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Unpunctual people were the devil. Ah! Hoofs sounded in the courtyard. He seized his cap, and was half-way down the first flight of stairs before the prompt Vanna could announce Guittoni’s arrival.

For the next few weeks Tony did not think very much, and he did not write to Alison at all. He was playing at being in love. Nobody took him seriously, not even himself, but it was an amusing game, and he played it with zest.

It was not difficult to do, the lady being Yolanda Gasparri, very beautiful and some years older than he. She liked him; and though she told him he was terribly young, that annoyed him less than it would have annoyed most boys. He made frank and fluent love to her at various times and in varied places; it was extremely good for his Italian, and now and then he worked himself up to the point of belief in his own earnestness. But that never lasted after she had gone.

The most extraordinary thing was that he induced Yolanda, a lady whose recklessness usually ran on well-established lines, to come to the Medici Gardens, of all peculiar places, at eleven o’clock in the morning, of all inconceivable hours for love-making, and there they pretended to be children together. Yolanda said it was a “peekneek all’ inglese,” but, for some reason, Tony was not delighted with that idea. He made no reply, unless telling her that her eyes were marvellous could be considered as one.

“Foolish boy,” she said, “that is very poor. Can’t you think of anything better?”

He smiled an answer to her small, fine smile.

“Your mouth is like a scarlet hibiscus bud,” he said.

“Yes, that will do. It is better.”

Tony smiled behind his eyes. “And I don’t feel it