Not a doubt that Gaeta felt the electricity in the air, with the instinct of a woman; but with the instinct of a born flirt, she thrilled with it.  Her colour rose; her warm eyes sparkled.  She was perfectly happy; for—­from her point of view—­were there not here three male beings all secretly ready to fly at one another’s throat for love of her; and what can a spoiled beauty want more?

She covered the little awkwardness with charming tact, for all her childishness; and then the excuses I made for my defection caused a diversion.  She was so sorry; it was really too bad.  I was going to desert her for other friends.  Were not we friends, nice new friends, so much more interesting than old friends, whom you knew inside-out, like your frocks or your gloves?  But surely, I would come often, very often to the villa—­always for dejeuner and diner, till the other friends arrived, was it not?  And I would not try to take Signor Boy (this was the name she had built on mine for him) away from her and the dear Baronessa?

I reassured her on this last point, promised everything she asked, and then got away as quickly as I could, lest I should disgrace myself by letting escape the wild laughter which I caged with difficulty.  It was arranged that we should all meet that evening, after dinner, at the Villa des Fleurs, for one of those fetes de nuit which Gaeta loved; and then I turned my back upon the group under the red umbrella, without a glance for the Boy.

I tramped into the town once more, with Joseph close behind, leading his own Finois and Innocentina’s Fanny, and found my way to the hotel, in its large shady garden, where coloured lamps were already beginning to glow in the twilight.  Soon I had all the resources of civilisation at my command:  a white-and-gold panelled suite, with a bath as big as a boudoir, and hot water enough to make of me a better man (I hoped) than Paolo di Nivoli.

Later I dined on the wide balcony, with flower-fragrance blowing towards me from the mysterious blue dusk of the garden.  I ought, I said to myself, to be well-contented, for the dinner was excellent, and the surroundings a picture in aquarelles.  Still, I had a vague sense of something very wrong, such as a well brought up motor car must feel when it has a screw loose, and can’t explain to the chauffeur.  What was it?  The Boy’s absence?  Nonsense; he didn’t want me, rather the contrary.  Why should I want him?  A few weeks ago I had not known that he existed.  I drank a pint of dry champagne, iced almost to freezing point; but instead of hardening my heart against the ex-Brat, to my annoyance the sparkling liquid gradually but surely produced the opposite effect.

The fragrance of the flowers, the soft wind among the chestnut trees in the garden, the beauty of the night, all reproached me for my conduct to the young creature I had abandoned.  What use was it to remind myself that I had merely taken a leaf out of his book, that I had even played into his hands, as he seemed to desire?  The answer would come that he was a boy, and I a man.  No matter what he had done, I ought not to have left him to flirt with Gaeta under the jealous eyes of the Italian, who was “a whirlwind, and caught a woman off her feet.”