was served.

After luncheon they sailed in the _Spindrift_. After that, (to Adrian's
delight, I hope) they had tea, with plenty of buttered toast. Then they
played tennis. Then they went for a breathless whirl along the Riva in a
motor-car. Then they swam. And after dinner they played billiards,
while Franco and Baldo smoked short pipes, and sipped whiskey and
soda--but a half-pennyworth of whiskey, as Adrian noticed, to an
intolerable deal of soda. Blood will tell, and theirs, in spite of
everything, was abstemious Italian blood.

XXIII

"Now, Commendatore," said Susanna, making her face grave, "listen, and
you shall hear"--but then her gravity broke down--"of the midnight ride
of Paul Revere," she concluded, laughing.

She raised her eyes to his, aglow with that tender, appealing, mocking,
defiant smile of hers. He, poor man, smiled too, though not very
happily, I fear--nay, even with a kind of suspicious bewilderment, as
one who sniffs brewing mischief, but knows not of what particular
variety it will be. They were seated in the shade and the coolness of
a long open colonnade at Isola Nobile, while, all round them, the
August morning, like a thing alive, pulsated with warmth and light, and
the dancing waves of the bay lapped musically against the walls below.
The Commendatore was clad in stiffly-starched white duck, and held a
white yachting-cap in his hand. Susanna wore a costume of some cool
gauzy tissue, pearl-grey, with white ruffles that looked as impalpable
as froth.

"Listen," she said, "and you shall hear of the midday quest of
Commendatore Fregi. I will tell you step by step what steps you are to
take. My cousin is staying with the Ponte brothers at their villa.
Well,--first step of all,--you are to call upon him."

"No," said the Commendatore, jerking his head, his baldish old head
with its fringe of iron-grey curls.

"Yes," said Susanna, resolutely compressing her lips.

"No," said he. "It is not etiquette. The new-comer pays the first
call."

"That is Italian etiquette," said she. "But my cousin is an
Englishman."

"_Nun fa nien'e_. He is in Italy. He must conform to the customs of
the country," insisted Commendatore Fregi, in the dialect of Sampaolo,
twirling his fierce old moustaches, glaring with his mild old eyes.

"No," said Susanna, softly, firmly; "we must stretch a point in his
favour. He is English. We will adopt the custom of _his_ country. So
you will ca