“First, Harriet, I shall settle you at the Stella d’Italia, in the comfort that befits your sex and disposition.  Then I shall make myself some tea.  After tea I shall take a book into Santa Deodata’s, and read there.  It is always fresh and cool.”

The martyred Harriet exclaimed, “I’m not clever, Philip.  I don’t go in for it, as you know.  But I know what’s rude.  And I know what’s wrong.”

“Meaning—?”

“You!” she shouted, bouncing on the cushions of the legno and startling all the fleas.  “What’s the good of cleverness if a man’s murdered a woman?”

“Harriet, I am hot.  To whom do you refer?”

“He.  Her.  If you don’t look out he’ll murder you.  I wish he would.”

“Tut tut, tutlet!  You’d find a corpse extraordinarily inconvenient.”  Then he tried to be less aggravating.  “I heartily dislike the fellow, but we know he didn’t murder her.  In that letter, though she said a lot, she never said he was physically cruel.”

“He has murdered her.  The things he did—­things one can’t even mention—­”

“Things which one must mention if one’s to talk at all.  And things which one must keep in their proper place.  Because he was unfaithful to his wife, it doesn’t follow that in every way he’s absolutely vile.”  He looked at the city.  It seemed to approve his remark.

“It’s the supreme test.  The man who is unchivalrous to a woman—­”

“Oh, stow it!  Take it to the Back Kitchen.  It’s no more a supreme test than anything else.  The Italians never were chivalrous from the first.  If you condemn him for that, you’ll condemn the whole lot.”

“I condemn the whole lot.”

“And the French as well?”

“And the French as well.”

“Things aren’t so jolly easy,” said Philip, more to himself than to her.

But for Harriet things were easy, though not jolly, and she turned upon her brother yet again.  “What about the baby, pray?  You’ve said a lot of smart things and whittled away morality and religion and I don’t know what; but what about the baby?  You think me a fool, but I’ve been noticing you all today, and you haven’t mentioned the baby once.  You haven’t thought about it, even.  You don’t care.  Philip!  I shall not speak to you.  You are intolerable.”

She kept her promise, and never opened her lips all the rest of the way.  But her eyes glowed with anger and resolution.  For she was a straight, brave woman, as well as a peevish one.

Philip acknowledged her reproof to be true.  He did not care about the baby one straw.  Nevertheless, he meant to do his duty, and he was fairly confident of success.  If Gino would have sold his wife for a thousand lire, for how much less would he not sell his child?  It was just a commercial transaction.  Why should it interfere with other things?  His eyes were fixed on the towers again, just as they had been fixed when he drove with Miss Abbott.  But this time his thoughts were pleasanter, for he had no such grave business on his mind.  It was in the spirit of the cultivated tourist that he approached his destination.