It was now nearly midday, and the streets were clearing.  But the intense heat had broken, and there was a pleasant suggestion of rain.  The Piazza, with its three great attractions—­the Palazzo Pubblico, the Collegiate Church, and the Caffe Garibaldi:  the intellect, the soul, and the body—­had never looked more charming.  For a moment Philip stood in its centre, much inclined to be dreamy, and thinking how wonderful it must feel to belong to a city, however mean.  He was here, however, as an emissary of civilization and as a student of character, and, after a sigh, he entered Santa Deodata’s to continue his mission.

There had been a Festa two days before, and the church still smelt of incense and of garlic.  The little son of the sacristan was sweeping the nave, more for amusement than for cleanliness, sending great clouds of dust over the frescoes and the scattered worshippers.  The sacristan himself had propped a ladder in the centre of the Deluge—­which fills one of the nave spandrels—­and was freeing a column from its wealth of scarlet calico.  Much scarlet calico also lay upon the floor—­for the church can look as fine as any theatre—­and the sacristan’s little daughter was trying to fold it up.  She was wearing a tinsel crown.  The crown really belonged to St. Augustine.  But it had been cut too big:  it fell down over his cheeks like a collar:  you never saw anything so absurd.  One of the canons had unhooked it just before the fiesta began, and had given it to the sacristan’s daughter.

“Please,” cried Philip, “is there an English lady here?”

The man’s mouth was full of tin-tacks, but he nodded cheerfully towards a kneeling figure.  In the midst of this confusion Miss Abbott was praying.

He was not much surprised:  a spiritual breakdown was quite to be expected.  For though he was growing more charitable towards mankind, he was still a little jaunty, and too apt to stake out beforehand the course that will be pursued by the wounded soul.  It did not surprise him, however, that she should greet him naturally, with none of the sour self-consciousness of a person who had just risen from her knees.  This was indeed the spirit of Santa Deodata’s, where a prayer to God is thought none the worse of because it comes next to a pleasant word to a neighbour.  “I am sure that I need it,” said she; and he, who had expected her to be ashamed, became confused, and knew not what to reply.

“I’ve nothing to tell you,” she continued.  “I have simply changed straight round.  If I had planned the whole thing out, I could not have treated you worse.  I can talk it over now; but please believe that I have been crying.”

“And please believe that I have not come to scold you,” said Philip.  “I know what has happened.”

“What?” asked Miss Abbott.  Instinctively she led the way to the famous chapel, the fifth chapel on the right, wherein Giovanni da Empoli has painted the death and burial of the saint.  Here they could sit out of the dust and the noise, and proceed with a discussion which promised to be important.