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Updated: June 4, 2025
It was no business of Perfetta's to be shocked, and the style of the visitor seemed to demand the reception-room. Accordingly she opened its shutters, dusted a round patch on one of the horsehair chairs, and bade the lady do herself the inconvenience of sitting down. Then she ran into Monteriano and shouted up and down its streets until such time as her young master should hear her.
"Well, your business," said Gino, after a puzzled sigh. "Our business Miss Abbott has told you of that." "No." "But surely " "She came for business. But she forgot about it; so did I." Perfetta, who had a genius for missing people, now returned, loudly complaining of the size of Monteriano and the intricacies of its streets. Gino told her to watch the baby.
"Unfortunately I have no evening dress; and if the seats " "Oh, that'll be all right," said Philip, smiling at his timorous, scrupulous women-kind. "We'll go as we are, and buy the best we can get. Monteriano is not formal." So this strenuous day of resolutions, plans, alarms, battles, victories, defeats, truces, ended at the opera. Miss Abbott and Harriet were both a little shame-faced.
There the decoration stopped, till in the full spring of the Renaissance a great painter came to pay a few weeks' visit to his friend the Lord of Monteriano.
Almost the only person who was not on that list was Mr. Kingcroft, who had unexpectedly sent an affectionate and inquiring letter. He was quite sure never to cross the Channel, and Lilia drew freely on her fancy in the reply. At first she had seen a few English people, for Monteriano was not the end of the earth.
"Welcome!" she cried. "Welcome to Monteriano!" He greeted her, for he did not know what else to do, and a sympathetic murmur rose from the crowd below. "You told me to come here," she continued, "and I don't forget it. Let me introduce Signor Carella!" Philip discerned in the corner behind her a young man who might eventually prove handsome and well-made, but certainly did not seem so then.
Eating, walking, even a cross word would bathe them both in boiling water. Philip, who was slighter of build, and less conscientious, suffered less. But Harriet had never been to Florence, and between the hours of eight and eleven she crawled like a wounded creature through the streets, and swooned before various masterpieces of art. It was an irritable couple who took tickets to Monteriano.
He could not get away till the play was nearly finished, and Edgardo was singing amongst the tombs of ancestors. His new friends hoped to see him at the Garibaldi tomorrow evening. He promised; then he remembered that if they kept to Harriet's plan he would have left Monteriano. "At ten o'clock, then," he said to Gino. "I want to speak to you alone. At ten." "Certainly!" laughed the other.
The good-natured young man hurried away, and Philip, taking his place, flooded her with a final stream of advice and injunctions where to stop, how to learn Italian, when to use mosquito-nets, what pictures to look at. "Remember," he concluded, "that it is only by going off the track that you get to know the country. See the little towns Gubbio, Pienza, Cortona, San Gemignano, Monteriano.
I think that you will approve of them, as you have practically dictated them. I do not approve of them. They are absurd." She nodded carelessly. She did not mind what he said. All she wanted was to get the baby out of Monteriano. "Harriet also carries out your instructions," he continued. "She, however, approves of them, and does not know that they proceed from you.
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