“It reaches up to heaven,” said Philip, “and down to the other place.”  The summit of the tower was radiant in the sun, while its base was in shadow and pasted over with advertisements.  “Is it to be a symbol of the town?”

She gave no hint that she understood him.  But they remained together at the window because it was a little cooler and so pleasant.  Philip found a certain grace and lightness in his companion which he had never noticed in England.  She was appallingly narrow, but her consciousness of wider things gave to her narrowness a pathetic charm.  He did not suspect that he was more graceful too.  For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.

Citizens came out for a little stroll before dinner.  Some of them stood and gazed at the advertisements on the tower.

“Surely that isn’t an opera-bill?” said Miss Abbott.

Philip put on his pince-nez. " ’Lucia di Lammermoor.  By the Master Donizetti.  Unique representation.  This evening.’

“But is there an opera?  Right up here?”

“Why, yes.  These people know how to live.  They would sooner have a thing bad than not have it at all.  That is why they have got to have so much that is good.  However bad the performance is tonight, it will be alive.  Italians don’t love music silently, like the beastly Germans.  The audience takes its share—­sometimes more.”

“Can’t we go?”

He turned on her, but not unkindly.  “But we’re here to rescue a child!”

He cursed himself for the remark.  All the pleasure and the light went out of her face, and she became again Miss Abbott of Sawston—­good, oh, most undoubtedly good, but most appallingly dull.  Dull and remorseful:  it is a deadly combination, and he strove against it in vain till he was interrupted by the opening of the dining-room door.

They started as guiltily as if they had been flirting.  Their interview had taken such an unexpected course.  Anger, cynicism, stubborn morality—­all had ended in a feeling of good-will towards each other and towards the city which had received them.  And now Harriet was here—­acrid, indissoluble, large; the same in Italy as in England—­changing her disposition never, and her atmosphere under protest.

Yet even Harriet was human, and the better for a little tea.  She did not scold Philip for finding Gino out, as she might reasonably have done.  She showered civilities on Miss Abbott, exclaiming again and again that Caroline’s visit was one of the most fortunate coincidences in the world.  Caroline did not contradict her.

“You see him tomorrow at ten, Philip.  Well, don’t forget the blank cheque.  Say an hour for the business.  No, Italians are so slow; say two.  Twelve o’clock.  Lunch.  Well—­then it’s no good going till the evening train.  I can manage the baby as far as Florence—­”