“Really, Miss Abbott, it is a little late for reticence.  You have equipped me admirably!”

“I’ll tell you not another word!” she cried, with a spasm of terror.  Then she got out her handkerchief, and seemed as if she would shed tears.  After a silence, which he intended to symbolize to her the dropping of a curtain on the scene, he began to talk of other subjects.

They were among olives again, and the wood with its beauty and wildness had passed away.  But as they climbed higher the country opened out, and there appeared, high on a hill to the right, Monteriano.  The hazy green of the olives rose up to its walls, and it seemed to float in isolation between trees and sky, like some fantastic ship city of a dream.  Its colour was brown, and it revealed not a single house—­nothing but the narrow circle of the walls, and behind them seventeen towers—­all that was left of the fifty-two that had filled the city in her prime.  Some were only stumps, some were inclining stiffly to their fall, some were still erect, piercing like masts into the blue.  It was impossible to praise it as beautiful, but it was also impossible to damn it as quaint.

Meanwhile Philip talked continually, thinking this to be great evidence of resource and tact.  It showed Miss Abbott that he had probed her to the bottom, but was able to conquer his disgust, and by sheer force of intellect continue to be as agreeable and amusing as ever.  He did not know that he talked a good deal of nonsense, and that the sheer force of his intellect was weakened by the sight of Monteriano, and by the thought of dentistry within those walls.

The town above them swung to the left, to the right, to the left again, as the road wound upward through the trees, and the towers began to glow in the descending sun.  As they drew near, Philip saw the heads of people gathering black upon the walls, and he knew well what was happening—­how the news was spreading that a stranger was in sight, and the beggars were aroused from their content and bid to adjust their deformities; how the alabaster man was running for his wares, and the Authorized Guide running for his peaked cap and his two cards of recommendation—­one from Miss M’Gee, Maida Vale, the other, less valuable, from an Equerry to the Queen of Peru; how some one else was running to tell the landlady of the Stella d’Italia to put on her pearl necklace and brown boots and empty the slops from the spare bedroom; and how the landlady was running to tell Lilia and her boy that their fate was at hand.

Perhaps it was a pity Philip had talked so profusely.  He had driven Miss Abbott half demented, but he had given himself no time to concert a plan.  The end came so suddenly.  They emerged from the trees on to the terrace before the walk, with the vision of half Tuscany radiant in the sun behind them, and then they turned in through the Siena gate, and their journey was over.  The Dogana men admitted them with an air of gracious welcome, and they clattered up the narrow dark street, greeted by that mixture of curiosity and kindness which makes each Italian arrival so wonderful.