ff to Florence at once.

"I'll beat him yet!" he said to himself, and he romantically kissed the
pink paper. For, "You may come" was what he had read.

CHAPTER XXXI

An hour or so before sunset the next day John Derringham in his motor
was climbing the steep roads which lead to San Gimignano, the city of
beautiful towers, which still stands, a record of things mediaeval,
untouched by the modernizing hand of men.

A helpless sense of bitterness mastered him, and destroyed the
loveliness and peace of the view. Everything fine and great in his
thoughts and aims seemed tarnished. To what stage of degradation would
his utter disillusion finally bring him! Of course, when Cecilia
Cricklander should once be his wife, he would not permit her to lead
this life of continuous racket--or, if she insisted upon it, she should
indulge in it only when she went abroad alone. He would not endure it in
his home. And what sort of home would it be? He was even doubtful about
that now. Since she had so often carelessly thrown off her mask, he no
longer felt sure that she would even come up to the mark of what had
hitherto seemed her chief charm, her power of being a clever and
accomplished hostess. He could picture the scenes which would take place
between them when their wishes clashed! The contemplation of the future
was perfectly ghastly. He remembered, with a cynical laugh, how in the
beginning, before that fateful Good Friday when the Professor first
planted ruffling thoughts in his mind, and before the spell of Halcyone
had fallen upon him, he had thought that one of the compensations for
having to take a rich wife he had found in Cecilia. She would be his
intellectual companion during the rather rare moments he would be able
to spare for her from his work. He would be able to live with a woman
cultured in all branches which interested him, capable of discussing
with him any book or any thought, polished in brain and in methods. He
had imagined them, when alone together, spending their time in a
delightful and intellectual communion of ideas, which would make the tie
of marriage seem as almost a pleasure. And what was the reality?--An
absolute emptiness, and the knowledge that, unless Arabella Clinker
continued her ministrations, he himself would have to play her part! He
actually regretted his accession to fortune. But for it he could have
broken off the engagement with decency, but now his hands were tied.
Only Cecilia co