In the morning he must move:  where?  He looked on the map.  The map seemed to offer two alternatives, Milan and Genoa.  He chose Milan, because of its musical associations and its cathedral.  Milano then.  Strolling and still strolling, he found the boards announcing Arrivals and Departures.  As far as he could make out, the train for Milan left at 9:00 in the morning.

So much achieved, he left the big desolating caravanserai of the station.  Soldiers were camped in every corner, lying in heaps asleep.  In their grey-green uniform, he was surprised at their sturdy limbs and uniformly short stature.  For the first time, he saw the cock-feathers of the Bersaglieri.  There seemed a new life-quality everywhere.  Many worlds, not one world.  But alas, the one world triumphing more and more over the many worlds, the big oneness swallowing up the many small diversities in its insatiable gnawing appetite, leaving a dreary sameness throughout the world, that means at last complete sterility.

Aaron, however, was too new to the strangeness, he had no eye for the horrible sameness that was spreading like a disease over Italy from England and the north.  He plunged into the space in front of the station, and took a new, wide boulevard.  To his surprise he ran towards a big and over-animated statue that stood resolutely with its back to the magnificent snow-domes of the wild Alps.  Wolves in the street could not have startled him more than those magnificent fierce-gleaming mountains of snow at the street-end, beyond the statue.  He stood and wondered, and never thought to look who the gentleman was.  Then he turned right round, and began to walk home.

Luncheon was at one o’clock.  It was half-past twelve when he rang at the lodge gates.  He climbed through the leaves of the little park, on a side-path, rather reluctantly towards the house.  In the hall Lady Franks was discussing with Arthur a fat Pekinese who did not seem very well.  She was sure the servants did not obey her orders concerning the Pekinese bitch.  Arthur, who was more than indifferent, assured her they did.  But she seemed to think that the whole of the male human race was in league against the miserable specimen of a she-dog.  She almost cried, thinking her Queenie might by some chance meet with, perhaps, a harsh word or look.  Queenie apparently fattened on the secret detestation of the male human species.

“I can’t bear to think that a dumb creature might be ill-treated,” she said to Aaron.  “Thank goodness the Italians are better than they used to be.”

“Are they better than they used to be?”

“Oh, much.  They have learnt it from us.”

She then enquired if her guest had slept, and if he were rested from his journey.  Aaron, into whose face the faint snow-wind and the sun had brought a glow, replied that he had slept well and enjoyed the morning, thank you.  Whereupon Lady Franks knitted her brows and said Sir William had had such a bad night.  He had not been able to sleep, and had got up and walked about the room.  The least excitement, and she dreaded a break-down.  He must have absolute calm and restfulness.