He found Flavia and Spicca alone together, with a small tea-table between them.  The air was heavy with the smoke of cigarettes, which clung to the oriental curtains and hung in clouds about the rare palms and plants.  Everything in the San Giacinto house was large, comfortable and unostentatious.  There was not a chair to be seen which might not have held the giant’s frame.  San Giacinto was a wonderful judge of what was good.  If he paid twice as much as Montevarchi for a horse, the horse turned out to be capable of four times the work.  If he bought a picture at a sale, it was discovered to be by some good master and other people wondered why they had lost courage in the bidding for a trifle of a hundred francs.  Nothing ever turned out badly with him, but no success had the power to shake his solid prudence.  No one knew how rich he was, but those who had watched him understood that he would never let the world guess at half his fortune.  He was a giant in all ways and he had shown what he could do when he had dominated Flavia during the first year of their marriage.  She had at first been proud of him, but about the time when she would have wearied of another man, she discovered that she feared him in a way she certainly did not fear the devil.  Yet lie had never spoken a harsh, word to her in his life.  But there was something positively appalling to her in his enormous strength, rarely exhibited and never without good reason, but always quietly present, as the outline of a vast mountain reflected in a placid lake.  Then she discovered to her great surprise that he really loved her, which she had not expected, and at the end of three years he became aware that she loved him, which was still more astonishing.  As usual, his investment had turned out well.

At the time of which I am speaking Flavia was a slight, graceful woman of forty years or thereabouts, retaining much of the brilliant prettiness which served her for beauty, and conspicuous always for her extremely bright eyes.  She was of the type of women who live to a great age.

She had not expected to see Sant’ Ilario, and as she gave her hand, she looked up at him with an air of inquiry.  It would have been like him to say that he had come to see her husband and not herself, for he had no tact with persons whom he did not especially like.  There are such people in the world.

“Will you give me a cup of tea, Flavia?” he asked, as he sat down, after shaking hands with Spicca.

“Have you at last heard that your cousin’s tea is good?” inquired the latter, who was surprised by Giovanni’s coming.

“I am afraid it is cold,” said Flavia, looking into the teapot, as though she could discover the temperature by inspection.

“It is no matter,” answered Giovanni absently.

He was wondering how he could lead the conversation to the discussion of Madame d’Aranjuez.

“You belong to the swallowers,” observed Spicca, lighting a fresh cigarette.  “You swallow something, no matter what, and you are satisfied.”