“What business have they to live in a vulgar boarding house?  It’s abominable bad taste and indiscretion in that woman.  In fact, I don’t like Mrs. Lessingham.—­And what the devil has it to do with me?”

He strode up to the villa.  Possibly they were there; yet he didn’t like to call—­for various reasons.  He fretted about the roads, this way and that, till hunger oppressed him.  Having eaten at the first restaurant he came to, he directed his steps towards the Mergellina again.  At two o’clock he reached the house and made inquiry.  The ladies had not yet returned.

He struck off towards the Chiaia, again paced backwards and forwards, cursed at carriage-drivers who plagued him, tried to amuse himself on the Santa Lucia.  And pray what was all this fuss about?  When he rose this morning, he had half a mind to start at once for Amalfi, and not see Mrs. Lessingham and her niece at all; he “didn’t know that be cared much.”  He had met Cecily Doran twice.  The second time was on the Strada Nuova di Posillipo, where he encountered a carriage in which Cecily and her aunt were taking the air; he talked with them for three minutes.  It was the undeniable fact that he had broken away from “old Mallard” merely to see Cecily again.  He had never tried to blind himself to it; that kind of thing was not in his way.  None the less was it a truth that he thought himself capable of saying good-bye to the wonderful girl, and posting off to his literary work.  Why expose himself to temptation?  Because he chose to; because it was pleasant; surely an excellent reason.

If only he hadn’t come up against that confounded artist-fellow!  That had upset him, most absurdly.  A half good-looking sort of fellow:  a fellow who could prate with a certain brio; not unlikely to make something of a figure in the eyes of a girl like Cecily.  And what then?

Before now, Elgar had confessed to a friend that he couldn’t read the marriage-column in a newspaper without feeling a distinct jealousy of all the male creatures there mentioned.

He sought out a caffe, and sat there for an hour, drinking a liquor that called itself lacryma-Christi, but would at once have been detected for a pretender by a learned palate.  He drank it for the first time, and tried to enjoy it, but his mind kept straying to alien things.  When it was nearly four o’clock, he again went forth, took a carriage, and bade the man drive quickly.

This time he was successful.  A servant conducted him by many stairs and passages to Mrs. Lessingham’s sitting-room.  He entered, and found himself alone with Cecily.

“Mrs. Lessingham will certainly be back very soon,” she said, in shaking hands with him.  “They told me you had called before, and I thought you would like better to wait a few minutes than to be disappointed again.”

“I think of going to Amalfi to-morrow morning, perhaps for a long time,” remarked the visitor.  “I wished to say good bye.”