e--was thrown
at you over the stairs.

"It reaches up to heaven," said Philip, "and down to the other place."
The summit of the tower was radiant in the sun, while its base was in
shadow and pasted over with advertisements. "Is it to be a symbol of the
town?"

She gave no hint that she understood him. But they remained together at
the window because it was a little cooler and so pleasant. Philip
found a certain grace and lightness in his companion which he had never
noticed in England. She was appallingly narrow, but her consciousness of
wider things gave to her narrowness a pathetic charm. He did not suspect
that he was more graceful too. For our vanity is such that we hold our
own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have
changed, even for the better.

Citizens came out for a little stroll before dinner. Some of them stood
and gazed at the advertisements on the tower.

"Surely that isn't an opera-bill?" said Miss Abbott.

Philip put on his pince-nez. "'Lucia di Lammermoor. By the Master
Donizetti. Unique representation. This evening.'

"But is there an opera? Right up here?"

"Why, yes. These people know how to live. They would sooner have a thing
bad than not have it at all. That is why they have got to have so much
that is good. However bad the performance is tonight, it will be alive.
Italians don't love music silently, like the beastly Germans. The
audience takes its share--sometimes more."

"Can't we go?"

He turned on her, but not unkindly. "But we're here to rescue a child!"

He cursed himself for the remark. All the pleasure and the light went
out of her face, and she became again Miss Abbott of Sawston--good, oh,
most undoubtedly good, but most appallingly dull. Dull and remorseful:
it is a deadly combination, and he strove against it in vain till he was
interrupted by the opening of the dining-room door.

They started as guiltily as if they had been flirting. Their interview
had taken such an unexpected course. Anger, cynicism, stubborn
morality--all had ended in a feeling of good-will towards each other
and towards the city which had received them. And now Harriet
was here--acrid, indissoluble, large; the same in Italy as in
England--changing her disposition never, and her atmosphere under
protest.

Yet even Harriet was human, and the better for a little tea. She did not
scold Philip for finding Gino out, as she might reasonably have done.
She showered civilities on