A room! Yes, you can."

"What terms?"

"Terms! Oh! Why, ten francs a day, you know, pension--if you stay--How
long will you stay?"

"At least a month, I expect."

"A month! Oh yes. Yes, ten francs a day."

"For everything?"

"Everything. Yes, everything. Coffee, bread, honey or jam in the
morning: lunch at half-past twelve; tea in the drawing-room, half-past
four: dinner at half-past seven: all very nice. And a warm room with the
sun--Would you like to see?"

So Aaron was led up the big, rambling old house to the top floor--then
along a long old corridor--and at last into a big bedroom with two
beds and a red tiled floor--a little dreary, as ever--but the sun just
beginning to come in, and a lovely view on to the river, towards the
Ponte Vecchio, and at the hills with their pines and villas and verdure
opposite.

Here he would settle. The signorina would send a man for his bags, at
half past two in the afternoon.

At luncheon Aaron found the two friends, and told them of his move.

"How very nice for you! Ten francs a day--but that is nothing. I am so
pleased you've found something. And when will you be moving in?" said
Francis.

"At half-past two."

"Oh, so soon. Yes, just as well.--But we shall see you from time to
time, of course. What did you say the address was? Oh, yes--just near
the awful statue. Very well. We can look you up any time--and you will
find us here. Leave a message if we should happen not to be in--we've
got lots of engagements--"

CHAPTER XVI. FLORENCE

The very afternoon after Aaron's arrival in Florence the sky became
dark, the wind cold, and rain began steadily to fall. He sat in his big,
bleak room above the river, and watched the pale green water fused with
yellow, the many-threaded streams fuse into one, as swiftly the surface
flood came down from the hills. Across, the dark green hills looked
darker in the wet, the umbrella pines held up in vain above the villas.
But away below, on the Lungarno, traffic rattled as ever.

Aaron went down at five o'clock to tea, and found himself alone next a
group of women, mostly Swedes or Danish or Dutch, drinking a peculiar
brown herb-brew which tasted like nothing else on earth, and eating two
thick bits of darkish bread smeared with a brown smear which hoped
it was jam, but hoped in vain. Unhappily he sat in the gilt and red,
massively ornate room, while the foreign women eyed him. Oh, bitter to
be a male under such circumstan