Strolling westward after her meal, intending to make a circuit by way of Edgware Road, she was near the Marble Arch when a man who had caught sight of her from the top of an omnibus alighted and hastened in her direction.  At the sound of his voice, Olga paused, smiling, and gave him her hand with friendliness.  He was an Italian, his name Florio; they had met several times at a house which she visited with Miss Bonnicastle.  Mr. Florio had a noticeable visage, very dark of tone, eyes which at one time seemed to glow with noble emotion, and at another betrayed excessive shrewdness; heavy eyebrows and long black lashes; a nose of classical Perfection; large mouth with thick and very red lips.  He was dressed in approved English fashion, as a man of leisure, wore a massive watchguard across his buff summer waistcoat, and carried a silver-headed cane.

“You are taking a little walk,” he said, with a very slight foreign accent.  “If you will let me walk with you a little way I shall be honoured.  The Park?  A delightful day for the Park!  Let us walk over the grass, as we may do in this free country.  I have something to tell you, Miss Hannaiord.”

“That’s nice of you, Mr. Florio.  So few people tell one anything one doesn’t know; but yours is sure to be real news.”

“It is—­I assure you it is.  But, first of all, I was thinking on the ’bus—­I often ride on the ’bus, it gives one ideas—­I was thinking what a pity they do not use the back of the ’bus driver to display advertisements.  It is a loss of space.  Those men are so beautifully broad, and one looks at their backs, and there is nothing, nothing to see but an ugly coat.  I shall mention my little scheme to a friend of mine, a very practical man.”

Olga laughed merrily.

“Oh, you are too clever, Mr. Florio!”

“Oh, I have my little ideas.  Do you know, I’ve just come back from Italy.”

“I envy you—­I mean, I envy you for having been there.”

“Ah, that is your mistake, dear Miss Hannaford!  That is the mistake of the romantic English young lady.  Italy?  Yes, there is a blue sky —­not always.  Yes, there are ruins that interest, if one is educated.  And, there is misery, misery!  Italy is a poor country, poor, poor, poor, poor.”  He intoned the words as if speaking his own language.  “And poverty is the worst thing in the world.  You make an illusion for yourself, Miss Hannaford.  For a holiday when one’s rich, yes, Italy is not bad—­though there is fever, and there are thieves—­oh, thieves!  Of course The man who is poor will steal—­ ecco!  It amuses me, when the English talk of Italy.”

“But you are proud of—­of your memories?”

“Memories!” Mr. Florio laughed a whole melody.  “One is not proud of former riches when one has become a beggar.  It is you, the English, who can be proud of the past, because you can be proud of the present.  You have grown free, free, free!  Rich, rich, rich, ah!”