Serafino came for me one morning at the studio.  There was an old cafe beyond the walls near the Campagna where the food was wholly Italian and of the best.  It was a wonderful place for the rest of the noonday meal, for a view of the Alban hills.  The sun was warm, the sky was clear.  The intoxication of an Italian day was in the air.  I wished so much to share the delight with someone.  Mrs. Winchell was sitting near absorbed in her work.  But she had looked up and bowed to Serafino, whom she had seen with me so frequently.  I turned to her and asked:  “Would you and Mr. Winchell like to join me?” “Let us go and ask him,” she replied.  So we set off to the pension to invite Uncle Tom.  That was the name she called him, and I had begun to use it myself.

Uncle Tom had made the acquaintance of some men of his own age from New York.  They had begun to patronize a cafe located beyond the American Embassy, where broiled chicken and fresh vegetables were a specialty and where the red wine was of the best.  He had an engagement with these cronies and was preparing to leave as we came in.  He listened to Isabel’s exclamations about the place to which Serafino wished to take us.  If she had been his daughter and I had been his son he could not have sent us off together with a heartier laugh, a more undisturbed heart.  “You two go,” he said.  “You get along about pictures and scenery.  I am going to Canape’s, and play checkers this afternoon.  I am too fat to run around like you young folks do.  Go on and have a good time.”

And we ran down, following Serafino who had preceded us to engage a carriage.  Off we drove, the wheels rattling over the stones, past the Forum, past the Coliseum, in view of St. Peter’s.  Soon we entered a dusty road.  The houses were small now, broken and old.  At last we drew up into an open space surrounded by little buildings:  a blacksmith’s shop where the anvil was ringing, little bakeries, markets where vegetables and bologna were vended.  Ragged Italian children, gay and soiled with healthy dirt, were playing in the dust, turning somersaults, chasing each other, laughing.  Beyond us was the Campagna, the Alban hills.  We climbed a rickety stairway to a platform or roof of stone.  An eager and obliging waiter brought us a table, spread it, put before us red wine.  And Serafino, seeing these things done, disappeared, leaving Isabel and me to dine together under this clear sky with the green of the lovely plain spread out before us to the purples of the hills.

How could I help but make comparisons between Isabel and Dorothy?  I had never known any women but Dorothy and Abigail, Sarah, Mother Clayton.  I had never come into romantic contact with any woman but Dorothy.  Now I was advancing to this relationship with Isabel.  I began to wonder if I had given Dorothy love.  I had given her perfect loyalty.  Was there a form of treason to Dorothy’s memory in the fast beating of my heart here in the presence