freed of the dark-blue coat. It,
too, looked boyish somehow. This pleased her. Sometimes his grave
stillness almost made her nervous. There seemed to be so much at work
under the smooth surface. She thought that he was rather like a still,
dark, mountain pool. One saw reflections so clearly--but never what was
really in the depths of the pool.

But now some quickening change had come over him and his face looked
eager, joyous--the face of one who could be a delightful companion. His
eyes seemed to have dismissed more serious thoughts.

The sun, with disk hidden behind a mass of purple cloud, sent forth vast
spokes of light on every side; and this immense, fiery wheel, whose axle
was the hidden sun, whose tyre the extreme round of pale blue air, made
Sophy cry out:

"There 'tarry the wheels of his chariot'! Apollo's revealing himself to
me because I'm a good Pagan!"

"_Are_ you a 'good Pagan'?" said Amaldi, smiling. "Then you shouldn't
have dealings with the priesthood that have stolen his rays to set round
the vessel sacred to another god."

She shook her head at him, smiling, too.

"No, no. I won't let you quarrel with me to-day. It has all been too
beautiful."

"I couldn't quarrel with you," he said, "even if you let me--even if you
insisted on keeping a pet priest. Or, yes--then I might be tempted to
'quarrel'--though I'd have no right to."

"Friendship gives rights. We agreed to be friends long ago--in England,"
answered Sophy happily.

Then she looked again at the golden wheel that filled the west.

"The clouds are beautiful--but do you think they mean rain?" she asked
rather anxiously.

"So our peasants say," replied Amaldi. "They have a rhyme that goes:
'_Sol che varda in dree, Acqua ai pe_'-'A sun that peeps backward, water
over the feet.'"

"Oh, I love this dialect. Would it be _very_ hard to learn?"

"But you should learn Italian, not dialect," he said, smiling.

"I should like to know both. I'd love to talk to the people in their own
language. Is that very hard to do? Steering, I mean. May I try?"

He showed her how the wheel worked, indicating a white house far away as
a point for her to steer by.

"Oh, how nice! How well she answers--like a little water-horse to a
bridle!"

She was charmed to feel how the _Fretta_ glided this way or that at the
lightest touch. They had now reached a part of the Lake, near Santa
Catterina, where at this hour there is no faintest stir of air. The
water