‘These in return for your Cheddar pinks,’ began the informal note accompanying the flowers.  ’I had them an hour ago from a pretty girl in the streets of Parma.  I didn’t care to buy, and walked on, but the pretty girl ran by me, and with gentle force fixed the flowers in my button-hole, so that I had no choice but to stroke her velvety cheek and give her a lira.  How hungry I am for the sight of your face!  Think of me sometimes, dear friend.’

She laughed, and laid the letter and its violets away with the other.

‘I must depend on you, it seems, for news of Everard,’ said Miss Barfoot after dinner.

‘I can only tell you,’ Rhoda answered lightly, ’that he has travelled from the south of France to the north of Italy, with much observation of female countenances.’

‘He informs you of that?’

’Very naturally.  It is his chief interest.  One likes people to tell the truth.’

* * * * * * * * * *

Barfoot was away until the end of April, but after that note from Parma he did not write.  One bright afternoon in May, a Saturday, he presented himself at his cousin’s house, and found two or three callers in the drawing-room, ladies as usual; one of them was Miss Winifred Haven, another was Mrs. Widdowson.  Mary received him without effusiveness, and after a few minutes’ talk with her he took a place by Mrs. Widdowson, who, it struck him, looked by no means in such good spirits as during the early days of her marriage.  As soon as she began to converse, his impression of a change in her was confirmed; the girlishness so pleasantly noticeable when first he knew her had disappeared, and the gravity substituted for it was suggestive of disillusion, of trouble.

She asked him if he knew some people named Bevis, who occupied a flat just above his own.

’Bevis?  I have seen the name on the index at the foot of the stairs; but I don’t know them personally.’

‘That was how I came to know that you live there,’ said Monica.  ’My husband took me to call upon the Bevises, and there we saw your name.  At least, we supposed it was you, and Miss Barfoot tells me we were right.’

’Oh yes; I live there all alone, a gloomy bachelor.  How delightful if you knocked at my door some day, when you and Mr. Widdowson are again calling on your friends.’

Monica smiled, and her eyes wandered restlessly.

‘You have been away—­out of England?’ she next said.

‘Yes; in Italy.’

‘I envy you.’

‘You have never been there?’

‘No—­not yet.’

He talked a little of the agreeables and disagreeables of life in that country.  But Mrs. Widdowson had become irresponsive; he doubted at length whether she was listening to him, so, as Miss Haven stepped this way, he took an opportunity of a word aside with his cousin.

‘Miss Nunn not at home?’

‘No.  Won’t be till dinner-time.’