n thoroughly grounded in this conception of
the matter by her husband. Amaldi guessed as much.

"My dear lady, if only you could know how often I make a meal off of rye
bread and cheese; when I'm out for a day's sailing," he said. "Really my
dinner hasn't the gigantic importance for me that your kindness
imagines."

He spoke rather stilted English sometimes when he was serious as now,
but Sophy loved it, because he was trying to make her feel less
self-reproachful.

"It's very, very good of you, Marchese, to want to make me feel less
dreadfully selfish," she now said. "But"--her tone was mournful--"these
hours on the water have made _me_ dreadfully hungry--so I can imagine
what _you_ are feeling!"

Amaldi laughed. At the same instant he had a veritable inspiration. Her
remark in reference to the servants showed him how far she was from any
conventional pruderies.

"I'll tell you what we can do--if you approve," he said. "The Isola
Pescatori is just over there to our left. Do you see? Where the lights
cluster in a little bunch there? We could land there and have an
excellent dinner."

"Oh, what fun! I should love it!" she cried, without an instant's
hesitation.

"_Benone! Benissimo!_" he said, lapsing into Italian as he always did
when excited or deeply moved.

It was now after eight. The purplish dusk was velvet overhead, and
silken smooth below. Stresa to the left, and Pallanza far away to the
northeast, fretted the twilight with points of orange. Between the
scudding clouds stars flitted in and out like fireflies. There was the
soft, orange glow from a rising moon behind the Sasso di Perro. Its huge
crouching bulk seemed steaming with phosphorus.

Now they were under the lee of the little island. Sophy saw the
clustered houses jutting above her, and a wide terrace, brightly
lighted, under its pergola of grape-vines. People were eating there at
little tables. She could see their heads above the wall. They had dined
already, for it was fruit and nuts that they were lifting to their
mouths. It seemed droll to see these greedy heads peeping above the
terrace.

They got out on the rough, stone quay, and climbing a stairway found
themselves on the terrace. It was very gay, with electric lights hung
from the lattice of the pergola. Half the terrace was uncovered. Sophy
hoped that they would sit at one of the tables out there under the
violet-blue, star-freckled sky. The Padrone came forward, followed by
one of