“Perhaps I am extreme,” she said humbly.  “I’ve been trying to run you, just like your mother.  I feel you ought to fight it out with Harriet.  Every little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important today, and when you say of a thing that ‘nothing hangs on it,’ it sounds like blasphemy.  There’s never any knowing—­(how am I to put it?)—­which of our actions, which of our idlenesses won’t have things hanging on it for ever.”

He assented, but her remark had only an aesthetic value.  He was not prepared to take it to his heart.  All the afternoon he rested—­worried, but not exactly despondent.  The thing would jog out somehow.  Probably Miss Abbott was right.  The baby had better stop where it was loved.  And that, probably, was what the fates had decreed.  He felt little interest in the matter, and he was sure that he had no influence.

It was not surprising, therefore, that the interview at the Caffe Garibaldi came to nothing.  Neither of them took it very seriously.  And before long Gino had discovered how things lay, and was ragging his companion hopelessly.  Philip tried to look offended, but in the end he had to laugh.  “Well, you are right,” he said.  “This affair is being managed by the ladies.”

“Ah, the ladies—­the ladies!” cried the other, and then he roared like a millionaire for two cups of black coffee, and insisted on treating his friend, as a sign that their strife was over.

“Well, I have done my best,” said Philip, dipping a long slice of sugar into his cup, and watching the brown liquid ascend into it.  “I shall face my mother with a good conscience.  Will you bear me witness that I’ve done my best?”

“My poor fellow, I will!” He laid a sympathetic hand on Philip’s knee.

“And that I have—­” The sugar was now impregnated with coffee, and he bent forward to swallow it.  As he did so his eyes swept the opposite of the Piazza, and he saw there, watching them, Harriet.  “Mia sorella!” he exclaimed.  Gino, much amused, laid his hand upon the little table, and beat the marble humorously with his fists.  Harriet turned away and began gloomily to inspect the Palazzo Pubblico.

“Poor Harriet!” said Philip, swallowing the sugar.  “One more wrench and it will all be over for her; we are leaving this evening.”

Gino was sorry for this.  “Then you will not be here this evening as you promised us.  All three leaving?”

“All three,” said Philip, who had not revealed the secession of Miss Abbott; “by the night train; at least, that is my sister’s plan.  So I’m afraid I shan’t be here.”

They watched the departing figure of Harriet, and then entered upon the final civilities.  They shook each other warmly by both hands.  Philip was to come again next year, and to write beforehand.  He was to be introduced to Gino’s wife, for he was told of the marriage now.  He was to be godfather to his next baby.  As for Gino, he would remember some time that Philip liked vermouth.  He begged him to give his love to Irma.  Mrs. Herriton—­should he send her his sympathetic regards?  No; perhaps that would hardly do.