“Harriet, don’t act.  Or act better.”

“We’ve come here to get the baby back, and for nothing else.  I’ll not have this levity and slackness, and talk about pictures and churches.  Think of mother; did she send you out for them?”

“Think of mother and don’t straddle across the stairs.  Let the cabman and the landlady come down, and let me go up and choose rooms.”

“I shan’t.”

“Harriet, are you mad?”

“If you like.  But you will not come up till you have seen the Italian.”

“La signorina si sente male,” said Philip, “C’ e il sole.”

“Poveretta!” cried the landlady and the cabman.

“Leave me alone!” said Harriet, snarling round at them.  “I don’t care for the lot of you.  I’m English, and neither you’ll come down nor he up till he goes for the baby.”

“La prego-piano-piano-c e un’ altra signorina che dorme—­”

“We shall probably be arrested for brawling, Harriet.  Have you the very slightest sense of the ludicrous?”

Harriet had not; that was why she could be so powerful.  She had concocted this scene in the carriage, and nothing should baulk her of it.  To the abuse in front and the coaxing behind she was equally indifferent.  How long she would have stood like a glorified Horatius, keeping the staircase at both ends, was never to be known.  For the young lady, whose sleep they were disturbing, awoke and opened her bedroom door, and came out on to the landing.  She was Miss Abbott.

Philip’s first coherent feeling was one of indignation.  To be run by his mother and hectored by his sister was as much as he could stand.  The intervention of a third female drove him suddenly beyond politeness.  He was about to say exactly what he thought about the thing from beginning to end.  But before he could do so Harriet also had seen Miss Abbott.  She uttered a shrill cry of joy.

“You, Caroline, here of all people!” And in spite of the heat she darted up the stairs and imprinted an affectionate kiss upon her friend.

Philip had an inspiration.  “You will have a lot to tell Miss Abbott, Harriet, and she may have as much to tell you.  So I’ll pay my call on Signor Carella, as you suggested, and see how things stand.”

Miss Abbott uttered some noise of greeting or alarm.  He did not reply to it or approach nearer to her.  Without even paying the cabman, he escaped into the street.

“Tear each other’s eyes out!” he cried, gesticulating at the facade of the hotel.  “Give it to her, Harriet!  Teach her to leave us alone.  Give it to her, Caroline!  Teach her to be grateful to you.  Go it, ladies; go it!”

Such people as observed him were interested, but did not conclude that he was mad.  This aftermath of conversation is not unknown in Italy.