The Marchese just missed the top of the doorway as he climbed the abrupt steps on to the loggia.--There he greeted Lilly and Aaron with hearty handshakes.

"Very glad to see you--very glad, indeed!" he cried, grinning with excited courtesy and pleasure, and covering Lilly's hand with both his own gloved hands. "When did you come to Florence?"

There was a little explanation. Argyle shoved the last chair--it was a luggage stool--through the window.

"All I can do for you in the way of a chair," he said.

"Ah, that is all right," said the Marchese. "Well, it is very nice up here--and very nice company. Of the very best, the very best in Florence."

"The highest, anyhow," said Argyle grimly, as he entered with the glass.

"Have a whiskey and soda, Del Torre. It's the bottom of the bottle, as you see."

"The bottom of the bottle! Then I start with the tail-end, yes!" He stretched his blue eyes so that the whites showed all round, and grinned a wide, gnome-like grin.

"You made that start long ago, my dear fellow. Don't play the _ingenue_ with me, you know it won't work. Say when, my man, say when!"

"Yes, when," said Del Torre. "When did I make that start, then?"

"At some unmentionably young age. Chickens such as you soon learn to cheep."

"Chickens such as I soon learn to cheap," repeated Del Torre, pleased with the verbal play. "What is cheap, please? What is TO CHEAP?"

"Cheep! Cheep!" squeaked Argyle, making a face at the little Italian, who was perched on one strap of the luggage-stool. "It's what chickens say when they're poking their little noses into new adventures--naughty ones."

"Are chickens naughty? Oh! I thought they could only be good!"

"Featherless chickens like yourself, my boy."

"Oh, as for featherless--then there is no saying what they will do.--"

And here the Marchese turned away from Argyle with the inevitable question to Lilly:

"Well, and how long will you stay in Florence?"

Lilly did not know: but he was not leaving immediately.

"Good! Then you will come and see us at once...."

Argyle rose once more, and went to make the tea. He shoved a lump of cake--or rather panetone, good currant loaf--through the window, with a knife to cut it.

"Help yourselves to the panetone," he said. "Eat it up. The tea is coming at once. You'll have to drink it in your glasses, there's only one old cup."

The Marchese cut the cake, and offered pieces. The two men took and ate.

"So you have already found Mr. Sisson!" said Del Torre to Lilly.

"Ran straight into him in the Via Nazionale," said Lilly.

"Oh, one always runs into everybody in Florence. We are all already acquainted: also with the flute. That is a great pleasure."

"So I think.--Does your wife like it, too?"

"Very much, indeed! She is quite _eprise_. I, too, shall have to learn to play it."

"And run the risk of spoiling the shape of your mouth--like Alcibiades."

"Is there a risk? Yes! Then I shan't play it. My mouth is too beautiful.--But Mr. Sisson has not spoilt his mouth."

"Not yet," said Lilly. "Give him time."

"Is he also afraid--like Alcibiades?"

"Are you, Aaron?" said Lilly.

"What?"

"Afraid of spoiling your beauty by screwing your mouth to the flute?"

"I look a fool, do I, when I'm playing?" said Aaron.

"Only the least little bit in the world," said Lilly. "The way you prance your head, you know, like a horse."

"Ah, well," said Aaron. "I've nothing to lose."

"And were you surprised, Lilly, to find your friend here?" asked Del Torre.

"I ought to have been. But I wasn't really."

"Then you expected him?"

"No. It came naturally, though.--But why did you come, Aaron? What exactly brought you?"

"Accident," said Aaron.

"Ah, no! No! There is no such thing as accident," said the Italian. "A man is drawn by his fate, where he goes."

"You are right," said Argyle, who came now with the teapot. "A man is drawn--or driven. Driven, I've found it. Ah, my dear fellow, what is life but a search for a friend? A search for a friend--that sums it up."

"Or a lover," said the Marchese, grinning.

"Same thing. Same thing. My hair is white--but that is the sum of my whole experience. The search for a friend." There was something at once real and sentimental in Argyle's tone.

"And never finding?" said Lilly, laughing.

"Oh, what would you? Often finding. Often finding. And losing, of course.--A life's history. Give me your glass. Miserable tea, but nobody has sent me any from England--"

"And you will go on till you die, Argyle?" said Lilly. "Always seeking a friend--and always a new one?"

"If I lose the friend I've got. Ah, my dear fellow, in that case I shall go on seeking. I hope so, I assure you. Something will be very wrong with me, if ever I sit friendless and make no search."