"Oh, I'm coming, I'm coming," said Argyle.

He got unsteadily to his feet. The waiter helped him on with his coat: and he put a disreputable-looking little curly hat on his head. Then he took his stick.

"Don't look at my appearance, my dear fellow," said Argyle. "I am frayed at the wrists--look here!" He showed the cuffs of his overcoat, just frayed through. "I've got a trunkful of clothes in London, if only somebody would bring it out to me.--Ready then! _Avanti!_"

And so they passed out into the still rainy street. Argyle lived in the very centre of the town: in the Cathedral Square. Aaron left him at his hotel door.

"But come and see me," said Argyle. "Call for me at twelve o'clock--or just before twelve--and let us have luncheon together. What! Is that all right?--Yes, come just before twelve.--When?--Tomorrow? Tomorrow morning? Will you come tomorrow?"

Aaron said he would on Monday.

"Monday, eh! You say Monday! Very well then. Don't you forget now. Don't you forget. For I've a memory like a vice. _I_ shan't forget.--Just before twelve then. And come right up. I'm right under the roof. In Paradise, as the porter always says. _Siamo nel paradiso_. But he's a _cretin_. As near Paradise as I care for, for it's devilish hot in summer, and damned cold in winter. Don't you forget now--Monday, twelve o'clock."

And Argyle pinched Aaron's arm fast, then went unsteadily up the steps to his hotel door.

The next day at Algy's there was a crowd Algy had a very pleasant flat indeed, kept more scrupulously neat and finicking than ever any woman's flat was kept. So today, with its bowls of flowers and its pictures and books and old furniture, and Algy, very nicely dressed, fluttering and blinking and making really a charming host, it was all very delightful to the little mob of visitors. They were a curious lot, it is true: everybody rather exceptional. Which though it may be startling, is so very much better fun than everybody all alike. Aaron talked to an old, old Italian elegant in side-curls, who peeled off his grey gloves and studied his formalities with a delightful Mid-Victorian dash, and told stories about a _plaint_ which Lady Surry had against Lord Marsh, and was quite incomprehensible. Out rolled the English words, like plums out of a burst bag, and all completely unintelligible. But the old _beau_ was supremely satisfied. He loved talking English, and holding his listeners spell-bound.

Next to Aaron on the sofa sat the Marchesa del Torre, an American woman from the Southern States, who had lived most of her life in Europe. She was about forty years of age, handsome, well-dressed, and quiet in the buzz of the tea-party. It was evident she was one of Algy's lionesses.

Now she sat by Aaron, eating nothing, but taking a cup of tea and keeping still. She seemed sad--or not well perhaps. Her eyes were heavy. But she was very carefully made up, and very well dressed, though simply: and sitting there, full-bosomed, rather sad, remote-seeming, she suggested to Aaron a modern Cleopatra brooding, Anthony-less.

Her husband, the Marchese, was a little intense Italian in a colonel's grey uniform, cavalry, leather gaiters. He had blue eyes, his hair was cut very short, his head looked hard and rather military: he would have been taken for an Austrian officer, or even a German, had it not been for the peculiar Italian sprightliness and touch of grimace in his mobile countenance. He was rather like a gnome--not ugly, but odd.

Now he came and stood opposite to Signor di Lanti, and quizzed him in Italian. But it was evident, in quizzing the old buck, the little Marchese was hovering near his wife, in ear-shot. Algy came up with cigarettes, and she at once began to smoke, with that peculiar heavy intensity of a nervous woman.

Aaron did not say anything--did not know what to say. He was peculiarly conscious of the woman sitting next to him, her arm near his. She smoked heavily, in silence, as if abstracted, a sort of cloud on her level, dark brows. Her hair was dark, but a softish brown, not black, and her skin was fair. Her bosom would be white.--Why Aaron should have had this thought, he could not for the life of him say.

Manfredi, her husband, rolled his blue eyes and grimaced as he laughed at old Lanti. But it was obvious that his attention was diverted sideways, towards his wife. Aaron, who was tired of nursing a tea-cup, placed in on a table and resumed his seat in silence. But suddenly the little Marchese whipped out his cigarette-case, and making a little bow, presented it to Aaron, saying:

"Won't you smoke?"

"Thank you," said Aaron.

"Turkish that side--Virginia there--you see."

"Thank you, Turkish," said Aaron.

The little officer in his dove-grey and yellow uniform snapped his box shut again, and presented a light.

"You are new in Florence?" he said, as he presented the match.

"Four days," said Aaron.

"And I hear you are musical."

"I play the flute--no more."

"Ah, yes--but then you play it as an artist, not as an accomplishment."

"But how do you know?" laughed Aaron.

"I was told so--and I believe it."

"That's nice of you, anyhow--But you are a musician too."

"Yes--we are both musicians--my wife and I."

Manfredi looked at his wife. She flicked the ash off her cigarette.

"What sort?" said Aaron.

"Why, how do you mean, what sort? We are dilettanti, I suppose."

"No--what is your instrument? The piano?"

"Yes--the pianoforte. And my wife sings. But we are very much out of practice. I have been at the war four years, and we have had our home in Paris. My wife was in Paris, she did not wish to stay in Italy alone.

And so--you see--everything goes--"

"But you will begin again?"

"Yes. We have begun already. We have music on Saturday mornings. Next Saturday a string quartette, and violin solos by a young Florentine woman--a friend--very good indeed, daughter of our Professor Tortoli, who composes--as you may know--"

"Yes," said Aaron.

"Would you care to come and hear--?"

"Awfully nice if you would--" suddenly said the wife, quite simply, as if she had merely been tired, and not talking before.

"I should like to very much--"

"Do come then."

While they were making the arrangements, Algy came up in his blandest manner.

"Now Marchesa--might we hope for a song?"

"No--I don't sing any more," came the slow, contralto reply.

"Oh, but you can't mean you say that deliberately--"

"Yes, quite deliberately--" She threw away her cigarette and opened her little gold case to take another.

"But what can have brought you to such a disastrous decision?"

"I can't say," she replied, with a little laugh. "The war, probably."

"Oh, but don't let the war deprive us of this, as of everything else."

"Can't be helped," she said. "I have no choice in the matter. The bird has flown--" She spoke with a certain heavy languor.