Contrary to Mrs. Fisher’s idea of the seemly—­but of course contrary; what else would one expect of Mrs. Wilkins?—­she did not go to meet her husband at Messago, but merely walked down to the point where Beppo’s fly would leave him and his luggage in the street of Castagneto.  Mrs. Fisher disliked the arrival of Mr. Wilkins, and was sure that anybody who could have married Mrs. Wilkins must be at least of an injudicious disposition, but a husband, whatever his disposition, should be properly met.  Mr. Fisher had always been properly met.  Never once in his married life had he gone unmet at a station, nor had he ever not been seen off.  These observances, these courtesies, strengthened the bonds of marriage, and made the husband feel he could rely on his wife’s being always there.  Always being there was the essential secret for a wife.  What would have become of Mr. Fisher if she had neglected to act on this principle she preferred not to think.  Enough things became of him as it was; for whatever one’s care in stopping up, married life yet seemed to contain chinks.

But Mrs. Wilkins took no pains.  She just walked down the hill singing—­Mrs. Fisher could hear her—­and picked up her husband in the street as casually as if he were a pin.  The three others, still in bed, for it was not nearly time to get up, heard her as she passed beneath their windows down the zigzag path to meet Mr. Wilkins, who was coming by the morning train, and Scrap smiled, and Rose sighed, and Mrs. Fisher rang her bell and desired Francesca to bring her her breakfast in her room.  All three had breakfast that day in their rooms, moved by a common instinct to take cover.

Scrap always breakfasted in bed, but she had the same instinct for cover, and during breakfast she made plans for spending the whole day where she was.  Perhaps, though, it wouldn’t be as necessary that day as the next.  That day, Scrap calculated, Mellersh would be provided for.  He would want to have a bath, and having a bath at San Salvatore was an elaborate business, a real adventure if one had a hot one in the bathroom, and it took a lot of time.  It involved the attendance of the entire staff—­Domenico and the boy Giuseppe coaxing the patent stove to burn, restraining it when it burnt too fiercely, using the bellows to it when it threatened to go out, relighting it when it did go out; Francesca anxiously hovering over the tap regulating its trickle, because if it were turned on too full the water instantly ran cold, and if not full enough the stove blew up inside and mysteriously flooded the house; and Costanza and Angela running up and down bringing pails of hot water from the kitchen to eke out what the tap did.