"But we can be friends, can't we?" he said.

"Yes, I hope so. Why, yes! Goodness, yes! I should be sorry if we couldn't be friends."

After which speech he felt that everything was all right--everything was A-one. And when Manfredi came home, the first sound he heard was the flute and his wife's singing.

"I'm so glad you've come," his wife said to him. "Shall we go into the sala and have real music? Will you play?"

"I should love to," replied the husband.

Behold them then in the big drawing-room, and Aaron and the Marchese practising together, and the Marchesa singing an Italian folk-song while her husband accompanied her on the pianoforte. But her singing was rather strained and forced. Still, they were quite a little family, and it seemed quite nice. As soon as she could, the Marchesa left the two men together, whilst she sat apart. Aaron and Manfredi went through old Italian and old German music, tried one thing and then another, and seemed quite like brothers. They arranged a piece which they should play together on a Saturday morning, eight days hence.

The next day, Saturday, Aaron went to one of the Del Torre music mornings. There was a string quartette--and a violin soloist--and the Marchese at the piano. The audience, some dozen or fourteen friends, sat at the near end of the room, or in the smaller salotta, whilst the musicians performed at the further end of the room. The Lillys were there, both Tanny and her husband. But apart from these, Aaron knew nobody, and felt uncomfortable. The Marchesa gave her guests little sandwiches and glasses of wine or Marsala or vermouth, as they chose.

And she was quite the hostess: the well-bred and very simple, but still the conventional hostess. Aaron did not like it. And he could see that Lilly too was unhappy. In fact, the little man bolted the moment he could, dragging after him the indignant Tanny, who was so looking forward to the excellent little sandwiches. But no--Lilly just rudely bolted. Aaron followed as soon as he could.

"Will you come to dinner tomorrow evening?" said his hostess to him as he was leaving. And he agreed. He had really resented seeing her as a conventional hostess, attending so charmingly to all the other people, and treating him so merely as one of the guests, among many others. So that when at the last moment she quietly invited him to dinner next day, he was flattered and accepted at once.

The next day was Sunday--the seventh day after his coming together with the Marchesa--which had taken place on the Monday. And already he was feeling much less dramatic in his decision to keep himself apart from her, to be merely friends. Already the memory of the last time was fanning up in him, not as a warning but as a terrible incitement. Again the naked desire was getting hold of him, with that peculiar brutal powerfulness which startled him and also pleased him.

So that by the time Sunday morning came, his recoil had exhausted itself, and he was ready again, eager again, but more wary this time.

He sat in his room alone in the morning, playing his flute, playing over from memory the tunes she loved, and imagining how he and she would get into unison in the evening. His flute, his Aaron's rod, would blossom once again with splendid scarlet flowers, the red Florentine lilies.

It was curious, the passion he had for her: just unalloyed desire, and nothing else. Something he had not known in his life before. Previously there had been always _some_ personal quality, some sort of personal tenderness. But here, none. She did not seem to want it. She seemed to hate it, indeed. No, all he felt was stark, naked desire, without a single pretension. True enough, his last experience had been a warning to him. His desire and himself likewise had broken rather disastrously under the proving. But not finally broken. He was ready again. And with all the sheer powerful insolence of desire he looked forward to the evening. For he almost expected Manfredi would not be there. The officer had said something about having to go to Padua on the Saturday afternoon.

So Aaron went skipping off to his appointment, at seven o'clock. Judge of his chagrin, then, when he found already seated in the salotta an elderly, quite well-known, very cultured and very well-connected English authoress. She was charming, in her white hair and dress of soft white wool and white lace, with a long chain of filigree gold beads, like bubbles. She was charming in her old-fashioned manner too, as if the world were still safe and stable, like a garden in which delightful culture, and choice ideas bloomed safe from wind and weather. Alas, never was Aaron more conscious of the crude collapse in the world than when he listened to this animated, young-seeming lady from the safe days of the seventies. All the old culture and choice ideas seemed like blowing bubbles. And dear old Corinna Wade, she seemed to be blowing bubbles still, as she sat there so charming in her soft white dress, and talked with her bright animation about the influence of woman in Parliament and the influence of woman in the Periclean day. Aaron listened spell-bound, watching the bubbles float round his head, and almost hearing them go pop.

To complete the party arrived an elderly litterateur who was more proud of his not-very-important social standing than of his literature. In fact he was one of those English snobs of the old order, living abroad.

Perfectly well dressed for the evening, his grey hair and his prim face was the most well-dressed thing to be met in North Italy.

"Oh, so glad to see you, Mr. French. I didn't know you were in Florence again. You make that journey from Venice so often. I wonder you don't get tired of it," cried Corinna Wade.

"No," he said. "So long as duty to England calls me to Florence, I shall come to Florence. But I can LIVE in no town but Venice."

"No, I suppose you can't. Well, there is something special about Venice: having no streets and no carriages, and moving about in a gondola. I suppose it is all much more soothing."

"Much less nerve-racking, yes. And then there is a quality in the whole life. Of course I see few English people in Venice--only the old Venetian families, as a rule."

"Ah, yes. That must be very interesting. They are very exclusive still, the Venetian _noblesse_?" said Miss Wade.

"Oh, very exclusive," said Mr. French. "That is one of the charms.

Venice is really altogether exclusive. It excludes the world, really, and defies time and modern movement. Yes, in spite of the steamers on the canal, and the tourists."

"That is so. That is so. Venice is a strange back-water. And the old families are very proud still, in these democratic days. They have a great opinion of themselves, I am told."

"Well," said Mr. French. "Perhaps you know the rhyme:

"'Veneziano gran' Signore Padovano buon' dotore.

Vicenzese mangia il gatto Veronese tutto matto---'"

"How very amusing!" said Miss Wade. "_Veneziana_ gran' Signore. The Venetian is a great gentleman! Yes, I know they are all convinced of it.

Really, how very amusing, in these advanced days. To be born a Venetian, is to be born a great gentleman! But this outdoes divine right of king."

"To be born a Venetian GENTLEMAN, is to be born a great gentleman," said Mr. French, rather fussily.

"You seriously think so?" said Miss Wade. "Well now, what do you base your opinion on?"

Mr. French gave various bases for his opinion.

"Yes--interesting. Very interesting. Rather like the Byzantines--lingering on into far other ages. Anna Comnena always charmed me very much. HOW she despised the flower of the north--even Tancred! And so the lingering Venetian families! And you, in your palazzo on the Grand Canal: you are a northern barbarian civilised into the old Venetian Signoria. But how very romantic a situation!"

It was really amusing to see the old maid, how she skirmished and hit out gaily, like an old jaunty free lance: and to see the old bachelor, how prim he was, and nervy and fussy and precious, like an old maid.

But need we say that Mr. Aaron felt very much out of it. He sat and listened, with a sardonic small smile on his face and a sardonic gleam in his blue eyes, that looked so very blue on such an occasion. He made the two elderly people uncomfortable with his silence: his democratic silence, Miss Wade might have said.

However, Miss Wade lived out towards Galuzzo, so she rose early, to catch her tram. And Mr. French gallantly and properly rose to accompany her, to see her safe on board. Which left Aaron and the Marchesa alone.

"What time is Manfredi coming back?" said he.

"Tomorrow," replied she.

There was a pause.

"Why do you have those people?" he asked.

"Who?"

"Those two who were here this evening."

"Miss Wade and Mr. French?--Oh, I like Miss Wade so very much. She is so refreshing."

"Those old people," said Aaron. "They licked the sugar off the pill, and go on as if everything was toffee. And we've got to swallow the pill.

It's easy to be refreshing---"

"No, don't say anything against her. I like her so much."

"And him?"

"Mr. French!--Well, he's perhaps a little like the princess who felt the pea through three feather-beds. But he can be quite witty, and an excellent conversationalist, too. Oh yes, I like him quite well."

"Matter of taste," said Aaron.

They had not much to say to one another. The time passed, in the pauses.

He looked at his watch.

"I shall have to go," he said.

"Won't you stay?" she said, in a small, muted voice.

"Stay all night?" he said.

"Won't you?"