursed impudence! Oh, I'm swearing.\nI don't care. That beastly woman--how dare she interfere--I'll--Philip,\ndear, I'm sorry. It's no good. You must go.\"\n\n\"Go where? Do sit down. What's happened?\" This outburst of violence from\nhis elegant ladylike mother pained him dreadfully. He had not known that\nit was in her.\n\n\"She won't accept--won't accept the letter as final. You must go to\nMonteriano!\"\n\n\"I won't!\" he shouted back. \"I've been and I've failed. I'll never see\nthe place again. I hate Italy.\"\n\n\"If you don't go, she will.\"\n\n\"Abbott?\"\n\n\"Yes. Going alone; would start this evening. I offered to write; she\nsaid it was 'too late!' Too late! The child, if you please--Irma's\nbrother--to live with her, to be brought up by her and her father at our\nvery gates, to go to school like a gentleman, she paying. Oh, you're a\nman! It doesn't matter for you. You can laugh. But I know what people\nsay; and that woman goes to Italy this evening.\"\n\nHe seemed to be inspired. \"Then let her go! Let her mess with Italy by\nherself. She'll come to grief somehow. Italy's too dangerous, too--\"\n\n\"Stop that nonsense, Philip. I will not be disgraced by her. I WILL have\nthe child. Pay all we've got for it. I will have it.\"\n\n\"Let her go to Italy!\" he cried. \"Let her meddle with what she doesn't\nunderstand! Look at this letter! The man who wrote it will marry her,\nor murder her, or do for her somehow. He's a bounder, but he's not an\nEnglish bounder. He's mysterious and terrible. He's got a country behind\nhim that's upset people from the beginning of the world.\"\n\n\"Harriet!\" exclaimed his mother. \"Harriet shall go too. Harriet, now,\nwill be invaluable!\" And before Philip had stopped talking nonsense, she\nhad planned the whole thing and was looking out the trains.\n\n\n\nChapter 6\n\nItaly, Philip had always maintained, is only her true self in the height\nof the summer, when the tourists have left her, and her soul awakes\nunder the beams of a vertical sun. He now had every opportunity of\nseeing her at her best, for it was nearly the middle of August before he\nwent out to meet Harriet in the Tirol.\n\nHe found his sister in a dense cloud five thousand feet above the sea,\nchilled to the bone, overfed, bored, and not at all unwilling to be\nfetched away.\n\n\"It upsets one's plans terribly,\" she remarked, as she squeezed out her\nsponges, \"but obviously it is my duty.\"\n\n\"Did mother explain it all to you?\" asked Philip.\n\n\"Yes, indeed! Mother has written me a really beautiful letter. She\ndescribes how it was that she gradually got to feel that we must rescue\nthe poor baby from its terrible surroundings, how she has tried by\nletter, and it is no good--nothing but insincere compliments and\nhypocrisy came back. Then she says, 'There is nothing like personal\ninfluence; you and Philip will succeed where I have failed.' She says,\ntoo, that Caroline Abbott has been wonderful.\"\n\nPhilip assented.\n\n\"Caroline feels it as keenly almost as us. That is because she knows the\nman. Oh, he must be loathsome! Goodness me! I've forgotten to pack the\nammonia!... It has been a terrible lesson for Caroline, but I fancy it\nis her turning-point. I can't help liking to think that out of all this\nevil good will come.\"\n\nPhilip saw no prospect of good, nor of beauty either. But the expedition\npromised to be highly comic. He was not averse to it any longer; he\nwas simply indifferent to all in it except the humours. These would be\nwonderful. Harriet, worked by her mother; Mrs. Herriton, worked by Miss\nAbbott; Gino, worked by a cheque--what better entertainment could he\ndesire? There was nothing to distract him this time; his sentimentality\nhad died, so had his anxiety for the family honour. He might be a\npuppet's puppet, but he knew exactly the disposition of the strings.\n\nThey travelled for thirteen hours down-hill, whilst the streams\nbroadened and the mountains shrank, and the vegetation changed, and the\npeople ceased being ugly and drinking beer, and began instead to drink\nwine and to be beautiful. And the train which had picked them at sunrise\nout of a waste of glaciers and hotels was waltzing at sunset round the\nwalls of Verona.\n\n\"Absurd nonsense they talk about the heat,\" said Philip, as they drove\nfrom the station. \"Supposing we were here for pleasure, what could be\nmore pleasurable than this?\"\n\n\"Did you hear, though, they are remarking on the cold?\" said Harriet\nnervously. \"I should never have thought it cold.\"\n\nAnd on the second day the heat struck them, like a hand laid over the\nmouth, just as they were walking to see the tomb of Juliet. From\nthat moment everything went wrong. They fled from Verona. Harriet's\nsketch-book was stolen, and the bottle of ammonia in her trunk burst\nover her prayer-book, so that purple patches appeared on all her\nclothes. Then, as she was going through Mantua at four in the morning,\nPhilip made her look out of the window because it was Virgil's\nbirthplace, and a smut flew in her eye, and Harriet with a smut in her\neye was notorious. At Bologna they stopped twenty-four hours to rest. It\nwas a FESTA, and children blew bladder whistles night and day. \"What a\nreligion!\" said Harriet. The hotel smelt, two puppies were asleep on\nher bed, and her bedroom window looked into a belfry, which saluted her\nslumbering form every quarter of an hour. Philip left his walking-stick,\nhis socks, and the Baedeker at Bologna; she only left her sponge-bag.\nNext day they crossed the Apennines with a train-sick child and a\nhot lady, who told them that never, never before had she sweated so\nprofusely. \"Foreigners are a filthy nation,\" said Harriet. \"I don't care\nif there are tunnels; open the windows.\" He obeyed, and she got another\nsmut in her eye. Nor did Florence improve matters. Eating, walking, even\na cross word would bathe them both in boiling water. Philip, who was\nslighter of build, and less conscientious, suffered less. But Harriet\nhad never been to Florence, and between the hours of eight and eleven\nshe crawled like a wounded creature through the streets, and swooned\nbefore various masterpieces of art. It was an irritable couple who took\ntickets to Monteriano.\n\n\"Singles or returns?\" said he.\n\n\"A single for me,\" said Harriet peevishly; \"I shall never get back\nalive.\"\n\n\"Sweet creature!\" said her brother, suddenly breaking down. \"How helpful\nyou will be when we come to Signor Carella!\"\n\n\"Do you suppose,\" said Harriet, standing still among a whirl of\nporters--\"do you suppose I am going to enter that man's house?\"\n\n\"Then what have you come for, pray? For ornament?\"\n\n\"To see that you do your duty.\"\n\n\"Oh, thanks!\"\n\n\"So mother told me. For goodness sake get the tickets; here comes that\nhot woman again! She has the impudence to bow.\"\n\n\"Mother told you, did she?\" said Philip wrathfully, as he went to\nstruggle for tickets at a slit so narrow that they were handed to him\nedgeways. Italy was beastly, and Florence station is the centre of\nbeastly Italy. But he had a strange feeling that he was to blame for it\nall; that a little influx into him of virtue would make the whole land\nnot beastly but amusing. For there was enchantment, he was sure of that;\nsolid enchantment, which lay behind the porters and the screaming and\nthe dust. He could see it in the terrific blue sky beneath which they\ntravelled, in the whitened plain which gripped life tighter than a\nfrost, in the exhausted reaches of the Arno, in the ruins of brown\ncastles which stood quivering upon the hills. He could see it, though\nhis head ached and his skin was twitching, though he was here as a\npuppet, and though his sister knew how he was here. There was nothing\npleasant in that journey to Monteriano station. But nothing--not even\nthe discomfort--was commonplace.\n\n\"But do people live inside?\" asked Harriet. They had exchanged\nrailway-carriage for the legno, and the legno had emerged from the\nwithered trees, and had revealed to them their destination. Philip, to\nbe annoying, answered \"No.\"\n\n\"What do they do there?\" continued Harriet, with a frown.\n\n\"There is a caffe. A prison. A theatre. A church. Walls. A view.\"\n\n\"Not for me, thank you,\" said Harriet, after a weighty pause.\n\n\"Nobody asked you, Miss, you see. Now Lilia was asked by such a nice\nyoung gentleman, with curls all over his forehead, and teeth just as\nwhite as father makes them.\" Then his manner changed. \"But, Harriet, do\nyou see nothing wonderful or attractive in that place--nothing at all?\"\n\n\"Nothing at all. It's frightful.\"\n\n\"I know it is. But it's old--awfully old.\"\n\n\"Beauty is the only test,\" said Harriet. \"At least so you told me when\nI sketched old buildings--for the sake, I suppose, of making yourself\nunpleasant.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm perfectly right. But at the same time--I don't know--so\nmany things have happened here--people have lived so hard and so\nsplendidly--I can't explain.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't think you could. It doesn't seem the best moment to begin\nyour Italy mania. I thought you were cured of it by now. Instead, will\nyou kindly tell me what you are going to do when you arrive. I do beg\nyou will not be taken unawares this time.\"\n\n\"First, Harriet, I shall settle you at the Stella d'Italia, in the\ncomfort that befits your sex and disposition. Then I shall make myself\nsome tea. After tea I shall take a book into Santa Deodata's, and read\nthere. It is always fresh and cool.\"\n\nThe martyred Harriet exclaimed, \"I'm not clever, Philip. I don't go in\nfor it, as you know. But I know what's rude. And I know what's wrong.\"\n\n\"Meaning--?\"\n\n\"You!\" she shouted, bouncing on the cushions of the legno and startling\nall the fleas. \"What's the good of cleverness if a man's murdered a\nwoman?\"\n\n\"Harriet, I am hot. To whom do you refer?\"\n\n\"He. Her. If you don't look out he'll murder you. I wish he would.\"\n\n\"Tut tut, tutlet! You'd find a corpse extraordinarily inconvenient.\"\nThen he tried to be less aggravating. \"I heartily dislike the fellow,\nbut we know he didn't murder her. In that letter, though she said a lot,\nshe never said he was physically cruel.\"\n\n\"He has murdered her. The things he did--things one can't even\nmention--\"\n\n\"Things which one must mention if one's to talk at all. And things which\none must keep in their proper place. Because he was unfaithful to his\nwife, it doesn't follow that in every way he's absolutely vile.\" He\nlooked at the city. It seemed to approve his remark.\n\n\"It's the supreme test. The man who is unchivalrous to a woman--\"\n\n\"Oh, stow it! Take it to the Back Kitchen. It's no more a supreme test\nthan anything else. The Italians never were chivalrous from the first.\nIf you condemn him for that, you'll condemn the whole lot.\"\n\n\"I condemn the whole lot.\"\n\n\"And the French as well?\"\n\n\"And the French as well.\"\n\n\"Things aren't so jolly easy,\" said Philip, more to himself than to her.\n\nBut for Harriet things were easy, though not jolly, and she turned upon\nher brother yet again. \"What about the baby, pray? You've said a lot of\nsmart things and whittled away morality and religion and I don't know\nwhat; but what about the baby? You think me a fool, but I've been\nnoticing you all today, and you haven't mentioned the baby once. You\nhaven't thought about it, even. You don't care. Philip! I shall not\nspeak to you. You are intolerable.\"\n\nShe kept her promise, and never opened her lips all the rest of the way.\nBut her eyes glowed with anger and resolution. For she was a straight,\nbrave woman, as well as a peevish one.\n\nPhilip acknowledged her reproof to be true. He did not care about the\nbaby one straw. Nevertheless, he meant to do his duty, and he was fairly\nconfident of success. If Gino would have sold his wife for a thousand\nlire, for how much less would he not sell his child? It was just a\ncommercial transaction. Why should it interfere with other things? His\neyes were fixed on the towers again, just as they had been fixed when he\ndrove with Miss Abbott. But this time his thoughts were pleasanter, for\nhe had no such grave business on his mind. It was in the spirit of the\ncultivated tourist that he approached his destination.\n\nOne of the towers, rough as any other, was topped by a cross--the tower\nof the Collegiate Church of Santa Deodata. She was a holy maiden of the\nDark Ages, the city's patron saint, and sweetness and barbarity mingle\nstrangely in her story. So holy was she that all her life she lay upon\nher back in the house of her mother, refusing to eat, refusing to play,\nrefusing to work. The devil, envious of such sanctity, tempted her in\nvarious ways. He dangled grapes above her, he showed her fascinating\ntoys, he pushed soft pillows beneath her aching head. When all proved\nvain he tripped up the mother and flung her downstairs before her very\neyes. But so holy was the saint that she never picked her mother up, but\nlay upon her back through all, and thus assured her throne in Paradise.\nShe was only fifteen when she died, which shows how much is within the\nreach of any school-girl. Those who think her life was unpractical need\nonly think of the victories upon Poggibonsi, San Gemignano, Volterra,\nSiena itself--all gained through the invocation of her name; they need\nonly look at the church which rose over her grave. The grand schemes for\na marble facade were never carried out, and it is brown unfinished stone\nuntil this day. But for the inside Giotto was summoned to decorate the\nwalls of the nave. Giotto came--that is to say, he did not come, German\nresearch having decisively proved--but at all events the nave is covered\nwith frescoes, and so are two chapels in the left transept, and the\narch into the choir, and there are scraps in the choir itself. There the\ndecoration stopped, till in the full spring of the Renaissance a\ngreat painter came to pay a few weeks' visit to his friend the Lord of\nMonteriano. In the intervals between the banquets and the discussions on\nLatin etymology and the dancing, he would stroll over to the church, and\nthere in the fifth chapel to the right he has painted two frescoes of\nthe death and burial of Santa Deodata. That is why Baedeker gives the\nplace a star.\n\nSanta Deodata was better company than Harriet, and she kept Philip in a\npleasant dream until the legno drew up at the hotel. Every one there was\nasleep, for it was still the hour when only idiots were moving. There\nwere not even any beggars about. The cabman put their bags down in the\npassage--they had left heavy luggage at the station--and strolled about\ntill he came on the landlady's room and woke her, and sent her to them.\n\nThen Harriet pronounced the monosyllable \"Go!\"\n\n\"Go where?\" asked Philip, bowing to the landlady, who was swimming down\nthe stairs.\n\n\"To the Italian. Go.\"\n\n\"Buona sera, signora padrona. Si ritorna volontieri a Monteriano!\"\n(Don't be a goose. I'm not going now. You're in the way, too.) \"Vorrei\ndue camere--\"\n\n\"Go. This instant. Now. I'll stand it no longer. Go!\"\n\n\"I'm damned if I'll go. I want my tea.\"\n\n\"Swear if you like!\" she cried. \"Blaspheme! Abuse me! But understand,\nI'm in earnest.\"\n\n\"Harriet, don't act. Or act better.\"\n\n\"We've come here to get the baby back, and for nothing else. I'll not\nhave this levity and slackness, and talk about pictures and churches.\nThink of mother; did she send you out for THEM?\"\n\n\"Think of mother and don't straddle across the stairs. Let the cabman\nand the landlady come down, and let me go up and choose rooms.\"\n\n\"I shan't.\"\n\n\"Harriet, are you mad?\"\n\n\"If you like. But you will not come up till you have seen the Italian.\"\n\n\"La signorina si sente male,\" said Philip, \"C' e il sole.\"\n\n\"Poveretta!\" cried the landlady and the cabman.\n\n\"Leave me alone!\" said Harriet, snarling round at them. \"I don't care\nfor the lot of you. I'm English, and neither you'll come down nor he up\ntill he goes for the baby.\"\n\n\"La prego-piano-piano-c e un' altra signorina che dorme--\"\n\n\"We shall probably be arrested for brawling, Harriet. Have you the very\nslightest sense of the ludicrous?\"\n\nHarriet had not; that was why she could be so powerful. She had\nconcocted this scene in the carriage, and nothing should baulk her\nof it. To the abuse in front and the coaxing behind she was equally\nindifferent. How long she would have stood like a glorified Horatius,\nkeeping the staircase at both ends, was never to be known. For the young\nlady, whose sleep they were disturbing, awoke and opened her bedroom\ndoor, and came out on to the landing. She was Miss Abbott.\n\nPhilip's first coherent feeling was one of indignation. To be run by\nhis mother and hectored by his sister was as much as he could stand. The\nintervention of a third female drove him suddenly beyond politeness. He\nwas about to say exactly what he thought about the thing from beginning\nto end. But before he could do so Harriet also had seen Miss Abbott. She\nuttered a shrill cry of joy.\n\n\"You, Caroline, here of all people!\" And in spite of the heat she darted\nup the stairs and imprinted an affectionate kiss upon her friend.\n\nPhilip had an inspiration. \"You will have a lot to tell Miss Abbott,\nHarriet, and she may have as much to tell you. So I'll pay my call on\nSignor Carella, as you suggested, and see how things stand.\"\n\nMiss Abbott uttered some noise of greeting or alarm. He did not reply to\nit or approach nearer to her. Without even paying the cabman, he escaped\ninto the street.\n\n\"Tear each other's eyes out!\" he cried, gesticulating at the facade of\nthe hotel. \"Give it to her, Harriet! Teach her to leave us alone. Give\nit to her, Caroline! Teach her to be grateful to you. Go it, ladies; go\nit!\"\n\nSuch people as observed him were interested, but did not conclude that\nhe was mad. This aftermath of conversation is not unknown in Italy.\n\nHe tried to think how amusing it was; but it would not do--Miss Abbott's\npresence affected him too personally. Either she suspected him of\ndishonesty, or else she was being dishonest herself. He preferred to\nsuppose the latter. Perhaps she had seen Gino, and they had prepared\nsome elaborate mortification for the Herritons. Perhaps Gino had sold\nthe baby cheap to her for a joke: it was just the kind of joke that\nwould appeal to him. Philip still remembered the laughter that had\ngreeted his fruitless journey, and the uncouth push that had toppled him\non to the bed. And whatever it might mean, Miss Abbott's presence spoilt\nthe comedy: she would do nothing funny.\n\nDuring this short meditation he had walked through the city, and was out\non the other side. \"Where does Signor Carella live?\" he asked the men at\nthe Dogana.\n\n\"I'll show you,\" said a little girl, springing out of the ground as\nItalian children will.\n\n\"She will show you,\" said the Dogana men, nodding reassuringly. \"Follow\nher always, always, and you will come to no harm. She is a trustworthy\nguide. She is my\n\n    daughter.\"\n    cousin.\"\n    sister.\"\n\nPhilip knew these relatives well: they ramify, if need be, all over the\npeninsula.\n\n\"Do you chance to know whether Signor Carella is in?\" he asked her.\n\nShe had just seen him go in. Philip nodded. He was looking forward to\nthe interview this time: it would be an intellectual duet with a man\nof no great intellect. What was Miss Abbott up to? That was one of the\nthings he was going to discover. While she had it out with Harriet, he\nwould have it out with Gino. He followed the Dogana's relative softly,\nlike a diplomatist.\n\nHe did not follow her long, for this was the Volterra gate, and the\nhouse was exactly opposite to it. In half a minute they had scrambled\ndown the mule-track and reached the only practicable entrance. Philip\nlaughed, partly at the thought of Lilia in such a building, partly in\nthe confidence of victory. Meanwhile the Dogana's relative lifted up her\nvoice and gave a shout.\n\nFor an impressive interval there was no reply. Then the figure of a\nwoman appeared high up on the loggia.\n\n\"That is Perfetta,\" said the girl.\n\n\"I want to see Signor Carella,\" cried Philip.\n\n\"Out!\"\n\n\"Out,\" echoed the girl complacently.\n\n\"Why on earth did you say he was in?\" He could have strangled her\nfor temper. He had been just ripe for an interview--just the right\ncombination of indignation and acuteness: blood hot, brain cool. But\nnothing ever did go right in Monteriano. \"When will he be back?\" he\ncalled to Perfetta. It really was too bad.\n\nShe did not know. He was away on business. He might be back this\nevening, he might not. He had gone to Poggibonsi.\n\nAt the sound of this word the little girl put her fingers to her\nnose and swept them at the plain. She sang as she did so, even as her\nforemothers had sung seven hundred years back--\n\n  Poggibonizzi, fatti in la,\n  Che Monteriano si fa citta!\n\nThen she asked Philip for a halfpenny. A German lady, friendly to the\nPast, had given her one that very spring.\n\n\"I shall have to leave a message,\" he called.\n\n\"Now Perfetta has gone for her basket,\" said the little girl. \"When she\nreturns she will lower it--so. Then you will put your card into it. Then\nshe will raise it--thus. By this means--\"\n\nWhen Perfetta returned, Philip remembered to ask after the baby. It took\nlonger to find than the basket, and he stood perspiring in the evening\nsun, trying to avoid the smell of the drains and to prevent the little\ngirl from singing against Poggibonsi. The olive-trees beside him were\ndraped with the weekly--or more probably the monthly--wash. What a\nfrightful spotty blouse! He could not think where he had seen it. Then\nhe remembered that it was Lilia's. She had brought it \"to hack about in\"\nat Sawston, and had taken it to Italy because \"in Italy anything does.\"\nHe had rebuked her for the sentiment.\n\n\"Beautiful as an angel!\" bellowed Perfetta, holding out something which\nmust be Lilia's baby. \"But who am I addressing?\"\n\n\"Thank you--here is my card.\" He had written on it a civil request\nto Gino for an interview next morning. But before he placed it in the\nbasket and revealed his identity, he wished to find something out. \"Has\na young lady happened to call here lately--a young English lady?\"\n\nPerfetta begged his pardon: she was a little deaf.\n\n\"A young lady--pale, large, tall.\"\n\nShe did not quite catch.\n\n\"A YOUNG LADY!\"\n\n\"Perfetta is deaf when she chooses,\" said the Dogana's relative. At\nlast Philip admitted the peculiarity and strode away. He paid off the\ndetestable child at the Volterra gate. She got two nickel pieces and was\nnot pleased, partly because it was too much, partly because he did not\nlook pleased when he gave it to her. He caught her fathers and cousins\nwinking at each other as he walked past them. Monteriano seemed in\none conspiracy to make him look a fool. He felt tired and anxious and\nmuddled, and not sure of anything except that his temper was lost.\nIn this mood he returned to the Stella d'Italia, and there, as he was\nascending the stairs, Miss Abbott popped out of the dining-room on the\nfirst floor and beckoned to him mysteriously.\n\n\"I was going to make myself some tea,\" he said, with his hand still on\nthe banisters.\n\n\"I should be grateful--\"\n\nSo he followed her into the dining-room and shut the door.\n\n\"You see,\" she began, \"Harriet knows nothing.\"\n\n\"No more do I. He was out.\"\n\n\"But what's that to do with it?\"\n\nHe presented her with an unpleasant smile. She fenced well, as he had\nnoticed before. \"He was out. You find me as ignorant as you have left\nHarriet.\"\n\n\"What do you mean? Please, please Mr. Herriton, don't be mysterious:\nthere isn't the time. Any moment Harriet may be down, and we shan't have\ndecided how to behave to her. Sawston was different: we had to keep up\nappearances. But here we must speak out, and I think I can trust you to\ndo it. Otherwise we'll never start clear.\"\n\n\"Pray let us start clear,\" said Philip, pacing up and down the room.\n\"Permit me to begin by asking you a question. In which capacity have you\ncome to Monteriano--spy or traitor?\"\n\n\"Spy!\" she answered, without a moment's hesitation. She was standing\nby the little Gothic window as she spoke--the hotel had been a palace\nonce--and with her finger she was following the curves of the moulding\nas if they might feel beautiful and strange. \"Spy,\" she repeated, for\nPhilip was bewildered at learning her guilt so easily, and could not\nanswer a word. \"Your mother has behaved dishonourably all through. She\nnever wanted the child; no harm in that; but she is too proud to let it\ncome to me. She has done all she could to wreck things; she did not tell\nyou everything; she has told Harriet nothing at all; she has lied or\nacted lies everywhere. I cannot trust your mother. So I have come here\nalone--all across Europe; no one knows it; my father thinks I am in\nNormandy--to spy on Mrs. Herriton. Don't let's argue!\" for he had begun,\nalmost mechanically, to rebuke her for impertinence. \"If you are here to\nget the child, I will help you; if you are here to fail, I shall get it\ninstead of you.\"\n\n\"It is hopeless to expect you to believe me,\" he stammered. \"But I can\nassert that we are here to get the child, even if it costs us all we've\ngot. My mother has fixed no money limit whatever. I am here to carry\nout her instructions. I think that you will approve of them, as you have\npractically dictated them. I do not approve of them. They are absurd.\"\n\nShe nodded carelessly. She did not mind what he said. All she wanted was\nto get the baby out of Monteriano.\n\n\"Harriet also carries out your instructions,\" he continued. \"She,\nhowever, approves of them, and does not know that they proceed from you.\nI think, Miss Abbott, you had better take entire charge of the rescue\nparty. I have asked for an interview with Signor Carella tomorrow\nmorning. Do you acquiesce?\"\n\nShe nodded again.\n\n\"Might I ask for details of your interview with him? They might be\nhelpful to me.\"\n\nHe had spoken at random. To his delight she suddenly collapsed. Her hand\nfell from the window. Her face was red with more than the reflection of\nevening.\n\n\"My interview--how do you know of it?\"\n\n\"From Perfetta, if it interests you.\"\n\n\"Who ever is Perfetta?\"\n\n\"The woman who must have let you in.\"\n\n\"In where?\"\n\n\"Into Signor Carella's house.\"\n\n\"Mr. Herriton!\" she exclaimed. \"How could you believe her? Do you\nsuppose that I would have entered that man's house, knowing about him\nall that I do? I think you have very odd ideas of what is possible for\na lady. I hear you wanted Harriet to go. Very properly she refused.\nEighteen months ago I might have done such a thing. But I trust I have\nlearnt how to behave by now.\"\n\nPhilip began to see that there were two Miss Abbotts--the Miss Abbott\nwho could travel alone to Monteriano, and the Miss Abbott who could\nnot enter Gino's house when she got there. It was an amusing discovery.\nWhich of them would respond to his next move?\n\n\"I suppose I misunderstood Perfetta. Where did you have your interview,\nthen?\"\n\n\"Not an interview--an accident--I am very sorry--I meant you to have the\nchance of seeing him first. Though it is your fault. You are a day late.\nYou were due here yesterday. So I came yesterday, and, not finding you,\nwent up to the Rocca--you know that kitchen-garden where they let you\nin, and there is a ladder up to a broken tower, where you can stand\nand see all the other towers below you and the plain and all the other\nhills?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. I know the Rocca; I told you of it.\"\n\n\"So I went up in the evening for the sunset: I had nothing to do. He was\nin the garden: it belongs to a friend of his.\"\n\n\"And you talked.\"\n\n\"It was very awkward for me. But I had to talk: he seemed to make me.\nYou see he thought I was here as a tourist; he thinks so still. He\nintended to be civil, and I judged it better to be civil also.\"\n\n\"And of what did you talk?\"\n\n\"The weather--there will be rain, he says, by tomorrow evening--the\nother towns, England, myself, about you a little, and he actually\nmentioned Lilia. He was perfectly disgusting; he pretended he loved\nher; he offered to show me her grave--the grave of the woman he has\nmurdered!\"\n\n\"My dear Miss Abbott, he is not a murderer. I have just been driving\nthat into Harriet. And when you know the Italians as well as I do, you\nwill realize that in all that he said to you he was perfectly sincere.\nThe Italians are essentially dramatic; they look on death and love as\nspectacles. I don't doubt that he persuaded himself, for the moment,\nthat he had behaved admirably, both as husband and widower.\"\n\n\"You may be right,\" said Miss Abbott, impressed for the first time.\n\"When I tried to pave the way, so to speak--to hint that he had not\nbehaved as he ought--well, it was no good at all. He couldn't or\nwouldn't understand.\"\n\nThere was something very humorous in the idea of Miss Abbott approaching\nGino, on the Rocca, in the spirit of a district visitor. Philip, whose\ntemper was returning, laughed.\n\n\"Harriet would say he has no sense of sin.\"\n\n\"Harriet may be right, I am afraid.\"\n\n\"If so, perhaps he isn't sinful!\"\n\nMiss Abbott was not one to encourage levity. \"I know what he has\ndone,\" she said. \"What he says and what he thinks is of very little\nimportance.\"\n\nPhilip smiled at her crudity. \"I should like to hear, though, what he\nsaid about me. Is he preparing a warm reception?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, not that. I never told him that you and Harriet were coming.\nYou could have taken him by surprise if you liked. He only asked for\nyou, and wished he hadn't been so rude to you eighteen months ago.\"\n\n\"What a memory the fellow has for little things!\" He turned away as he\nspoke, for he did not want her to see his face. It was suffused with\npleasure. For an apology, which would have been intolerable eighteen\nmonths ago, was gracious and agreeable now.\n\nShe would not let this pass. \"You did not think it a little thing at the\ntime. You told me he had assaulted you.\"\n\n\"I lost my temper,\" said Philip lightly. His vanity had been appeased,\nand he knew it. This tiny piece of civility had changed his mood. \"Did\nhe really--what exactly did he say?\"\n\n\"He said he was sorry--pleasantly, as Italians do say such things. But\nhe never mentioned the baby once.\"\n\nWhat did the baby matter when the world was suddenly right way up?\nPhilip smiled, and was shocked at himself for smiling, and smiled again.\nFor romance had come back to Italy; there were no cads in her; she was\nbeautiful, courteous, lovable, as of old. And Miss Abbott--she, too, was\nbeautiful in her way, for all her gaucheness and conventionality.\nShe really cared about life, and tried to live it properly. And\nHarriet--even Harriet tried.\n\nThis admirable change in Philip proceeds from nothing admirable, and\nmay therefore provoke the gibes of the cynical. But angels and other\npractical people will accept it reverently, and write it down as good.\n\n\"The view from the Rocca (small gratuity) is finest at sunset,\" he\nmurmured, more to himself than to her.\n\n\"And he never mentioned the baby once,\" Miss Abbott repeated. But she\nhad returned to the window, and again her finger pursued the delicate\ncurves. He watched her in silence, and was more attracted to her than he\nhad ever been before. She really was the strangest mixture.\n\n\"The view from the Rocca--wasn't it fine?\"\n\n\"What isn't fine here?\" she answered gently, and then added, \"I wish I\nwas Harriet,\" throwing an extraordinary meaning into the words.\n\n\"Because Harriet--?\"\n\nShe would not go further, but he believed that she had paid homage\nto the complexity of life. For her, at all events, the expedition was\nneither easy nor jolly. Beauty, evil, charm, vulgarity, mystery--she\nalso acknowledged this tangle, in spite of herself. And her voice\nthrilled him when she broke silence with \"Mr. Herriton--come here--look\nat this!\"\n\nShe removed a pile of plates from the Gothic window, and they leant out\nof it. Close opposite, wedged between mean houses, there rose up one of\nthe great towers. It is your tower: you stretch a barricade between it\nand the hotel, and the traffic is blocked in a moment. Farther up, where\nthe street empties out by the church, your connections, the Merli and\nthe Capocchi, do likewise. They command the Piazza, you the Siena gate.\nNo one can move in either but he shall be instantly slain, either by\nbows or by crossbows, or by Greek fire. Beware, however, of the\nback bedroom windows. For they are menaced by the tower of the\nAldobrandeschi, and before now arrows have stuck quivering over the\nwashstand. Guard these windows well, lest there be a repetition of the\nevents of February 1338, when the hotel was surprised from the rear, and\nyour dearest friend--you could just make out that it was he--was thrown\nat you over the stairs.\n\n\"It reaches up to heaven,\" said Philip, \"and down to the other place.\"\nThe summit of the tower was radiant in the sun, while its base was in\nshadow and pasted over with advertisements. \"Is it to be a symbol of the\ntown?\"\n\nShe gave no hint that she understood him. But they remained together at\nthe window because it was a little cooler and so pleasant. Philip\nfound a certain grace and lightness in his companion which he had never\nnoticed in England. She was appallingly narrow, but her consciousness of\nwider things gave to her narrowness a pathetic charm. He did not suspect\nthat he was more graceful too. For our vanity is such that we hold our\nown characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have\nchanged, even for the better.\n\nCitizens came out for a little stroll before dinner. Some of them stood\nand gazed at the advertisements on the tower.\n\n\"Surely that isn't an opera-bill?\" said Miss Abbott.\n\nPhilip put on his pince-nez. \"'Lucia di Lammermoor. By the Master\nDonizetti. Unique representation. This evening.'\n\n\"But is there an opera? Right up here?\"\n\n\"Why, yes. These people know how to live. They would sooner have a thing\nbad than not have it at all. That is why they have got to have so much\nthat is good. However bad the performance is tonight, it will be alive.\nItalians don't love music silently, like the beastly Germans. The\naudience takes its share--sometimes more.\"\n\n\"Can't we go?\"\n\nHe turned on her, but not unkindly. \"But we're here to rescue a child!\"\n\nHe cursed himself for the remark. All the pleasure and the light went\nout of her face, and she became again Miss Abbott of Sawston--good, oh,\nmost undoubtedly good, but most appallingly dull. Dull and remorseful:\nit is a deadly combination, and he strove against it in vain till he was\ninterrupted by the opening of the dining-room door.\n\nThey started as guiltily as if they had been flirting. Their interview\nhad taken such an unexpected course. Anger, cynicism, stubborn\nmorality--all had ended in a feeling of good-will towards each other\nand towards the city which had received them. And now Harriet\nwas here--acrid, indissoluble, large; the same in Italy as in\nEngland--changing her disposition never, and her atmosphere under\nprotest.\n\nYet even Harriet was human, and the better for a little tea. She did not\nscold Philip for finding Gino out, as she might reasonably have done.\nShe showered civilities on Miss Abbott, exclaiming again and again\nthat Caroline's visit was one of the most fortunate coincidences in the\nworld. Caroline did not contradict her.\n\n\"You see him tomorrow at ten, Philip. Well, don't forget the blank\ncheque. Say an hour for the business. No, Italians are so slow; say two.\nTwelve o'clock. Lunch. Well--then it's no good going till the evening\ntrain. I can manage the baby as far as Florence--\"\n\n\"My dear sister, you can't run on like that. You don't buy a pair of\ngloves in two hours, much less a baby.\"\n\n\"Three hours, then, or four; or make him learn English ways. At Florence\nwe get a nurse--\"\n\n\"But, Harriet,\" said Miss Abbott, \"what if at first he was to refuse?\"\n\n\"I don't know the meaning of the word,\" said Harriet impressively. \"I've\ntold the landlady that Philip and I only want our rooms one night, and\nwe shall keep to it.\"\n\n\"I dare say it will be all right. But, as I told you, I thought the man\nI met on the Rocca a strange, difficult man.\"\n\n\"He's insolent to ladies, we know. But my brother can be trusted to\nbring him to his senses. That woman, Philip, whom you saw will carry the\nbaby to the hotel. Of course you must tip her for it. And try, if you\ncan, to get poor Lilia's silver bangles. They were nice quiet things,\nand will do for Irma. And there is an inlaid box I lent her--lent, not\ngave--to keep her handkerchiefs in. It's of no real value; but this is\nour only chance. Don't ask for it; but if you see it lying about, just\nsay--\"\n\n\"No, Harriet; I'll try for the baby, but for nothing else. I promise\nto do that tomorrow, and to do it in the way you wish. But tonight, as\nwe're all tired, we want a change of topic. We want relaxation. We want\nto go to the theatre.\"\n\n\"Theatres here? And at such a moment?\"\n\n\"We should hardly enjoy it, with the great interview impending,\" said\nMiss Abbott, with an anxious glance at Philip.\n\nHe did not betray her, but said, \"Don't you think it's better than\nsitting in all the evening and getting nervous?\"\n\nHis sister shook her head. \"Mother wouldn't like it. It would be most\nunsuitable--almost irreverent. Besides all that, foreign theatres\nare notorious. Don't you remember those letters in the 'Church Family\nNewspaper'?\"\n\n\"But this is an opera--'Lucia di Lammermoor'--Sir Walter\nScott--classical, you know.\"\n\nHarriet's face grew resigned. \"Certainly one has so few opportunities\nof hearing music. It is sure to be very bad. But it might be better than\nsitting idle all the evening. We have no book, and I lost my crochet at\nFlorence.\"\n\n\"Good. Miss Abbott, you are coming too?\"\n\n\"It is very kind of you, Mr. Herriton. In some ways I should enjoy\nit; but--excuse the suggestion--I don't think we ought to go to cheap\nseats.\"\n\n\"Good gracious me!\" cried Harriet, \"I should never have thought of that.\nAs likely as not, we should have tried to save money and sat among the\nmost awful people. One keeps on forgetting this is Italy.\"\n\n\"Unfortunately I have no evening dress; and if the seats--\"\n\n\"Oh, that'll be all right,\" said Philip, smiling at his timorous,\nscrupulous women-kind. \"We'll go as we are, and buy the best we can get.\nMonteriano is not formal.\"\n\nSo this strenuous day of resolutions, plans, alarms, battles, victories,\ndefeats, truces, ended at the opera. Miss Abbott and Harriet were both\na little shame-faced. They thought of their friends at Sawston, who were\nsupposing them to be now tilting against the powers of evil. What would\nMrs. Herriton, or Irma, or the curates at the Back Kitchen say if they\ncould see the rescue party at a place of amusement on the very first day\nof its mission? Philip, too, marvelled at his wish to go. He began\nto see that he was enjoying his time in Monteriano, in spite of the\ntiresomeness of his companions and the occasional contrariness of\nhimself.\n\nHe had been to this theatre many years before, on the occasion of a\nperformance of \"La Zia di Carlo.\" Since then it had been thoroughly done\nup, in the tints of the beet-root and the tomato, and was in many other\nways a credit to the little town. The orchestra had been enlarged,\nsome of the boxes had terra-cotta draperies, and over each box was now\nsuspended an enormous tablet, neatly framed, bearing upon it the number\nof that box. There was also a drop-scene, representing a pink and purple\nlandscape, wherein sported many a lady lightly clad, and two more ladies\nlay along the top of the proscenium to steady a large and pallid clock.\nSo rich and so appalling was the effect, that Philip could scarcely\nsuppress a cry. There is something majestic in the bad taste of Italy;\nit is not the bad taste of a country which knows no better; it has not\nthe nervous vulgarity of England, or the blinded vulgarity of Germany.\nIt observes beauty, and chooses to pass it by. But it attains to\nbeauty's confidence. This tiny theatre of Monteriano spraddled and\nswaggered with the best of them, and these ladies with their clock would\nhave nodded to the young men on the ceiling of the Sistine.\n\nPhilip had tried for a box, but all the best were taken: it was rather\na grand performance, and he had to be content with stalls. Harriet was\nfretful and insular. Miss Abbott was pleasant, and insisted on praising\neverything: her only regret was that she had no pretty clothes with her.\n\n\"We do all right,\" said Philip, amused at her unwonted vanity.\n\n\"Yes, I know; but pretty things pack as easily as ugly ones. We had no\nneed to come to Italy like guys.\"\n\nThis time he did not reply, \"But we're here to rescue a baby.\" For\nhe saw a charming picture, as charming a picture as he had seen for\nyears--the hot red theatre; outside the theatre, towers and dark gates\nand mediaeval walls; beyond the walls olive-trees in the starlight and\nwhite winding roads and fireflies and untroubled dust; and here in the\nmiddle of it all, Miss Abbott, wishing she had not come looking like a\nguy. She had made the right remark. Most undoubtedly she had made the\nright remark. This stiff suburban woman was unbending before the shrine.\n\n\"Don't you like it at all?\" he asked her.\n\n\"Most awfully.\" And by this bald interchange they convinced each other\nthat Romance was here.\n\nHarriet, meanwhile, had been coughing ominously at the drop-scene, which\npresently rose on the grounds of Ravenswood, and the chorus of Scotch\nretainers burst into cry. The audience accompanied with tappings and\ndrummings, swaying in the melody like corn in the wind. Harriet, though\nshe did not care for music, knew how to listen to it. She uttered an\nacid \"Shish!\"\n\n\"Shut it,\" whispered her brother.\n\n\"We must make a stand from the beginning. They're talking.\"\n\n\"It is tiresome,\" murmured Miss Abbott; \"but perhaps it isn't for us to\ninterfere.\"\n\nHarriet shook her head and shished again. The people were quiet, not\nbecause it is wrong to talk during a chorus, but because it is natural\nto be civil to a visitor. For a little time she kept the whole house in\norder, and could smile at her brother complacently.\n\nHer success annoyed him. He had grasped the principle of opera in\nItaly--it aims not at illusion but at entertainment--and he did not want\nthis great evening-party to turn into a prayer-meeting. But soon the\nboxes began to fill, and Harriet's power was over. Families greeted each\nother across the auditorium. People in the pit hailed their brothers and\nsons in the chorus, and told them how well they were singing. When Lucia\nappeared by the fountain there was loud applause, and cries of \"Welcome\nto Monteriano!\"\n\n\"Ridiculous babies!\" said Harriet, settling down in her stall.\n\n\"Why, it is the famous hot lady of the Apennines,\" cried Philip; \"the\none who had never, never before--\"\n\n\"Ugh! Don't. She will be very vulgar. And I'm sure it's even worse here\nthan in the tunnel. I wish we'd never--\"\n\nLucia began to sing, and there was a moment's silence. She was stout\nand ugly; but her voice was still beautiful, and as she sang the theatre\nmurmured like a hive of happy bees. All through the coloratura she\nwas accompanied by sighs, and its top note was drowned in a shout of\nuniversal joy.\n\nSo the opera proceeded. The singers drew inspiration from the audience,\nand the two great sextettes were rendered not unworthily. Miss Abbott\nfell into the spirit of the thing. She, too, chatted and laughed and\napplauded and encored, and rejoiced in the existence of beauty. As for\nPhilip, he forgot himself as well as his mission. He was not even an\nenthusiastic visitor. For he had been in this place always. It was his\nhome.\n\nHarriet, like M. Bovary on a more famous occasion, was trying to follow\nthe plot. Occasionally she nudged her companions, and asked them what\nhad become of Walter Scott. She looked round grimly. The audience\nsounded drunk, and even Caroline, who never took a drop, was swaying\noddly. Violent waves of excitement, all arising from very little, went\nsweeping round the theatre. The climax was reached in the mad scene.\nLucia, clad in white, as befitted her malady, suddenly gathered up her\nstreaming hair and bowed her acknowledgment to the audience. Then from\nthe back of the stage--she feigned not to see it--there advanced a kind\nof bamboo clothes-horse, stuck all over with bouquets. It was very ugly,\nand most of the flowers in it were false. Lucia knew this, and so did\nthe audience; and they all knew that the clothes-horse was a piece of\nstage property, brought in to make the performance go year after year.\nNone the less did it unloose the great deeps. With a scream of amazement\nand joy she embraced the animal, pulled out one or two practicable\nblossoms, pressed them to her lips, and flung them into her admirers.\nThey flung them back, with loud melodious cries, and a little boy in one\nof the stageboxes snatched up his sister's carnations and offered them.\n\"Che carino!\" exclaimed the singer. She darted at the little boy and\nkissed him. Now the noise became tremendous. \"Silence! silence!\" shouted\nmany old gentlemen behind. \"Let the divine creature continue!\" But\nthe young men in the adjacent box were imploring Lucia to extend her\ncivility to them. She refused, with a humorous, expressive gesture. One\nof them hurled a bouquet at her. She spurned it with her foot. Then,\nencouraged by the roars of the audience, she picked it up and tossed it\nto them. Harriet was always unfortunate. The bouquet struck her full in\nthe chest, and a little billet-doux fell out of it into her lap.\n\n\"Call this classical!\" she cried, rising from her seat. \"It's not even\nrespectable! Philip! take me out at once.\"\n\n\"Whose is it?\" shouted her brother, holding up the bouquet in one hand\nand the billet-doux in the other. \"Whose is it?\"\n\nThe house exploded, and one of the boxes was violently agitated, as if\nsome one was being hauled to the front. Harriet moved down the gangway,\nand compelled Miss Abbott to follow her. Philip, still laughing\nand calling \"Whose is it?\" brought up the rear. He was drunk with\nexcitement. The heat, the fatigue, and the enjoyment had mounted into\nhis head.\n\n\"To the left!\" the people cried. \"The innamorato is to the left.\"\n\nHe deserted his ladies and plunged towards the box. A young man was\nflung stomach downwards across the balustrade. Philip handed him up the\nbouquet and the note. Then his own hands were seized affectionately. It\nall seemed quite natural.\n\n\"Why have you not written?\" cried the young man. \"Why do you take me by\nsurprise?\"\n\n\"Oh, I've written,\" said Philip hilariously. \"I left a note this\nafternoon.\"\n\n\"Silence! silence!\" cried the audience, who were beginning to have\nenough. \"Let the divine creature continue.\" Miss Abbott and Harriet had\ndisappeared.\n\n\"No! no!\" cried the young man. \"You don't escape me now.\" For Philip was\ntrying feebly to disengage his hands. Amiable youths bent out of the box\nand invited him to enter it.\n\n\"Gino's friends are ours--\"\n\n\"Friends?\" cried Gino. \"A relative! A brother! Fra Filippo, who has come\nall the way from England and never written.\"\n\n\"I left a message.\"\n\nThe audience began to hiss.\n\n\"Come in to us.\"\n\n\"Thank you--ladies--there is not time--\"\n\nThe next moment he was swinging by his arms. The moment after he shot\nover the balustrade into the box. Then the conductor, seeing that the\nincident was over, raised his baton. The house was hushed, and Lucia di\nLammermoor resumed her song of madness and death.\n\nPhilip had whispered introductions to the pleasant people who had pulled\nhim in--tradesmen's sons perhaps they were, or medical students, or\nsolicitors' clerks, or sons of other dentists. There is no knowing who\nis who in Italy. The guest of the evening was a private soldier. He\nshared the honour now with Philip. The two had to stand side by side in\nthe front, and exchange compliments, whilst Gino presided, courteous,\nbut delightfully familiar. Philip would have a spasm of horror at the\nmuddle he had made. But the spasm would pass, and again he would be\nenchanted by the kind, cheerful voices, the laughter that was never\nvapid, and the light caress of the arm across his back.\n\nHe could not get away till the play was nearly finished, and Edgardo was\nsinging amongst the tombs of ancestors. His new friends hoped to see him\nat the Garibaldi tomorrow evening. He promised; then he remembered that\nif they kept to Harriet's plan he would have left Monteriano. \"At ten\no'clock, then,\" he said to Gino. \"I want to speak to you alone. At ten.\"\n\n\"Certainly!\" laughed the other.\n\nMiss Abbott was sitting up for him when he got back. Harriet, it seemed,\nhad gone straight to bed.\n\n\"That was he, wasn't it?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes, rather.\"\n\n\"I suppose you didn't settle anything?\"\n\n\"Why, no; how could I? The fact is--well, I got taken by surprise,\nbut after all, what does it matter? There's no earthly reason why we\nshouldn't do the business pleasantly. He's a perfectly charming person,\nand so are his friends. I'm his friend now--his long-lost brother.\nWhat's the harm? I tell you, Miss Abbott, it's one thing for England and\nanother for Italy. There we plan and get on high moral horses. Here\nwe find what asses we are, for things go off quite easily, all by\nthemselves. My hat, what a night! Did you ever see a really purple sky\nand really silver stars before? Well, as I was saying, it's absurd to\nworry; he's not a porky father. He wants that baby as little as I do.\nHe's been ragging my dear mother--just as he ragged me eighteen months\nago, and I've forgiven him. Oh, but he has a sense of humour!\"\n\nMiss Abbott, too, had a wonderful evening, nor did she ever remember\nsuch stars or such a sky. Her head, too, was full of music, and that\nnight when she opened the window her room was filled with warm, sweet\nair. She was bathed in beauty within and without; she could not go to\nbed for happiness. Had she ever been so happy before? Yes, once before,\nand here, a night in March, the night Gino and Lilia had told her of\ntheir love--the night whose evil she had come now to undo.\n\nShe gave a sudden cry of shame. \"This time--the same place--the same\nthing\"--and she began to beat down her happiness, knowing it to be\nsinful. She was here to fight against this place, to rescue a little\nsoul--who was innocent as yet. She was here to champion morality and\npurity, and the holy life of an English home. In the spring she had\nsinned through ignorance; she was not ignorant now. \"Help me!\" she\ncried, and shut the window as if there was magic in the encircling air.\nBut the tunes would not go out of her head, and all night long she was\ntroubled by torrents of music, and by applause and laughter, and angry\nyoung men who shouted the distich out of Baedeker:--\n\n  Poggibonizzi fatti in la,\n  Che Monteriano si fa citta!\n\nPoggibonsi was revealed to her as they sang--a joyless, straggling\nplace, full of people who pretended. When she woke up she knew that it\nhad been Sawston.\n\n\n\nChapter 7\n\nAt about nine o'clock next morning Perfetta went out on to the loggia,\nnot to look at the view, but to throw some dirty water at it. \"Scusi\ntanto!\" she wailed, for the water spattered a tall young lady who had\nfor some time been tapping at the lower door.\n\n\"Is Signor Carella in?\" the young lady asked. It was no business of\nPerfetta's to be shocked, and the style of the visitor seemed to demand\nthe reception-room. Accordingly she opened its shutters, dusted a round\npatch on one of the horsehair chairs, and bade the lady do herself the\ninconvenience of sitting down. Then she ran into Monteriano and shouted\nup and down its streets until such time as her young master should hear\nher.\n\nThe reception-room was sacred to the dead wife. Her shiny portrait hung\nupon the wall--similar, doubtless, in all respects to the one which\nwould be pasted on her tombstone. A little piece of black drapery had\nbeen tacked above the frame to lend a dignity to woe. But two of the\ntacks had fallen out, and the effect was now rakish, as of a drunkard's\nbonnet. A coon song lay open on the piano, and of the two tables one\nsupported Baedeker's \"Central Italy,\" the other Harriet's inlaid box.\nAnd over everything there lay a deposit of heavy white dust, which\nwas only blown off one moment to thicken on another. It is well to\nbe remembered with love. It is not so very dreadful to be forgotten\nentirely. But if we shall resent anything on earth at all, we shall\nresent the consecration of a deserted room.\n\nMiss Abbott did not sit down, partly because the antimacassars might\nharbour fleas, partly because she had suddenly felt faint, and was glad\nto cling on to the funnel of the stove. She struggled with herself,\nfor she had need to be very calm; only if she was very calm might her\nbehaviour be justified. She had broken faith with Philip and Harriet:\nshe was going to try for the baby before they did. If she failed she\ncould scarcely look them in the face again.\n\n\"Harriet and her brother,\" she reasoned, \"don't realize what is before\nthem. She would bluster and be rude; he would be pleasant and take it\nas a joke. Both of them--even if they offered money--would fail. But I\nbegin to understand the man's nature; he does not love the child, but he\nwill be touchy about it--and that is quite as bad for us. He's charming,\nbut he's no fool; he conquered me last year; he conquered Mr. Herriton\nyesterday, and if I am not careful he will conquer us all today, and the\nbaby will grow up in Monteriano. He is terribly strong; Lilia found that\nout, but only I remember it now.\"\n\nThis attempt, and this justification of it, were the results of the long\nand restless night. Miss Abbott had come to believe that she alone could\ndo battle with Gino, because she alone understood him; and she had put\nthis, as nicely as she could, in a note which she had left for Philip.\nIt distressed her to write such a note, partly because her education\ninclined her to reverence the male, partly because she had got to like\nPhilip a good deal after their last strange interview. His pettiness\nwould be dispersed, and as for his \"unconventionality,\" which was so\nmuch gossiped about at Sawston, she began to see that it did not differ\ngreatly from certain familiar notions of her own. If only he would\nforgive her for what she was doing now, there might perhaps be before\nthem a long and profitable friendship. But she must succeed. No one\nwould forgive her if she did not succeed. She prepared to do battle with\nthe powers of evil.\n\nThe voice of her adversary was heard at last, singing fearlessly\nfrom his expanded lungs, like a professional. Herein he differed from\nEnglishmen, who always have a little feeling against music, and sing\nonly from the throat, apologetically. He padded upstairs, and looked\nin at the open door of the reception-room without seeing her. Her heart\nleapt and her throat was dry when he turned away and passed, still\nsinging, into the room opposite. It is alarming not to be seen.\n\nHe had left the door of this room open, and she could see into it,\nright across the landing. It was in a shocking mess. Food, bedclothes,\npatent-leather boots, dirty plates, and knives lay strewn over a large\ntable and on the floor. But it was the mess that comes of life, not of\ndesolation. It was preferable to the charnel-chamber in which she was\nstanding now, and the light in it was soft and large, as from some\ngracious, noble opening.\n\nHe stopped singing, and cried \"Where is Perfetta?\"\n\nHis back was turned, and he was lighting a cigar. He was not speaking\nto Miss Abbott. He could not even be expecting her. The vista of the\nlanding and the two open doors made him both remote and significant,\nlike an actor on the stage, intimate and unapproachable at the same\ntime. She could no more call out to him than if he was Hamlet.\n\n\"You know!\" he continued, \"but you will not tell me. Exactly like you.\"\nHe reclined on the table and blew a fat smoke-ring. \"And why won't you\ntell me the numbers? I have dreamt of a red hen--that is two hundred and\nfive, and a friend unexpected--he means eighty-two. But I try for the\nTerno this week. So tell me another number.\"\n\nMiss Abbott did not know of the Tombola. His speech terrified her. She\nfelt those subtle restrictions which come upon us in fatigue. Had she\nslept well she would have greeted him as soon as she saw him. Now it was\nimpossible. He had got into another world.\n\nShe watched his smoke-ring. The air had carried it slowly away from him,\nand brought it out intact upon the landing.\n\n\"Two hundred and five--eighty-two. In any case I shall put them on Bari,\nnot on Florence. I cannot tell you why; I have a feeling this week for\nBari.\" Again she tried to speak. But the ring mesmerized her. It had\nbecome vast and elliptical, and floated in at the reception-room door.\n\n\"Ah! you don't care if you get the profits. You won't even say 'Thank\nyou, Gino.' Say it, or I'll drop hot, red-hot ashes on you. 'Thank you,\nGino--'\"\n\nThe ring had extended its pale blue coils towards her. She lost\nself-control. It enveloped her. As if it was a breath from the pit, she\nscreamed.\n\nThere he was, wanting to know what had frightened her, how she had got\nhere, why she had never spoken. He made her sit down. He brought her\nwine, which she refused. She had not one word to say to him.\n\n\"What is it?\" he repeated. \"What has frightened you?\"\n\nHe, too, was frightened, and perspiration came starting through the tan.\nFor it is a serious thing to have been watched. We all radiate something\ncuriously intimate when we believe ourselves to be alone.\n\n\"Business--\" she said at last.\n\n\"Business with me?\"\n\n\"Most important business.\" She was lying, white and limp, in the dusty\nchair.\n\n\"Before business you must get well; this is the best wine.\"\n\nShe refused it feebly. He poured out a glass. She drank it. As she did\nso she became self-conscious. However important the business, it was not\nproper of her to have called on him, or to accept his hospitality.\n\n\"Perhaps you are engaged,\" she said. \"And as I am not very well--\"\n\n\"You are not well enough to go back. And I am not engaged.\"\n\nShe looked nervously at the other room.\n\n\"Ah, now I understand,\" he exclaimed. \"Now I see what frightened you.\nBut why did you never speak?\" And taking her into the room where he\nlived, he pointed to--the baby.\n\nShe had thought so much about this baby, of its welfare, its soul, its\nmorals, its probable defects. But, like most unmarried people, she had\nonly thought of it as a word--just as the healthy man only thinks of the\nword death, not of death itself. The real thing, lying asleep on a dirty\nrug, disconcerted her. It did not stand for a principle any longer.\nIt was so much flesh and blood, so many inches and ounces of life--a\nglorious, unquestionable fact, which a man and another woman had given\nto the world. You could talk to it; in time it would answer you; in time\nit would not answer you unless it chose, but would secrete, within the\ncompass of its body, thoughts and wonderful passions of its own. And\nthis was the machine on which she and Mrs. Herriton and Philip and\nHarriet had for the last month been exercising their various ideals--had\ndetermined that in time it should move this way or that way, should\naccomplish this and not that. It was to be Low Church, it was to be\nhigh-principled, it was to be tactful, gentlemanly, artistic--excellent\nthings all. Yet now that she saw this baby, lying asleep on a dirty rug,\nshe had a great disposition not to dictate one of them, and to exert\nno more influence than there may be in a kiss or in the vaguest of the\nheartfelt prayers.\n\nBut she had practised self-discipline, and her thoughts and actions were\nnot yet to correspond. To recover her self-esteem she tried to imagine\nthat she was in her district, and to behave accordingly.\n\n\"What a fine child, Signor Carella. And how nice of you to talk to it.\nThough I see that the ungrateful little fellow is asleep! Seven months?\nNo, eight; of course eight. Still, he is a remarkably fine child for his\nage.\"\n\nItalian is a bad medium for condescension. The patronizing words came\nout gracious and sincere, and he smiled with pleasure.\n\n\"You must not stand. Let us sit on the loggia, where it is cool. I am\nafraid the room is very untidy,\" he added, with the air of a hostess who\napologizes for a stray thread on the drawing-room carpet. Miss Abbott\npicked her way to the chair. He sat near her, astride the parapet, with\none foot in the loggia and the other dangling into the view. His face\nwas in profile, and its beautiful contours drove artfully against\nthe misty green of the opposing hills. \"Posing!\" said Miss Abbott to\nherself. \"A born artist's model.\"\n\n\"Mr. Herriton called yesterday,\" she began, \"but you were out.\"\n\nHe started an elaborate and graceful explanation. He had gone for the\nday to Poggibonsi. Why had the Herritons not written to him, so that he\ncould have received them properly? Poggibonsi would have done any day;\nnot but what his business there was fairly important. What did she\nsuppose that it was?\n\nNaturally she was not greatly interested. She had not come from Sawston\nto guess why he had been to Poggibonsi. She answered politely that she\nhad no idea, and returned to her mission.\n\n\"But guess!\" he persisted, clapping the balustrade between his hands.\n\nShe suggested, with gentle sarcasm, that perhaps he had gone to\nPoggibonsi to find something to do.\n\nHe intimated that it was not as important as all that. Something to\ndo--an almost hopeless quest! \"E manca questo!\" He rubbed his thumb and\nforefinger together, to indicate that he had no money. Then he\nsighed, and blew another smoke-ring. Miss Abbott took heart and turned\ndiplomatic.\n\n\"This house,\" she said, \"is a large house.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" was his gloomy reply. \"And when my poor wife died--\" He got\nup, went in, and walked across the landing to the reception-room door,\nwhich he closed reverently. Then he shut the door of the living-room\nwith his foot, returned briskly to his seat, and continued his sentence.\n\"When my poor wife died I thought of having my relatives to live here.\nMy father wished to give up his practice at Empoli; my mother and\nsisters and two aunts were also willing. But it was impossible. They\nhave their ways of doing things, and when I was younger I was content\nwith them. But now I am a man. I have my own ways. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do,\" said Miss Abbott, thinking of her own dear father, whose\ntricks and habits, after twenty-five years spent in their company, were\nbeginning to get on her nerves. She remembered, though, that she was\nnot here to sympathize with Gino--at all events, not to show that\nshe sympathized. She also reminded herself that he was not worthy of\nsympathy. \"It is a large house,\" she repeated.\n\n\"Immense; and the taxes! But it will be better when--Ah! but you have\nnever guessed why I went to Poggibonsi--why it was that I was out when\nhe called.\"\n\n\"I cannot guess, Signor Carella. I am here on business.\"\n\n\"But try.\"\n\n\"I cannot; I hardly know you.\"\n\n\"But we are old friends,\" he said, \"and your approval will be grateful\nto me. You gave it me once before. Will you give it now?\"\n\n\"I have not come as a friend this time,\" she answered stiffly. \"I am not\nlikely, Signor Carella, to approve of anything you do.\"\n\n\"Oh, Signorina!\" He laughed, as if he found her piquant and amusing.\n\"Surely you approve of marriage?\"\n\n\"Where there is love,\" said Miss Abbott, looking at him hard. His face\nhad altered in the last year, but not for the worse, which was baffling.\n\n\"Where there is love,\" said he, politely echoing the English view. Then\nhe smiled on her, expecting congratulations.\n\n\"Do I understand that you are proposing to marry again?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"I forbid you, then!\"\n\nHe looked puzzled, but took it for some foreign banter, and laughed.\n\n\"I forbid you!\" repeated Miss Abbott, and all the indignation of her sex\nand her nationality went thrilling through the words.\n\n\"But why?\" He jumped up, frowning. His voice was squeaky and petulant,\nlike that of a child who is suddenly forbidden a toy.\n\n\"You have ruined one woman; I forbid you to ruin another. It is not a\nyear since Lilia died. You pretended to me the other day that you loved\nher. It is a lie. You wanted her money. Has this woman money too?\"\n\n\"Why, yes!\" he said irritably. \"A little.\"\n\n\"And I suppose you will say that you love her.\"\n\n\"I shall not say it. It will be untrue. Now my poor wife--\" He stopped,\nseeing that the comparison would involve him in difficulties. And indeed\nhe had often found Lilia as agreeable as any one else.\n\nMiss Abbott was furious at this final insult to her dead acquaintance.\nShe was glad that after all she could be so angry with the boy. She\nglowed and throbbed; her tongue moved nimbly. At the finish, if the\nreal business of the day had been completed, she could have swept\nmajestically from the house. But the baby still remained, asleep on a\ndirty rug.\n\nGino was thoughtful, and stood scratching his head. He respected Miss\nAbbott. He wished that she would respect him. \"So you do not advise me?\"\nhe said dolefully. \"But why should it be a failure?\"\n\nMiss Abbott tried to remember that he was really a child still--a child\nwith the strength and the passions of a disreputable man. \"How can it\nsucceed,\" she said solemnly, \"where there is no love?\"\n\n\"But she does love me! I forgot to tell you that.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\"\n\n\"Passionately.\" He laid his hand upon his own heart.\n\n\"Then God help her!\"\n\nHe stamped impatiently. \"Whatever I say displeases you, Signorina. God\nhelp you, for you are most unfair. You say that I ill-treated my dear\nwife. It is not so. I have never ill-treated any one. You complain that\nthere is no love in this marriage. I prove that there is, and you become\nstill more angry. What do you want? Do you suppose she will not be\ncontented? Glad enough she is to get me, and she will do her duty well.\"\n\n\"Her duty!\" cried Miss Abbott, with all the bitterness of which she was\ncapable.\n\n\"Why, of course. She knows why I am marrying her.\"\n\n\"To succeed where Lilia failed! To be your housekeeper, your slave,\nyou--\" The words she would like to have said were too violent for her.\n\n\"To look after the baby, certainly,\" said he.\n\n\"The baby--?\" She had forgotten it.\n\n\"It is an English marriage,\" he said proudly. \"I do not care about the\nmoney. I am having her for my son. Did you not understand that?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Miss Abbott, utterly bewildered. Then, for a moment, she saw\nlight. \"It is not necessary, Signor Carella. Since you are tired of the\nbaby--\"\n\nEver after she remembered it to her credit that she saw her mistake at\nonce. \"I don't mean that,\" she added quickly.\n\n\"I know,\" was his courteous response. \"Ah, in a foreign language (and\nhow perfectly you speak Italian) one is certain to make slips.\"\n\nShe looked at his face. It was apparently innocent of satire.\n\n\"You meant that we could not always be together yet, he and I. You are\nright. What is to be done? I cannot afford a nurse, and Perfetta is too\nrough. When he was ill I dare not let her touch him. When he has to\nbe washed, which happens now and then, who does it? I. I feed him, or\nsettle what he shall have. I sleep with him and comfort him when he is\nunhappy in the night. No one talks, no one may sing to him but I. Do not\nbe unfair this time; I like to do these things. But nevertheless (his\nvoice became pathetic) they take up a great deal of time, and are not\nall suitable for a young man.\"\n\n\"Not at all suitable,\" said Miss Abbott, and closed her eyes wearily.\nEach moment her difficulties were increasing. She wished that she was\nnot so tired, so open to contradictory impressions. She longed for\nHarriet's burly obtuseness or for the soulless diplomacy of Mrs.\nHerriton.\n\n\"A little more wine?\" asked Gino kindly.\n\n\"Oh, no, thank you! But marriage, Signor Carella, is a very serious\nstep. Could you not manage more simply? Your relative, for example--\"\n\n\"Empoli! I would as soon have him in England!\"\n\n\"England, then--\"\n\nHe laughed.\n\n\"He has a grandmother there, you know--Mrs. Theobald.\"\n\n\"He has a grandmother here. No, he is troublesome, but I must have him\nwith me. I will not even have my father and mother too. For they would\nseparate us,\" he added.\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"They would separate our thoughts.\"\n\nShe was silent. This cruel, vicious fellow knew of strange refinements.\nThe horrible truth, that wicked people are capable of love, stood naked\nbefore her, and her moral being was abashed. It was her duty to rescue\nthe baby, to save it from contagion, and she still meant to do her duty.\nBut the comfortable sense of virtue left her. She was in the presence of\nsomething greater than right or wrong.\n\nForgetting that this was an interview, he had strolled back into the\nroom, driven by the instinct she had aroused in him. \"Wake up!\" he cried\nto his baby, as if it was some grown-up friend. Then he lifted his foot\nand trod lightly on its stomach.\n\nMiss Abbott cried, \"Oh, take care!\" She was unaccustomed to this method\nof awakening the young.\n\n\"He is not much longer than my boot, is he? Can you believe that in time\nhis own boots will be as large? And that he also--\"\n\n\"But ought you to treat him like that?\"\n\nHe stood with one foot resting on the little body, suddenly musing,\nfilled with the desire that his son should be like him, and should have\nsons like him, to people the earth. It is the strongest desire that can\ncome to a man--if it comes to him at all--stronger even than love or the\ndesire for personal immortality. All men vaunt it, and declare that it\nis theirs; but the hearts of most are set elsewhere. It is the exception\nwho comprehends that physical and spiritual life may stream out of him\nfor ever. Miss Abbott, for all her goodness, could not comprehend it,\nthough such a thing is more within the comprehension of women. And\nwhen Gino pointed first to himself and then to his baby and said\n\"father-son,\" she still took it as a piece of nursery prattle, and\nsmiled mechanically.\n\nThe child, the first fruits, woke up and glared at her. Gino did not\ngreet it, but continued the exposition of his policy.\n\n\"This woman will do exactly what I tell her. She is fond of children.\nShe is clean; she has a pleasant voice. She is not beautiful; I cannot\npretend that to you for a moment. But she is what I require.\"\n\nThe baby gave a piercing yell.\n\n\"Oh, do take care!\" begged Miss Abbott. \"You are squeezing it.\"\n\n\"It is nothing. If he cries silently then you may be frightened. He\nthinks I am going to wash him, and he is quite right.\"\n\n\"Wash him!\" she cried. \"You? Here?\" The homely piece of news seemed\nto shatter all her plans. She had spent a long half-hour in elaborate\napproaches, in high moral attacks; she had neither frightened her enemy\nnor made him angry, nor interfered with the least detail of his domestic\nlife.\n\n\"I had gone to the Farmacia,\" he continued, \"and was sitting there\ncomfortably, when suddenly I remembered that Perfetta had heated water\nan hour ago--over there, look, covered with a cushion. I came away at\nonce, for really he must be washed. You must excuse me. I can put it off\nno longer.\"\n\n\"I have wasted your time,\" she said feebly.\n\nHe walked sternly to the loggia and drew from it a large earthenware\nbowl. It was dirty inside; he dusted it with a tablecloth. Then he\nfetched the hot water, which was in a copper pot. He poured it out. He\nadded cold. He felt in his pocket and brought out a piece of soap. Then\nhe took up the baby, and, holding his cigar between his teeth, began to\nunwrap it. Miss Abbott turned to go.\n\n\"But why are you going? Excuse me if I wash him while we talk.\"\n\n\"I have nothing more to say,\" said Miss Abbott. All she could do now\nwas to find Philip, confess her miserable defeat, and bid him go in\nher stead and prosper better. She cursed her feebleness; she longed to\nexpose it, without apologies or tears.\n\n\"Oh, but stop a moment!\" he cried. \"You have not seen him yet.\"\n\n\"I have seen as much as I want, thank you.\"\n\nThe last wrapping slid off. He held out to her in his two hands a little\nkicking image of bronze.\n\n\"Take him!\"\n\nShe would not touch the child.\n\n\"I must go at once,\" she cried; for the tears--the wrong tears--were\nhurrying to her eyes.\n\n\"Who would have believed his mother was blonde? For he is brown all\nover--brown every inch of him. Ah, but how beautiful he is! And he is\nmine; mine for ever. Even if he hates me he will be mine. He cannot help\nit; he is made out of me; I am his father.\"\n\nIt was too late to go. She could not tell why, but it was too late.\nShe turned away her head when Gino lifted his son to his lips. This was\nsomething too remote from the prettiness of the nursery. The man was\nmajestic; he was a part of Nature; in no ordinary love scene could he\never be so great. For a wonderful physical tie binds the parents to the\nchildren; and--by some sad, strange irony--it does not bind us children\nto our parents. For if it did, if we could answer their love not with\ngratitude but with equal love, life would lose much of its pathos\nand much of its squalor, and we might be wonderfully happy. Gino\npassionately embracing, Miss Abbott reverently averting her eyes--both\nof them had parents whom they did not love so very much.\n\n\"May I help you to wash him?\" she asked humbly.\n\nHe gave her his son without speaking, and they knelt side by side,\ntucking up their sleeves. The child had stopped crying, and his arms and\nlegs were agitated by some overpowering joy. Miss Abbott had a woman's\npleasure in cleaning anything--more especially when the thing was human.\nShe understood little babies from long experience in a district, and\nGino soon ceased to give her directions, and only gave her thanks.\n\n\"It is very kind of you,\" he murmured, \"especially in your beautiful\ndress. He is nearly clean already. Why, I take the whole morning! There\nis so much more of a baby than one expects. And Perfetta washes him just\nas she washes clothes. Then he screams for hours. My wife is to have a\nlight hand. Ah, how he kicks! Has he splashed you? I am very sorry.\"\n\n\"I am ready for a soft towel now,\" said Miss Abbott, who was strangely\nexalted by the service.\n\n\"Certainly! certainly!\" He strode in a knowing way to a cupboard. But\nhe had no idea where the soft towel was. Generally he dabbed the baby on\nthe first dry thing he found.\n\n\"And if you had any powder.\"\n\nHe struck his forehead despairingly. Apparently the stock of powder was\njust exhausted.\n\nShe sacrificed her own clean handkerchief. He put a chair for her on the\nloggia, which faced westward, and was still pleasant and cool. There she\nsat, with twenty miles of view behind her, and he placed the dripping\nbaby on her knee. It shone now with health and beauty: it seemed to\nreflect light, like a copper vessel. Just such a baby Bellini sets\nlanguid on his mother's lap, or Signorelli flings wriggling on pavements\nof marble, or Lorenzo di Credi, more reverent but less divine, lays\ncarefully among flowers, with his head upon a wisp of golden straw. For\na time Gino contemplated them standing. Then, to get a better view, he\nknelt by the side of the chair, with his hands clasped before him.\n\nSo they were when Philip entered, and saw, to all intents and purposes,\nthe Virgin and Child, with Donor.\n\n\"Hullo!\" he exclaimed; for he was glad to find things in such cheerful\ntrim.\n\nShe did not greet him, but rose up unsteadily and handed the baby to his\nfather.\n\n\"No, do stop!\" whispered Philip. \"I got your note. I'm not offended;\nyou're quite right. I really want you; I could never have done it\nalone.\"\n\nNo words came from her, but she raised her hands to her mouth, like one\nwho is in sudden agony.\n\n\"Signorina, do stop a little--after all your kindness.\"\n\nShe burst into tears.\n\n\"What is it?\" said Philip kindly.\n\nShe tried to speak, and then went away weeping bitterly.\n\nThe two men stared at each other. By a common impulse they ran on to the\nloggia. They were just in time to see Miss Abbott disappear among the\ntrees.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Philip again. There was no answer, and somehow he\ndid not want an answer. Some strange thing had happened which he could\nnot presume to understand. He would find out from Miss Abbott, if ever\nhe found out at all.\n\n\"Well, your business,\" said Gino, after a puzzled sigh.\n\n\"Our business--Miss Abbott has told you of that.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"But surely--\"\n\n\"She came for business. But she forgot about it; so did I.\"\n\nPerfetta, who had a genius for missing people, now returned, loudly\ncomplaining of the size of Monteriano and the intricacies of its\nstreets. Gino told her to watch the baby. Then he offered Philip a\ncigar, and they proceeded to the business.\n\n\n\nChapter 8\n\n\"Mad!\" screamed Harriet,--\"absolutely stark, staring, raving mad!\"\n\nPhilip judged it better not to contradict her.\n\n\"What's she here for? Answer me that. What's she doing in Monteriano in\nAugust? Why isn't she in Normandy? Answer that. She won't. I can: she's\ncome to thwart us; she's betrayed us--got hold of mother's plans. Oh,\ngoodness, my head!\"\n\nHe was unwise enough to reply, \"You mustn't accuse her of that. Though\nshe is exasperating, she hasn't come here to betray us.\"\n\n\"Then why has she come here? Answer me that.\"\n\nHe made no answer. But fortunately his sister was too much agitated\nto wait for one. \"Bursting in on me--crying and looking a disgusting\nsight--and says she has been to see the Italian. Couldn't even talk\nproperly; pretended she had changed her opinions. What are her opinions\nto us? I was very calm. I said: 'Miss Abbott, I think there is a\nlittle misapprehension in this matter. My mother, Mrs. Herriton--' Oh,\ngoodness, my head! Of course you've failed--don't trouble to answer--I\nknow you've failed. Where's the baby, pray? Of course you haven't got\nit. Dear sweet Caroline won't let you. Oh, yes, and we're to go away at\nonce and trouble the father no more. Those are her commands. Commands!\nCOMMANDS!\" And Harriet also burst into tears.\n\nPhilip governed his temper. His sister was annoying, but quite\nreasonable in her indignation. Moreover, Miss Abbott had behaved even\nworse than she supposed.\n\n\"I've not got the baby, Harriet, but at the same time I haven't\nexactly failed. I and Signor Carella are to have another interview\nthis afternoon, at the Caffe Garibaldi. He is perfectly reasonable and\npleasant. Should you be disposed to come with me, you would find him\nquite willing to discuss things. He is desperately in want of money, and\nhas no prospect of getting any. I discovered that. At the same time, he\nhas a certain affection for the child.\" For Philip's insight, or perhaps\nhis opportunities, had not been equal to Miss Abbott's.\n\nHarriet would only sob, and accuse her brother of insulting her; how\ncould a lady speak to such a horrible man? That, and nothing else, was\nenough to stamp Caroline. Oh, poor Lilia!\n\nPhilip drummed on the bedroom window-sill. He saw no escape from the\ndeadlock. For though he spoke cheerfully about his second interview with\nGino, he felt at the bottom of his heart that it would fail. Gino was\ntoo courteous: he would not break off negotiations by sharp denial; he\nloved this civil, half-humorous bargaining. And he loved fooling his\nopponent, and did it so nicely that his opponent did not mind being\nfooled.\n\n\"Miss Abbott has behaved extraordinarily,\" he said at last; \"but at the\nsame time--\"\n\nHis sister would not hear him. She burst forth again on the madness, the\ninterference, the intolerable duplicity of Caroline.\n\n\"Harriet, you must listen. My dear, you must stop crying. I have\nsomething quite important to say.\"\n\n\"I shall not stop crying,\" said she. But in time, finding that he would\nnot speak to her, she did stop.\n\n\"Remember that Miss Abbott has done us no harm. She said nothing to him\nabout the matter. He assumes that she is working with us: I gathered\nthat.\"\n\n\"Well, she isn't.\"\n\n\"Yes; but if you're careful she may be. I interpret her behaviour thus:\nShe went to see him, honestly intending to get the child away. In the\nnote she left me she says so, and I don't believe she'd lie.\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"When she got there, there was some pretty domestic scene between him\nand the baby, and she has got swept off in a gush of sentimentalism.\nBefore very long, if I know anything about psychology, there will be a\nreaction. She'll be swept back.\"\n\n\"I don't understand your long words. Say plainly--\"\n\n\"When she's swept back, she'll be invaluable. For she has made quite an\nimpression on him. He thinks her so nice with the baby. You know, she\nwashed it for him.\"\n\n\"Disgusting!\"\n\nHarriet's ejaculations were more aggravating than the rest of her. But\nPhilip was averse to losing his temper. The access of joy that had come\nto him yesterday in the theatre promised to be permanent. He was more\nanxious than heretofore to be charitable towards the world.\n\n\"If you want to carry off the baby, keep your peace with Miss Abbott.\nFor if she chooses, she can help you better than I can.\"\n\n\"There can be no peace between me and her,\" said Harriet gloomily.\n\n\"Did you--\"\n\n\"Oh, not all I wanted. She went away before I had finished\nspeaking--just like those cowardly people!--into the church.\"\n\n\"Into Santa Deodata's?\"\n\n\"Yes; I'm sure she needs it. Anything more unchristian--\"\n\nIn time Philip went to the church also, leaving his sister a little\ncalmer and a little disposed to think over his advice. What had come\nover Miss Abbott? He had always thought her both stable and sincere.\nThat conversation he had had with her last Christmas in the train to\nCharing Cross--that alone furnished him with a parallel. For the second\ntime, Monteriano must have turned her head. He was not angry with her,\nfor he was quite indifferent to the outcome of their expedition. He was\nonly extremely interested.\n\nIt was now nearly midday, and the streets were clearing. But the intense\nheat had broken, and there was a pleasant suggestion of rain. The\nPiazza, with its three great attractions--the Palazzo Pubblico, the\nCollegiate Church, and the Caffe Garibaldi: the intellect, the soul, and\nthe body--had never looked more charming. For a moment Philip stood in\nits centre, much inclined to be dreamy, and thinking how wonderful it\nmust feel to belong to a city, however mean. He was here, however, as\nan emissary of civilization and as a student of character, and, after a\nsigh, he entered Santa Deodata's to continue his mission.\n\nThere had been a FESTA two days before, and the church still smelt of\nincense and of garlic. The little son of the sacristan was sweeping the\nnave, more for amusement than for cleanliness, sending great clouds\nof dust over the frescoes and the scattered worshippers. The sacristan\nhimself had propped a ladder in the centre of the Deluge--which fills\none of the nave spandrels--and was freeing a column from its wealth of\nscarlet calico. Much scarlet calico also lay upon the floor--for the\nchurch can look as fine as any theatre--and the sacristan's little\ndaughter was trying to fold it up. She was wearing a tinsel crown. The\ncrown really belonged to St. Augustine. But it had been cut too big:\nit fell down over his cheeks like a collar: you never saw anything so\nabsurd. One of the canons had unhooked it just before the FIESTA began,\nand had given it to the sacristan's daughter.\n\n\"Please,\" cried Philip, \"is there an English lady here?\"\n\nThe man's mouth was full of tin-tacks, but he nodded cheerfully towards\na kneeling figure. In the midst of this confusion Miss Abbott was\npraying.\n\nHe was not much surprised: a spiritual breakdown was quite to be\nexpected. For though he was growing more charitable towards mankind,\nhe was still a little jaunty, and too apt to stake out beforehand the\ncourse that will be pursued by the wounded soul. It did not surprise\nhim, however, that she should greet him naturally, with none of the sour\nself-consciousness of a person who had just risen from her knees. This\nwas indeed the spirit of Santa Deodata's, where a prayer to God is\nthought none the worse of because it comes next to a pleasant word to\na neighbour. \"I am sure that I need it,\" said she; and he, who had\nexpected her to be ashamed, became confused, and knew not what to reply.\n\n\"I've nothing to tell you,\" she continued. \"I have simply changed\nstraight round. If I had planned the whole thing out, I could not have\ntreated you worse. I can talk it over now; but please believe that I\nhave been crying.\"\n\n\"And please believe that I have not come to scold you,\" said Philip. \"I\nknow what has happened.\"\n\n\"What?\" asked Miss Abbott. Instinctively she led the way to the famous\nchapel, the fifth chapel on the right, wherein Giovanni da Empoli has\npainted the death and burial of the saint. Here they could sit out of\nthe dust and the noise, and proceed with a discussion which promised to\nbe important.\n\n\"What might have happened to me--he had made you believe that he loved\nthe child.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes; he has. He will never give it up.\"\n\n\"At present it is still unsettled.\"\n\n\"It will never be settled.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not. Well, as I said, I know what has happened, and I am not\nhere to scold you. But I must ask you to withdraw from the thing for the\npresent. Harriet is furious. But she will calm down when she realizes\nthat you have done us no harm, and will do none.\"\n\n\"I can do no more,\" she said. \"But I tell you plainly I have changed\nsides.\"\n\n\"If you do no more, that is all we want. You promise not to prejudice\nour cause by speaking to Signor Carella?\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly. I don't want to speak to him again; I shan't ever see\nhim again.\"\n\n\"Quite nice, wasn't he?\"\n\n\"Quite.\"\n\n\"Well, that's all I wanted to know. I'll go and tell Harriet of your\npromise, and I think things'll quiet down now.\"\n\nBut he did not move, for it was an increasing pleasure to him to be\nnear her, and her charm was at its strongest today. He thought less of\npsychology and feminine reaction. The gush of sentimentalism which had\ncarried her away had only made her more alluring. He was content to\nobserve her beauty and to profit by the tenderness and the wisdom that\ndwelt within her.\n\n\"Why aren't you angry with me?\" she asked, after a pause.\n\n\"Because I understand you--all sides, I think,--Harriet, Signor Carella,\neven my mother.\"\n\n\"You do understand wonderfully. You are the only one of us who has a\ngeneral view of the muddle.\"\n\nHe smiled with pleasure. It was the first time she had ever praised\nhim. His eyes rested agreeably on Santa Deodata, who was dying in full\nsanctity, upon her back. There was a window open behind her, revealing\njust such a view as he had seen that morning, and on her widowed\nmother's dresser there stood just such another copper pot. The saint\nlooked neither at the view nor at the pot, and at her widowed mother\nstill less. For lo! she had a vision: the head and shoulders of St.\nAugustine were sliding like some miraculous enamel along the rough-cast\nwall. It is a gentle saint who is content with half another saint to see\nher die. In her death, as in her life, Santa Deodata did not accomplish\nmuch.\n\n\"So what are you going to do?\" said Miss Abbott.\n\nPhilip started, not so much at the words as at the sudden change in the\nvoice. \"Do?\" he echoed, rather dismayed. \"This afternoon I have another\ninterview.\"\n\n\"It will come to nothing. Well?\"\n\n\"Then another. If that fails I shall wire home for instructions. I dare\nsay we may fail altogether, but we shall fail honourably.\"\n\nShe had often been decided. But now behind her decision there was a note\nof passion. She struck him not as different, but as more important, and\nhe minded it very much when she said--\n\n\"That's not doing anything! You would be doing something if you\nkidnapped the baby, or if you went straight away. But that! To fail\nhonourably! To come out of the thing as well as you can! Is that all you\nare after?\"\n\n\"Why, yes,\" he stammered. \"Since we talk openly, that is all I am after\njust now. What else is there? If I can persuade Signor Carella to give\nin, so much the better. If he won't, I must report the failure to my\nmother and then go home. Why, Miss Abbott, you can't expect me to follow\nyou through all these turns--\"\n\n\"I don't! But I do expect you to settle what is right and to follow\nthat. Do you want the child to stop with his father, who loves him and\nwill bring him up badly, or do you want him to come to Sawston, where\nno one loves him, but where he will be brought up well? There is the\nquestion put dispassionately enough even for you. Settle it. Settle\nwhich side you'll fight on. But don't go talking about an 'honourable\nfailure,' which means simply not thinking and not acting at all.\"\n\n\"Because I understand the position of Signor Carella and of you, it's no\nreason that--\"\n\n\"None at all. Fight as if you think us wrong. Oh, what's the use of your\nfair-mindedness if you never decide for yourself? Any one gets hold of\nyou and makes you do what they want. And you see through them and laugh\nat them--and do it. It's not enough to see clearly; I'm muddle-headed\nand stupid, and not worth a quarter of you, but I have tried to do\nwhat seemed right at the time. And you--your brain and your insight are\nsplendid. But when you see what's right you're too idle to do it. You\ntold me once that we shall be judged by our intentions, not by our\naccomplishments. I thought it a grand remark. But we must intend to\naccomplish--not sit intending on a chair.\"\n\n\"You are wonderful!\" he said gravely.\n\n\"Oh, you appreciate me!\" she burst out again. \"I wish you didn't. You\nappreciate us all--see good in all of us. And all the time you are\ndead--dead--dead. Look, why aren't you angry?\" She came up to him, and\nthen her mood suddenly changed, and she took hold of both his hands.\n\"You are so splendid, Mr. Herriton, that I can't bear to see you wasted.\nI can't bear--she has not been good to you--your mother.\"\n\n\"Miss Abbott, don't worry over me. Some people are born not to do\nthings. I'm one of them; I never did anything at school or at the Bar.\nI came out to stop Lilia's marriage, and it was too late. I came out\nintending to get the baby, and I shall return an 'honourable failure.' I\nnever expect anything to happen now, and so I am never disappointed.\nYou would be surprised to know what my great events are. Going to the\ntheatre yesterday, talking to you now--I don't suppose I shall ever\nmeet anything greater. I seem fated to pass through the world without\ncolliding with it or moving it--and I'm sure I can't tell you whether\nthe fate's good or evil. I don't die--I don't fall in love. And if other\npeople die or fall in love they always do it when I'm just not there.\nYou are quite right; life to me is just a spectacle, which--thank God,\nand thank Italy, and thank you--is now more beautiful and heartening\nthan it has ever been before.\"\n\nShe said solemnly, \"I wish something would happen to you, my dear\nfriend; I wish something would happen to you.\"\n\n\"But why?\" he asked, smiling. \"Prove to me why I don't do as I am.\"\n\nShe also smiled, very gravely. She could not prove it. No argument\nexisted. Their discourse, splendid as it had been, resulted in nothing,\nand their respective opinions and policies were exactly the same when\nthey left the church as when they had entered it.\n\nHarriet was rude at lunch. She called Miss Abbott a turncoat and a\ncoward to her face. Miss Abbott resented neither epithet, feeling that\none was justified and the other not unreasonable. She tried to avoid\neven the suspicion of satire in her replies. But Harriet was sure\nthat she was satirical because she was so calm. She got more and more\nviolent, and Philip at one time feared that she would come to blows.\n\n\"Look here!\" he cried, with something of the old manner, \"it's too\nhot for this. We've been talking and interviewing each other all the\nmorning, and I have another interview this afternoon. I do stipulate for\nsilence. Let each lady retire to her bedroom with a book.\"\n\n\"I retire to pack,\" said Harriet. \"Please remind Signor Carella, Philip,\nthat the baby is to be here by half-past eight this evening.\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly, Harriet. I shall make a point of reminding him.\"\n\n\"And order a carriage to take us to the evening train.\"\n\n\"And please,\" said Miss Abbott, \"would you order a carriage for me too?\"\n\n\"You going?\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"Of course,\" she replied, suddenly flushing. \"Why not?\"\n\n\"Why, of course you would be going. Two carriages, then. Two carriages\nfor the evening train.\" He looked at his sister hopelessly. \"Harriet,\nwhatever are you up to? We shall never be ready.\"\n\n\"Order my carriage for the evening train,\" said Harriet, and departed.\n\n\"Well, I suppose I shall. And I shall also have my interview with Signor\nCarella.\"\n\nMiss Abbott gave a little sigh.\n\n\"But why should you mind? Do you suppose that I shall have the slightest\ninfluence over him?\"\n\n\"No. But--I can't repeat all that I said in the church. You ought never\nto see him again. You ought to bundle Harriet into a carriage, not this\nevening, but now, and drive her straight away.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I ought. But it isn't a very big 'ought.' Whatever Harriet and\nI do the issue is the same. Why, I can see the splendour of it--even the\nhumour. Gino sitting up here on the mountain-top with his cub. We come\nand ask for it. He welcomes us. We ask for it again. He is equally\npleasant. I'm agreeable to spend the whole week bargaining with him. But\nI know that at the end of it I shall descend empty-handed to the\nplains. It might be finer of me to make up my mind. But I'm not a fine\ncharacter. And nothing hangs on it.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I am extreme,\" she said humbly. \"I've been trying to run you,\njust like your mother. I feel you ought to fight it out with Harriet.\nEvery little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important\ntoday, and when you say of a thing that 'nothing hangs on it,' it sounds\nlike blasphemy. There's never any knowing--(how am I to put it?)--which\nof our actions, which of our idlenesses won't have things hanging on it\nfor ever.\"\n\nHe assented, but her remark had only an aesthetic value. He was not\nprepared to take it to his heart. All the afternoon he rested--worried,\nbut not exactly despondent. The thing would jog out somehow. Probably\nMiss Abbott was right. The baby had better stop where it was loved. And\nthat, probably, was what the fates had decreed. He felt little interest\nin the matter, and he was sure that he had no influence.\n\nIt was not surprising, therefore, that the interview at the Caffe\nGaribaldi came to nothing. Neither of them took it very seriously. And\nbefore long Gino had discovered how things lay, and was ragging his\ncompanion hopelessly. Philip tried to look offended, but in the end\nhe had to laugh. \"Well, you are right,\" he said. \"This affair is being\nmanaged by the ladies.\"\n\n\"Ah, the ladies--the ladies!\" cried the other, and then he roared like\na millionaire for two cups of black coffee, and insisted on treating his\nfriend, as a sign that their strife was over.\n\n\"Well, I have done my best,\" said Philip, dipping a long slice of sugar\ninto his cup, and watching the brown liquid ascend into it. \"I shall\nface my mother with a good conscience. Will you bear me witness that\nI've done my best?\"\n\n\"My poor fellow, I will!\" He laid a sympathetic hand on Philip's knee.\n\n\"And that I have--\" The sugar was now impregnated with coffee, and he\nbent forward to swallow it. As he did so his eyes swept the opposite of\nthe Piazza, and he saw there, watching them, Harriet. \"Mia sorella!\" he\nexclaimed. Gino, much amused, laid his hand upon the little table, and\nbeat the marble humorously with his fists. Harriet turned away and began\ngloomily to inspect the Palazzo Pubblico.\n\n\"Poor Harriet!\" said Philip, swallowing the sugar. \"One more wrench and\nit will all be over for her; we are leaving this evening.\"\n\nGino was sorry for this. \"Then you will not be here this evening as you\npromised us. All three leaving?\"\n\n\"All three,\" said Philip, who had not revealed the secession of Miss\nAbbott; \"by the night train; at least, that is my sister's plan. So I'm\nafraid I shan't be here.\"\n\nThey watched the departing figure of Harriet, and then entered upon the\nfinal civilities. They shook each other warmly by both hands. Philip\nwas to come again next year, and to write beforehand. He was to be\nintroduced to Gino's wife, for he was told of the marriage now. He was\nto be godfather to his next baby. As for Gino, he would remember some\ntime that Philip liked vermouth. He begged him to give his love to Irma.\nMrs. Herriton--should he send her his sympathetic regards? No; perhaps\nthat would hardly do.\n\nSo the two young men parted with a good deal of genuine affection. For\nthe barrier of language is sometimes a blessed barrier, which only lets\npass what is good. Or--to put the thing less cynically--we may be better\nin new clean words, which have never been tainted by our pettiness or\nvice. Philip, at all events, lived more graciously in Italian, the very\nphrases of which entice one to be happy and kind. It was horrible to\nthink of the English of Harriet, whose every word would be as hard, as\ndistinct, and as unfinished as a lump of coal.\n\nHarriet, however, talked little. She had seen enough to know that her\nbrother had failed again, and with unwonted dignity she accepted the\nsituation. She did her packing, she wrote up her diary, she made a brown\npaper cover for the new Baedeker. Philip, finding her so amenable, tried\nto discuss their future plans. But she only said that they would sleep\nin Florence, and told him to telegraph for rooms. They had supper\nalone. Miss Abbott did not come down. The landlady told them that Signor\nCarella had called on Miss Abbott to say good-bye, but she, though in,\nhad not been able to see him. She also told them that it had begun\nto rain. Harriet sighed, but indicated to her brother that he was not\nresponsible.\n\nThe carriages came round at a quarter past eight. It was not raining\nmuch, but the night was extraordinarily dark, and one of the drivers\nwanted to go slowly to the station. Miss Abbott came down and said that\nshe was ready, and would start at once.\n\n\"Yes, do,\" said Philip, who was standing in the hall. \"Now that we have\nquarrelled we scarcely want to travel in procession all the way down the\nhill. Well, good-bye; it's all over at last; another scene in my pageant\nhas shifted.\"\n\n\"Good-bye; it's been a great pleasure to see you. I hope that won't\nshift, at all events.\" She gripped his hand.\n\n\"You sound despondent,\" he said, laughing. \"Don't forget that you return\nvictorious.\"\n\n\"I suppose I do,\" she replied, more despondently than ever, and got into\nthe carriage. He concluded that she was thinking of her reception at\nSawston, whither her fame would doubtless precede her. Whatever would\nMrs. Herriton do? She could make things quite unpleasant when she\nthought it right. She might think it right to be silent, but then there\nwas Harriet. Who would bridle Harriet's tongue? Between the two of\nthem Miss Abbott was bound to have a bad time. Her reputation, both for\nconsistency and for moral enthusiasm, would be lost for ever.\n\n\"It's hard luck on her,\" he thought. \"She is a good person. I must do\nfor her anything I can.\" Their intimacy had been very rapid, but he too\nhoped that it would not shift. He believed that he understood her,\nand that she, by now, had seen the worst of him. What if after a\nlong time--if after all--he flushed like a boy as he looked after her\ncarriage.\n\nHe went into the dining-room to look for Harriet. Harriet was not to\nbe found. Her bedroom, too, was empty. All that was left of her was\nthe purple prayer-book which lay open on the bed. Philip took it up\naimlessly, and saw--\"Blessed be the Lord my God who teacheth my hands to\nwar and my fingers to fight.\" He put the book in his pocket, and began\nto brood over more profitable themes.\n\nSanta Deodata gave out half past eight. All the luggage was on, and\nstill Harriet had not appeared. \"Depend upon it,\" said the landlady,\n\"she has gone to Signor Carella's to say good-bye to her little nephew.\"\nPhilip did not think it likely. They shouted all over the house and\nstill there was no Harriet. He began to be uneasy. He was helpless\nwithout Miss Abbott; her grave, kind face had cheered him wonderfully,\neven when it looked displeased. Monteriano was sad without her; the rain\nwas thickening; the scraps of Donizetti floated tunelessly out of the\nwineshops, and of the great tower opposite he could only see the base,\nfresh papered with the advertisements of quacks.\n\nA man came up the street with a note. Philip read, \"Start at once. Pick\nme up outside the gate. Pay the bearer. H. H.\"\n\n\"Did the lady give you this note?\" he cried.\n\nThe man was unintelligible.\n\n\"Speak up!\" exclaimed Philip. \"Who gave it you--and where?\"\n\nNothing but horrible sighings and bubblings came out of the man.\n\n\"Be patient with him,\" said the driver, turning round on the box. \"It is\nthe poor idiot.\" And the landlady came out of the hotel and echoed \"The\npoor idiot. He cannot speak. He takes messages for us all.\"\n\nPhilip then saw that the messenger was a ghastly creature, quite bald,\nwith trickling eyes and grey twitching nose. In another country he would\nhave been shut up; here he was accepted as a public institution, and\npart of Nature's scheme.\n\n\"Ugh!\" shuddered the Englishman. \"Signora padrona, find out from him;\nthis note is from my sister. What does it mean? Where did he see her?\"\n\n\"It is no good,\" said the landlady. \"He understands everything but he\ncan explain nothing.\"\n\n\"He has visions of the saints,\" said the man who drove the cab.\n\n\"But my sister--where has she gone? How has she met him?\"\n\n\"She has gone for a walk,\" asserted the landlady. It was a nasty\nevening, but she was beginning to understand the English. \"She has gone\nfor a walk--perhaps to wish good-bye to her little nephew. Preferring to\ncome back another way, she has sent you this note by the poor idiot and\nis waiting for you outside the Siena gate. Many of my guests do this.\"\n\nThere was nothing to do but to obey the message. He shook hands with\nthe landlady, gave the messenger a nickel piece, and drove away. After\na dozen yards the carriage stopped. The poor idiot was running and\nwhimpering behind.\n\n\"Go on,\" cried Philip. \"I have paid him plenty.\"\n\nA horrible hand pushed three soldi into his lap. It was part of the\nidiot's malady only to receive what was just for his services. This was\nthe change out of the nickel piece.\n\n\"Go on!\" shouted Philip, and flung the money into the road. He was\nfrightened at the episode; the whole of life had become unreal. It was\na relief to be out of the Siena gate. They drew up for a moment on the\nterrace. But there was no sign of Harriet. The driver called to the\nDogana men. But they had seen no English lady pass.\n\n\"What am I to do?\" he cried; \"it is not like the lady to be late. We\nshall miss the train.\"\n\n\"Let us drive slowly,\" said the driver, \"and you shall call her by name\nas we go.\"\n\nSo they started down into the night, Philip calling \"Harriet! Harriet!\nHarriet!\" And there she was, waiting for them in the wet, at the first\nturn of the zigzag.\n\n\"Harriet, why don't you answer?\"\n\n\"I heard you coming,\" said she, and got quickly in. Not till then did he\nsee that she carried a bundle.\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"Hush--\"\n\n\"Whatever is that?\"\n\n\"Hush--sleeping.\"\n\nHarriet had succeeded where Miss Abbott and Philip had failed. It was\nthe baby.\n\nShe would not let him talk. The baby, she repeated, was asleep, and she\nput up an umbrella to shield it and her from the rain. He should\nhear all later, so he had to conjecture the course of the wonderful\ninterview--an interview between the South pole and the North. It was\nquite easy to conjecture: Gino crumpling up suddenly before the intense\nconviction of Harriet; being told, perhaps, to his face that he was a\nvillain; yielding his only son perhaps for money, perhaps for nothing.\n\"Poor Gino,\" he thought. \"He's no greater than I am, after all.\"\n\nThen he thought of Miss Abbott, whose carriage must be descending the\ndarkness some mile or two below them, and his easy self-accusation\nfailed. She, too, had conviction; he had felt its force; he would feel\nit again when she knew this day's sombre and unexpected close.\n\n\"You have been pretty secret,\" he said; \"you might tell me a little now.\nWhat do we pay for him? All we've got?\"\n\n\"Hush!\" answered Harriet, and dandled the bundle laboriously, like some\nbony prophetess--Judith, or Deborah, or Jael. He had last seen the baby\nsprawling on the knees of Miss Abbott, shining and naked, with twenty\nmiles of view behind him, and his father kneeling by his feet. And\nthat remembrance, together with Harriet, and the darkness, and the\npoor idiot, and the silent rain, filled him with sorrow and with the\nexpectation of sorrow to come.\n\nMonteriano had long disappeared, and he could see nothing but the\noccasional wet stem of an olive, which their lamp illumined as they\npassed it. They travelled quickly, for this driver did not care how fast\nhe went to the station, and would dash down each incline and scuttle\nperilously round the curves.\n\n\"Look here, Harriet,\" he said at last, \"I feel bad; I want to see the\nbaby.\"\n\n\"Hush!\"\n\n\"I don't mind if I do wake him up. I want to see him. I've as much right\nin him as you.\"\n\nHarriet gave in. But it was too dark for him to see the child's face.\n\"Wait a minute,\" he whispered, and before she could stop him he had\nlit a match under the shelter of her umbrella. \"But he's awake!\" he\nexclaimed. The match went out.\n\n\"Good ickle quiet boysey, then.\"\n\nPhilip winced. \"His face, do you know, struck me as all wrong.\"\n\n\"All wrong?\"\n\n\"All puckered queerly.\"\n\n\"Of course--with the shadows--you couldn't see him.\"\n\n\"Well, hold him up again.\" She did so. He lit another match. It went out\nquickly, but not before he had seen that the baby was crying.\n\n\"Nonsense,\" said Harriet sharply. \"We should hear him if he cried.\"\n\n\"No, he's crying hard; I thought so before, and I'm certain now.\"\n\nHarriet touched the child's face. It was bathed in tears. \"Oh, the night\nair, I suppose,\" she said, \"or perhaps the wet of the rain.\"\n\n\"I say, you haven't hurt it, or held it the wrong way, or anything;\nit is too uncanny--crying and no noise. Why didn't you get Perfetta to\ncarry it to the hotel instead of muddling with the messenger? It's a\nmarvel he understood about the note.\"\n\n\"Oh, he understands.\" And he could feel her shudder. \"He tried to carry\nthe baby--\"\n\n\"But why not Gino or Perfetta?\"\n\n\"Philip, don't talk. Must I say it again? Don't talk. The baby wants\nto sleep.\" She crooned harshly as they descended, and now and then she\nwiped up the tears which welled inexhaustibly from the little eyes.\nPhilip looked away, winking at times himself. It was as if they were\ntravelling with the whole world's sorrow, as if all the mystery, all the\npersistency of woe were gathered to a single fount. The roads were\nnow coated with mud, and the carriage went more quietly but not less\nswiftly, sliding by long zigzags into the night. He knew the landmarks\npretty well: here was the crossroad to Poggibonsi; and the last view of\nMonteriano, if they had light, would be from here. Soon they ought to\ncome to that little wood where violets were so plentiful in spring. He\nwished the weather had not changed; it was not cold, but the air was\nextraordinarily damp. It could not be good for the child.\n\n\"I suppose he breathes, and all that sort of thing?\" he said.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Harriet, in an angry whisper. \"You've started him\nagain. I'm certain he was asleep. I do wish you wouldn't talk; it makes\nme so nervous.\"\n\n\"I'm nervous too. I wish he'd scream. It's too uncanny. Poor Gino! I'm\nterribly sorry for Gino.\"\n\n\"Are you?\"\n\n\"Because he's weak--like most of us. He doesn't know what he wants. He\ndoesn't grip on to life. But I like that man, and I'm sorry for him.\"\n\nNaturally enough she made no answer.\n\n\"You despise him, Harriet, and you despise me. But you do us no good\nby it. We fools want some one to set us on our feet. Suppose a really\ndecent woman had set up Gino--I believe Caroline Abbott might have done\nit--mightn't he have been another man?\"\n\n\"Philip,\" she interrupted, with an attempt at nonchalance, \"do you\nhappen to have those matches handy? We might as well look at the baby\nagain if you have.\"\n\nThe first match blew out immediately. So did the second. He suggested\nthat they should stop the carriage and borrow the lamp from the driver.\n\n\"Oh, I don't want all that bother. Try again.\"\n\nThey entered the little wood as he tried to strike the third match.\nAt last it caught. Harriet poised the umbrella rightly, and for a full\nquarter minute they contemplated the face that trembled in the light of\nthe trembling flame. Then there was a shout and a crash. They were lying\nin the mud in darkness. The carriage had overturned.\n\nPhilip was a good deal hurt. He sat up and rocked himself to and fro,\nholding his arm. He could just make out the outline of the carriage\nabove him, and the outlines of the carriage cushions and of their\nluggage upon the grey road. The accident had taken place in the wood,\nwhere it was even darker than in the open.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" he managed to say. Harriet was screaming, the horse\nwas kicking, the driver was cursing some other man.\n\nHarriet's screams became coherent. \"The baby--the baby--it slipped--it's\ngone from my arms--I stole it!\"\n\n\"God help me!\" said Philip. A cold circle came round his mouth, and, he\nfainted.\n\nWhen he recovered it was still the same confusion. The horse was\nkicking, the baby had not been found, and Harriet still screamed like a\nmaniac, \"I stole it! I stole it! I stole it! It slipped out of my arms!\"\n\n\"Keep still!\" he commanded the driver. \"Let no one move. We may tread on\nit. Keep still.\"\n\nFor a moment they all obeyed him. He began to crawl through the mud,\ntouching first this, then that, grasping the cushions by mistake,\nlistening for the faintest whisper that might guide him. He tried to\nlight a match, holding the box in his teeth and striking at it with the\nuninjured hand. At last he succeeded, and the light fell upon the bundle\nwhich he was seeking.\n\nIt had rolled off the road into the wood a little way, and had fallen\nacross a great rut. So tiny it was that had it fallen lengthways it\nwould have disappeared, and he might never have found it.\n\n\"I stole it! I and the idiot--no one was there.\" She burst out laughing.\n\nHe sat down and laid it on his knee. Then he tried to cleanse the face\nfrom the mud and the rain and the tears. His arm, he supposed, was\nbroken, but he could still move it a little, and for the moment he\nforgot all pain. He was listening--not for a cry, but for the tick of a\nheart or the slightest tremor of breath.\n\n\"Where are you?\" called a voice. It was Miss Abbott, against whose\ncarriage they had collided. She had relit one of the lamps, and was\npicking her way towards him.\n\n\"Silence!\" he called again, and again they obeyed. He shook the bundle;\nhe breathed into it; he opened his coat and pressed it against him. Then\nhe listened, and heard nothing but the rain and the panting horses, and\nHarriet, who was somewhere chuckling to herself in the dark.\n\nMiss Abbott approached, and took it gently from him. The face was\nalready chilly, but thanks to Philip it was no longer wet. Nor would it\nagain be wetted by any tear.\n\n\n\nChapter 9\n\nThe details of Harriet's crime were never known. In her illness\nshe spoke more of the inlaid box that she lent to Lilia--lent, not\ngiven--than of recent troubles. It was clear that she had gone prepared\nfor an interview with Gino, and finding him out, she had yielded to a\ngrotesque temptation. But how far this was the result of ill-temper, to\nwhat extent she had been fortified by her religion, when and how she had\nmet the poor idiot--these questions were never answered, nor did they\ninterest Philip greatly. Detection was certain: they would have been\narrested by the police of Florence or Milan, or at the frontier. As it\nwas, they had been stopped in a simpler manner a few miles out of the\ntown.\n\nAs yet he could scarcely survey the thing. It was too great. Round the\nItalian baby who had died in the mud there centred deep passions and\nhigh hopes. People had been wicked or wrong in the matter; no one save\nhimself had been trivial. Now the baby had gone, but there remained this\nvast apparatus of pride and pity and love. For the dead, who seemed\nto take away so much, really take with them nothing that is ours. The\npassion they have aroused lives after them, easy to transmute or to\ntransfer, but well-nigh impossible to destroy. And Philip knew that he\nwas still voyaging on the same magnificent, perilous sea, with the sun\nor the clouds above him, and the tides below.\n\nThe course of the moment--that, at all events, was certain. He and no\none else must take the news to Gino. It was easy to talk of Harriet's\ncrime--easy also to blame the negligent Perfetta or Mrs. Herriton at\nhome. Every one had contributed--even Miss Abbott and Irma. If one\nchose, one might consider the catastrophe composite or the work of fate.\nBut Philip did not so choose. It was his own fault, due to acknowledged\nweakness in his own character. Therefore he, and no one else, must take\nthe news of it to Gino.\n\nNothing prevented him. Miss Abbott was engaged with Harriet, and people\nhad sprung out of the darkness and were conducting them towards some\ncottage. Philip had only to get into the uninjured carriage and order\nthe driver to return. He was back at Monteriano after a two hours'\nabsence. Perfetta was in the house now, and greeted him cheerfully.\nPain, physical and mental, had made him stupid. It was some time before\nhe realized that she had never missed the child.\n\nGino was still out. The woman took him to the reception-room, just as\nshe had taken Miss Abbott in the morning, and dusted a circle for him on\none of the horsehair chairs. But it was dark now, so she left the guest\na little lamp.\n\n\"I will be as quick as I can,\" she told him. \"But there are many streets\nin Monteriano; he is sometimes difficult to find. I could not find him\nthis morning.\"\n\n\"Go first to the Caffe Garibaldi,\" said Philip, remembering that this\nwas the hour appointed by his friends of yesterday.\n\nHe occupied the time he was left alone not in thinking--there was\nnothing to think about; he simply had to tell a few facts--but in trying\nto make a sling for his broken arm. The trouble was in the elbow-joint,\nand as long as he kept this motionless he could go on as usual. But\ninflammation was beginning, and the slightest jar gave him agony. The\nsling was not fitted before Gino leapt up the stairs, crying--\n\n\"So you are back! How glad I am! We are all waiting--\"\n\nPhilip had seen too much to be nervous. In low, even tones he told what\nhad happened; and the other, also perfectly calm, heard him to the end.\nIn the silence Perfetta called up that she had forgotten the baby's\nevening milk; she must fetch it. When she had gone Gino took up the lamp\nwithout a word, and they went into the other room.\n\n\"My sister is ill,\" said Philip, \"and Miss Abbott is guiltless. I should\nbe glad if you did not have to trouble them.\"\n\nGino had stooped down by the way, and was feeling the place where his\nson had lain. Now and then he frowned a little and glanced at Philip.\n\n\"It is through me,\" he continued. \"It happened because I was cowardly\nand idle. I have come to know what you will do.\"\n\nGino had left the rug, and began to pat the table from the end, as if\nhe was blind. The action was so uncanny that Philip was driven to\nintervene.\n\n\"Gently, man, gently; he is not here.\"\n\nHe went up and touched him on the shoulder.\n\nHe twitched away, and began to pass his hands over things more\nrapidly--over the table, the chairs, the entire floor, the walls as high\nas he could reach them. Philip had not presumed to comfort him. But now\nthe tension was too great--he tried.\n\n\"Break down, Gino; you must break down. Scream and curse and give in for\na little; you must break down.\"\n\nThere was no reply, and no cessation of the sweeping hands.\n\n\"It is time to be unhappy. Break down or you will be ill like my sister.\nYou will go--\"\n\nThe tour of the room was over. He had touched everything in it except\nPhilip. Now he approached him. He face was that of a man who has lost\nhis old reason for life and seeks a new one.\n\n\"Gino!\"\n\nHe stopped for a moment; then he came nearer. Philip stood his ground.\n\n\"You are to do what you like with me, Gino. Your son is dead, Gino. He\ndied in my arms, remember. It does not excuse me; but he did die in my\narms.\"\n\nThe left hand came forward, slowly this time. It hovered before Philip\nlike an insect. Then it descended and gripped him by his broken elbow.\n\nPhilip struck out with all the strength of his other arm. Gino fell to\nthe blow without a cry or a word.\n\n\"You brute!\" exclaimed the Englishman. \"Kill me if you like! But just\nyou leave my broken arm alone.\"\n\nThen he was seized with remorse, and knelt beside his adversary and\ntried to revive him. He managed to raise him up, and propped his body\nagainst his own. He passed his arm round him. Again he was filled with\npity and tenderness. He awaited the revival without fear, sure that both\nof them were safe at last.\n\nGino recovered suddenly. His lips moved. For one blessed moment it\nseemed that he was going to speak. But he scrambled up in silence,\nremembering everything, and he made not towards Philip, but towards the\nlamp.\n\n\"Do what you like; but think first--\"\n\nThe lamp was tossed across the room, out through the loggia. It broke\nagainst one of the trees below. Philip began to cry out in the dark.\n\nGino approached from behind and gave him a sharp pinch. Philip spun\nround with a yell. He had only been pinched on the back, but he knew\nwhat was in store for him. He struck out, exhorting the devil to fight\nhim, to kill him, to do anything but this. Then he stumbled to the door.\nIt was open. He lost his head, and, instead of turning down the stairs,\nhe ran across the landing into the room opposite. There he lay down on\nthe floor between the stove and the skirting-board.\n\nHis senses grew sharper. He could hear Gino coming in on tiptoe. He even\nknew what was passing in his mind, how now he was at fault, now he\nwas hopeful, now he was wondering whether after all the victim had not\nescaped down the stairs. There was a quick swoop above him, and then\na low growl like a dog's. Gino had broken his finger-nails against the\nstove.\n\nPhysical pain is almost too terrible to bear. We can just bear it when\nit comes by accident or for our good--as it generally does in modern\nlife--except at school. But when it is caused by the malignity of a\nman, full grown, fashioned like ourselves, all our control disappears.\nPhilip's one thought was to get away from that room at whatever\nsacrifice of nobility or pride.\n\nGino was now at the further end of the room, groping by the little\ntables. Suddenly the instinct came to him. He crawled quickly to where\nPhilip lay and had him clean by the elbow.\n\nThe whole arm seemed red-hot, and the broken bone grated in the joint,\nsending out shoots of the essence of pain. His other arm was pinioned\nagainst the wall, and Gino had trampled in behind the stove and was\nkneeling on his legs. For the space of a minute he yelled and yelled\nwith all the force of his lungs. Then this solace was denied him. The\nother hand, moist and strong, began to close round his throat.\n\nAt first he was glad, for here, he thought, was death at last. But\nit was only a new torture; perhaps Gino inherited the skill of his\nancestors--and childlike ruffians who flung each other from the towers.\nJust as the windpipe closed, the hand fell off, and Philip was revived\nby the motion of his arm. And just as he was about to faint and gain at\nlast one moment of oblivion, the motion stopped, and he would struggle\ninstead against the pressure on his throat.\n\nVivid pictures were dancing through the pain--Lilia dying some months\nback in this very house, Miss Abbott bending over the baby, his mother\nat home, now reading evening prayers to the servants. He felt that he\nwas growing weaker; his brain wandered; the agony did not seem so great.\nNot all Gino's care could indefinitely postpone the end. His yells and\ngurgles became mechanical--functions of the tortured flesh rather than\ntrue notes of indignation and despair. He was conscious of a horrid\ntumbling. Then his arm was pulled a little too roughly, and everything\nwas quiet at last.\n\n\"But your son is dead, Gino. Your son is dead, dear Gino. Your son is\ndead.\"\n\nThe room was full of light, and Miss Abbott had Gino by the shoulders,\nholding him down in a chair. She was exhausted with the struggle, and\nher arms were trembling.\n\n\"What is the good of another death? What is the good of more pain?\"\n\nHe too began to tremble. Then he turned and looked curiously at Philip,\nwhose face, covered with dust and foam, was visible by the stove. Miss\nAbbott allowed him to get up, though she still held him firmly. He gave\na loud and curious cry--a cry of interrogation it might be called. Below\nthere was the noise of Perfetta returning with the baby's milk.\n\n\"Go to him,\" said Miss Abbott, indicating Philip. \"Pick him up. Treat\nhim kindly.\"\n\nShe released him, and he approached Philip slowly. His eyes were filling\nwith trouble. He bent down, as if he would gently raise him up.\n\n\"Help! help!\" moaned Philip. His body had suffered too much from Gino.\nIt could not bear to be touched by him.\n\nGino seemed to understand. He stopped, crouched above him. Miss Abbott\nherself came forward and lifted her friend in her arms.\n\n\"Oh, the foul devil!\" he murmured. \"Kill him! Kill him for me.\"\n\nMiss Abbott laid him tenderly on the couch and wiped his face. Then she\nsaid gravely to them both, \"This thing stops here.\"\n\n\"Latte! latte!\" cried Perfetta, hilariously ascending the stairs.\n\n\"Remember,\" she continued, \"there is to be no revenge. I will have no\nmore intentional evil. We are not to fight with each other any more.\"\n\n\"I shall never forgive him,\" sighed Philip.\n\n\"Latte! latte freschissima! bianca come neve!\" Perfetta came in with\nanother lamp and a little jug.\n\nGino spoke for the first time. \"Put the milk on the table,\" he said.\n\"It will not be wanted in the other room.\" The peril was over at last.\nA great sob shook the whole body, another followed, and then he gave a\npiercing cry of woe, and stumbled towards Miss Abbott like a child and\nclung to her.\n\nAll through the day Miss Abbott had seemed to Philip like a goddess, and\nmore than ever did she seem so now. Many people look younger and more\nintimate during great emotion. But some there are who look older, and\nremote, and he could not think that there was little difference in\nyears, and none in composition, between her and the man whose head was\nlaid upon her breast. Her eyes were open, full of infinite pity and\nfull of majesty, as if they discerned the boundaries of sorrow, and saw\nunimaginable tracts beyond. Such eyes he had seen in great pictures but\nnever in a mortal. Her hands were folded round the sufferer, stroking\nhim lightly, for even a goddess can do no more than that. And it seemed\nfitting, too, that she should bend her head and touch his forehead with\nher lips.\n\nPhilip looked away, as he sometimes looked away from the great pictures\nwhere visible forms suddenly become inadequate for the things they have\nshown to us. He was happy; he was assured that there was greatness in\nthe world. There came to him an earnest desire to be good through the\nexample of this good woman. He would try henceforward to be worthy of\nthe things she had revealed. Quietly, without hysterical prayers or\nbanging of drums, he underwent conversion. He was saved.\n\n\"That milk,\" said she, \"need not be wasted. Take it, Signor Carella, and\npersuade Mr. Herriton to drink.\"\n\nGino obeyed her, and carried the child's milk to Philip. And Philip\nobeyed also and drank.\n\n\"Is there any left?\"\n\n\"A little,\" answered Gino.\n\n\"Then finish it.\" For she was determined to use such remnants as lie\nabout the world.\n\n\"Will you not have some?\"\n\n\"I do not care for milk; finish it all.\"\n\n\"Philip, have you had enough milk?\"\n\n\"Yes, thank you, Gino; finish it all.\"\n\nHe drank the milk, and then, either by accident or in some spasm of\npain, broke the jug to pieces. Perfetta exclaimed in bewilderment. \"It\ndoes not matter,\" he told her. \"It does not matter. It will never be\nwanted any more.\"\n\n\n\nChapter 10\n\n\"He will have to marry her,\" said Philip. \"I heard from him this\nmorning, just as we left Milan. He finds he has gone too far to back\nout. It would be expensive. I don't know how much he minds--not as much\nas we suppose, I think. At all events there's not a word of blame in the\nletter. I don't believe he even feels angry. I never was so completely\nforgiven. Ever since you stopped him killing me, it has been a vision of\nperfect friendship. He nursed me, he lied for me at the inquest, and at\nthe funeral, though he was crying, you would have thought it was my son\nwho had died. Certainly I was the only person he had to be kind to;\nhe was so distressed not to make Harriet's acquaintance, and that he\nscarcely saw anything of you. In his letter he says so again.\"\n\n\"Thank him, please, when you write,\" said Miss Abbott, \"and give him my\nkindest regards.\"\n\n\"Indeed I will.\" He was surprised that she could slide away from the\nman so easily. For his own part, he was bound by ties of almost alarming\nintimacy. Gino had the southern knack of friendship. In the intervals\nof business he would pull out Philip's life, turn it inside out,\nremodel it, and advise him how to use it for the best. The sensation was\npleasant, for he was a kind as well as a skilful operator. But Philip\ncame away feeling that he had not a secret corner left. In that\nvery letter Gino had again implored him, as a refuge from domestic\ndifficulties, \"to marry Miss Abbott, even if her dowry is small.\" And\nhow Miss Abbott herself, after such tragic intercourse, could resume\nthe conventions and send calm messages of esteem, was more than he could\nunderstand.\n\n\"When will you see him again?\" she asked. They were standing together in\nthe corridor of the train, slowly ascending out of Italy towards the San\nGothard tunnel.\n\n\"I hope next spring. Perhaps we shall paint Siena red for a day or\ntwo with some of the new wife's money. It was one of the arguments for\nmarrying her.\"\n\n\"He has no heart,\" she said severely. \"He does not really mind about the\nchild at all.\"\n\n\"No; you're wrong. He does. He is unhappy, like the rest of us. But he\ndoesn't try to keep up appearances as we do. He knows that the things\nthat have made him happy once will probably make him happy again--\"\n\n\"He said he would never be happy again.\"\n\n\"In his passion. Not when he was calm. We English say it when we are\ncalm--when we do not really believe it any longer. Gino is not ashamed\nof inconsistency. It is one of the many things I like him for.\"\n\n\"Yes; I was wrong. That is so.\"\n\n\"He's much more honest with himself than I am,\" continued Philip, \"and\nhe is honest without an effort and without pride. But you, Miss Abbott,\nwhat about you? Will you be in Italy next spring?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry. When will you come back, do you think?\"\n\n\"I think never.\"\n\n\"For whatever reason?\" He stared at her as if she were some monstrosity.\n\n\"Because I understand the place. There is no need.\"\n\n\"Understand Italy!\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"Perfectly.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't. And I don't understand you,\" he murmured to himself, as\nhe paced away from her up the corridor. By this time he loved her very\nmuch, and he could not bear to be puzzled. He had reached love by the\nspiritual path: her thoughts and her goodness and her nobility had\nmoved him first, and now her whole body and all its gestures had become\ntransfigured by them. The beauties that are called obvious--the beauties\nof her hair and her voice and her limbs--he had noticed these\nlast; Gino, who never traversed any path at all, had commended them\ndispassionately to his friend.\n\nWhy was he so puzzling? He had known so much about her once--what she\nthought, how she felt, the reasons for her actions. And now he only knew\nthat he loved her, and all the other knowledge seemed passing from him\njust as he needed it most. Why would she never come to Italy again? Why\nhad she avoided himself and Gino ever since the evening that she had\nsaved their lives? The train was nearly empty. Harriet slumbered in\na compartment by herself. He must ask her these questions now, and he\nreturned quickly to her down the corridor.\n\nShe greeted him with a question of her own. \"Are your plans decided?\"\n\n\"Yes. I can't live at Sawston.\"\n\n\"Have you told Mrs. Herriton?\"\n\n\"I wrote from Monteriano. I tried to explain things; but she will\nnever understand me. Her view will be that the affair is settled--sadly\nsettled since the baby is dead. Still it's over; our family circle need\nbe vexed no more. She won't even be angry with you. You see, you have\ndone us no harm in the long run. Unless, of course, you talk about\nHarriet and make a scandal. So that is my plan--London and work. What is\nyours?\"\n\n\"Poor Harriet!\" said Miss Abbott. \"As if I dare judge Harriet! Or\nanybody.\" And without replying to Philip's question she left him to\nvisit the other invalid.\n\nPhilip gazed after her mournfully, and then he looked mournfully out of\nthe window at the decreasing streams. All the excitement was over--the\ninquest, Harriet's short illness, his own visit to the surgeon. He was\nconvalescent, both in body and spirit, but convalescence brought no joy.\nIn the looking-glass at the end of the corridor he saw his face haggard,\nand his shoulders pulled forward by the weight of the sling. Life was\ngreater than he had supposed, but it was even less complete. He had seen\nthe need for strenuous work and for righteousness. And now he saw what a\nvery little way those things would go.\n\n\"Is Harriet going to be all right?\" he asked. Miss Abbott had come back\nto him.\n\n\"She will soon be her old self,\" was the reply. For Harriet, after a\nshort paroxysm of illness and remorse, was quickly returning to her\nnormal state. She had been \"thoroughly upset\" as she phrased it, but\nshe soon ceased to realize that anything was wrong beyond the death of\na poor little child. Already she spoke of \"this unlucky accident,\" and\n\"the mysterious frustration of one's attempts to make things better.\"\nMiss Abbott had seen that she was comfortable, and had given her a kind\nkiss. But she returned feeling that Harriet, like her mother, considered\nthe affair as settled.\n\n\"I'm clear enough about Harriet's future, and about parts of my own. But\nI ask again, What about yours?\"\n\n\"Sawston and work,\" said Miss Abbott.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" she asked, smiling.\n\n\"You've seen too much. You've seen as much and done more than I have.\"\n\n\"But it's so different. Of course I shall go to Sawston. You forget\nmy father; and even if he wasn't there, I've a hundred ties: my\ndistrict--I'm neglecting it shamefully--my evening classes, the St.\nJames'--\"\n\n\"Silly nonsense!\" he exploded, suddenly moved to have the whole thing\nout with her. \"You're too good--about a thousand times better than I am.\nYou can't live in that hole; you must go among people who can hope to\nunderstand you. I mind for myself. I want to see you often--again and\nagain.\"\n\n\"Of course we shall meet whenever you come down; and I hope that it will\nmean often.\"\n\n\"It's not enough; it'll only be in the old horrible way, each with a\ndozen relatives round us. No, Miss Abbott; it's not good enough.\"\n\n\"We can write at all events.\"\n\n\"You will write?\" he cried, with a flush of pleasure. At times his hopes\nseemed so solid.\n\n\"I will indeed.\"\n\n\"But I say it's not enough--you can't go back to the old life if you\nwanted to. Too much has happened.\"\n\n\"I know that,\" she said sadly.\n\n\"Not only pain and sorrow, but wonderful things: that tower in the\nsunlight--do you remember it, and all you said to me? The theatre, even.\nAnd the next day--in the church; and our times with Gino.\"\n\n\"All the wonderful things are over,\" she said. \"That is just where it\nis.\"\n\n\"I don't believe it. At all events not for me. The most wonderful things\nmay be to come--\"\n\n\"The wonderful things are over,\" she repeated, and looked at him so\nmournfully that he dare not contradict her. The train was crawling up\nthe last ascent towards the Campanile of Airolo and the entrance of the\ntunnel.\n\n\"Miss Abbott,\" he murmured, speaking quickly, as if their free\nintercourse might soon be ended, \"what is the matter with you? I\nthought I understood you, and I don't. All those two great first days at\nMonteriano I read you as clearly as you read me still. I saw why you\nhad come, and why you changed sides, and afterwards I saw your wonderful\ncourage and pity. And now you're frank with me one moment, as you used\nto be, and the next moment you shut me up. You see I owe too much to\nyou--my life, and I don't know what besides. I won't stand it. You've\ngone too far to turn mysterious. I'll quote what you said to me: 'Don't\nbe mysterious; there isn't the time.' I'll quote something else: 'I and\nmy life must be where I live.' You can't live at Sawston.\"\n\nHe had moved her at last. She whispered to herself hurriedly. \"It is\ntempting--\" And those three words threw him into a tumult of joy. What\nwas tempting to her? After all was the greatest of things possible?\nPerhaps, after long estrangement, after much tragedy, the South had\nbrought them together in the end. That laughter in the theatre, those\nsilver stars in the purple sky, even the violets of a departed spring,\nall had helped, and sorrow had helped also, and so had tenderness to\nothers.\n\n\"It is tempting,\" she repeated, \"not to be mysterious. I've wanted often\nto tell you, and then been afraid. I could never tell any one else,\ncertainly no woman, and I think you're the one man who might understand\nand not be disgusted.\"\n\n\"Are you lonely?\" he whispered. \"Is it anything like that?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" The train seemed to shake him towards her. He was resolved that\nthough a dozen people were looking, he would yet take her in his\narms. \"I'm terribly lonely, or I wouldn't speak. I think you must know\nalready.\" Their faces were crimson, as if the same thought was surging\nthrough them both.\n\n\"Perhaps I do.\" He came close to her. \"Perhaps I could speak instead.\nBut if you will say the word plainly you'll never be sorry; I will thank\nyou for it all my life.\"\n\nShe said plainly, \"That I love him.\" Then she broke down. Her body was\nshaken with sobs, and lest there should be any doubt she cried between\nthe sobs for Gino! Gino! Gino!\n\nHe heard himself remark \"Rather! I love him too! When I can forget how\nhe hurt me that evening. Though whenever we shake hands--\" One of them\nmust have moved a step or two, for when she spoke again she was already\na little way apart.\n\n\"You've upset me.\" She stifled something that was perilously near\nhysterics. \"I thought I was past all this. You're taking it wrongly. I'm\nin love with Gino--don't pass it off--I mean it crudely--you know what I\nmean. So laugh at me.\"\n\n\"Laugh at love?\" asked Philip.\n\n\"Yes. Pull it to pieces. Tell me I'm a fool or worse--that he's a cad.\nSay all you said when Lilia fell in love with him. That's the help\nI want. I dare tell you this because I like you--and because you're\nwithout passion; you look on life as a spectacle; you don't enter it;\nyou only find it funny or beautiful. So I can trust you to cure me.\nMr. Herriton, isn't it funny?\" She tried to laugh herself, but became\nfrightened and had to stop. \"He's not a gentleman, nor a Christian, nor\ngood in any way. He's never flattered me nor honoured me. But because\nhe's handsome, that's been enough. The son of an Italian dentist, with\na pretty face.\" She repeated the phrase as if it was a charm against\npassion. \"Oh, Mr. Herriton, isn't it funny!\" Then, to his relief, she\nbegan to cry. \"I love him, and I'm not ashamed of it. I love him, and\nI'm going to Sawston, and if I mayn't speak about him to you sometimes,\nI shall die.\"\n\nIn that terrible discovery Philip managed to think not of himself but of\nher. He did not lament. He did not even speak to her kindly, for he saw\nthat she could not stand it. A flippant reply was what she asked and\nneeded--something flippant and a little cynical. And indeed it was the\nonly reply he could trust himself to make.\n\n\"Perhaps it is what the books call 'a passing fancy'?\"\n\nShe shook her head. Even this question was too pathetic. For as far\nas she knew anything about herself, she knew that her passions, once\naroused, were sure. \"If I saw him often,\" she said, \"I might remember\nwhat he is like. Or he might grow old. But I dare not risk it, so\nnothing can alter me now.\"\n\n\"Well, if the fancy does pass, let me know.\" After all, he could say\nwhat he wanted.\n\n\"Oh, you shall know quick enough--\"\n\n\"But before you retire to Sawston--are you so mighty sure?\"\n\n\"What of?\" She had stopped crying. He was treating her exactly as she\nhad hoped.\n\n\"That you and he--\" He smiled bitterly at the thought of them together.\nHere was the cruel antique malice of the gods, such as they once sent\nforth against Pasiphae. Centuries of aspiration and culture--and the\nworld could not escape it. \"I was going to say--whatever have you got in\ncommon?\"\n\n\"Nothing except the times we have seen each other.\" Again her face was\ncrimson. He turned his own face away.\n\n\"Which--which times?\"\n\n\"The time I thought you weak and heedless, and went instead of you to\nget the baby. That began it, as far as I know the beginning. Or it may\nhave begun when you took us to the theatre, and I saw him mixed up with\nmusic and light. But didn't understand till the morning. Then you opened\nthe door--and I knew why I had been so happy. Afterwards, in the church,\nI prayed for us all; not for anything new, but that we might just be as\nwe were--he with the child he loved, you and I and Harriet safe out of\nthe place--and that I might never see him or speak to him again. I could\nhave pulled through then--the thing was only coming near, like a wreath\nof smoke; it hadn't wrapped me round.\"\n\n\"But through my fault,\" said Philip solemnly, \"he is parted from the\nchild he loves. And because my life was in danger you came and saw\nhim and spoke to him again.\" For the thing was even greater than she\nimagined. Nobody but himself would ever see round it now. And to see\nround it he was standing at an immense distance. He could even be glad\nthat she had once held the beloved in her arms.\n\n\"Don't talk of 'faults.' You're my friend for ever, Mr. Herriton, I\nthink. Only don't be charitable and shift or take the blame. Get over\nsupposing I'm refined. That's what puzzles you. Get over that.\"\n\nAs he spoke she seemed to be transfigured, and to have indeed no part\nwith refinement or unrefinement any longer. Out of this wreck there was\nrevealed to him something indestructible--something which she, who had\ngiven it, could never take away.\n\n\"I say again, don't be charitable. If he had asked me, I might have\ngiven myself body and soul. That would have been the end of my rescue\nparty. But all through he took me for a superior being--a goddess. I\nwho was worshipping every inch of him, and every word he spoke. And that\nsaved me.\"\n\nPhilip's eyes were fixed on the Campanile of Airolo. But he saw instead\nthe fair myth of Endymion. This woman was a goddess to the end. For\nher no love could be degrading: she stood outside all degradation. This\nepisode, which she thought so sordid, and which was so tragic for him,\nremained supremely beautiful. To such a height was he lifted, that\nwithout regret he could now have told her that he was her worshipper\ntoo. But what was the use of telling her? For all the wonderful things\nhad happened.\n\n\"Thank you,\" was all that he permitted himself. \"Thank you for\neverything.\"\n\nShe looked at him with great friendliness, for he had made her life\nendurable. At that moment the train entered the San Gothard tunnel. They\nhurried back to the carriage to close the windows lest the smuts should\nget into Harriet's eyes."