will he be back?" he
called to Perfetta. It really was too bad.

She did not know. He was away on business. He might be back this
evening, he might not. He had gone to Poggibonsi.

At the sound of this word the little girl put her fingers to her
nose and swept them at the plain. She sang as she did so, even as her
foremothers had sung seven hundred years back--

Poggibonizzi, fatti in la,
Che Monteriano si fa citta!

Then she asked Philip for a halfpenny. A German lady, friendly to the
Past, had given her one that very spring.

"I shall have to leave a message," he called.

"Now Perfetta has gone for her basket," said the little girl. "When she
returns she will lower it--so. Then you will put your card into it. Then
she will raise it--thus. By this means--"

When Perfetta returned, Philip remembered to ask after the baby. It took
longer to find than the basket, and he stood perspiring in the evening
sun, trying to avoid the smell of the drains and to prevent the little
girl from singing against Poggibonsi. The olive-trees beside him were
draped with the weekly--or more probably the monthly--wash. What a
frightful spotty blouse! He could not think where he had seen it. Then
he remembered that it was Lilia's. She had brought it "to hack about in"
at Sawston, and had taken it to Italy because "in Italy anything does."
He had rebuked her for the sentiment.

"Beautiful as an angel!" bellowed Perfetta, holding out something which
must be Lilia's baby. "But who am I addressing?"

"Thank you--here is my card." He had written on it a civil request
to Gino for an interview next morning. But before he placed it in the
basket and revealed his identity, he wished to find something out. "Has
a young lady happened to call here lately--a young English lady?"

Perfetta begged his pardon: she was a little deaf.

"A young lady--pale, large, tall."

She did not quite catch.

"A YOUNG LADY!"

"Perfetta is deaf when she chooses," said the Dogana's relative. At
last Philip admitted the peculiarity and strode away. He paid off the
detestable child at the Volterra gate. She got two nickel pieces and was
not pleased, partly because it was too much, partly because he did not
look pleased when he gave it to her. He caught her fathers and cousins
winking at each other as he walked past them. Monteriano seemed in
one conspiracy to make him look a fool. He felt tired and anxious and
muddled, and not sure of anything except that