“That thing?  Dear me.  I thought it might contain a cottage piano.  What fountain?”

“You haven’t heard anything?  Nothing at all?”

He outlined the events of the preceding day.

“What?” he continued.  “They didn’t even tell you about Miss Wilberforce?  Well, whether she thought it was her birthday, or whether all these omens upset her nerves—­Oh, the usual thing, only rather more so.  Decidedly more so.  It was late at night, you see, and she insisted on singing ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ and even on translating it, for the benefit of the constable who arrested her, into her own particular brand of Italian.  In fact, there was a good deal of trouble, till somebody let down a blanket from a window.  It happened to be a new policeman unaccustomed to her ways, and he has had a bad shock.  His wife complained to the judge, who set round word to me this morning that she was in the lock-up.”

“In prison.  An English lady!”

“It is not the first time by any means.  But I feel exactly as you do about it.  I’ve bailed her out, and stopped his mouth with a fifty-franc note.  Please keep this between ourselves.”

Mr. Heard was not pleased to learn this incident.  It seemed a discordant note on Nepenthe.  He observed: 

“Miss Wilberforce apparently can be relied upon to create a diversion of a scandalous nature.  I wish I could do something to help such a poor creature.”

“The dear lady!  I don’t know what we should do without her.  By the way, have you seen Denis lately?  We must be friendly to that young fellow, Heard.  I don’t think he is altogether happy in this clear pagan light.  He seems to be oppressed about something.  What do you make of him?”

“Of Denis?  Nothing at all.”

“You interest me.”

“How so?”

“Because your values appear to be perverted.  Your heart remains dead to Denis, but goes out to a worthless and incurable drunkard.  The one is supremely happy.  The other plainly troubled in mind.  It leaves you cold.  How do you explain it?”

Mr. Heard began to wonder.  Were his values really vitiated?  Had he done anything to justify self-reproach?  He remembered meeting Denis lately, in a fit of dejection, as it seemed; they had passed each other with a few words of greeting.  Perhaps he might have been a little more friendly.  Well, he would atone for it on the next occasion.  He asked: 

“Has he no relations?”

“A mother, at present in Florence.  There have been misunderstandings, I suspect.  He has probably found her out, like he found out our Duchess; like he will find out both you and me, if we give him the chance.  Meanwhile he gropes about in a wistful fashion, trying to carve out a scheme of life for himself and to learn something from al lof us.  What can a person of that kind have in common with a mother of any kind?”

“Everything,” said Mr. Heard enthusiastically.