spread beneath them so still, so clear, that it was almost as if
they were rushing through a golden vacuum. Only the arrowy silver of the
_Fretta_'s bow-waves showed that the element through which they fled was
water and not air.

Suddenly the Intragnola--the land breeze that blows from shore near
Intra--met them full. The sky was fast fading.

"Hadn't you better let me get you that cloak?" said Amaldi. As she
turned to let him put his mother's cloak about her shoulders, his heart
flashed hot on a sudden. Just so might he be folding a wrap of his
mother's about her--if she were his wife. It seemed subtly, wildly sweet
to him to see her nestling there in that cloak so intimately associated
with his mother--with his daily, familiar life.

"She is so sweet--your mother," said Sophy, looking down at the warm
folds. "It was dear of her to think of lending me this cloak. I almost
envy you your mother."

"And--yours?" asked Amaldi softly.

"She died when I was a young girl."

"That is very sad," said Amaldi, but the tone of his voice was better
than the most florid words of sympathy.

All at once Sophy started. She had given him back the steering-wheel
some time ago. She clasped her hands under the folds of the grey cloak.

"Marchese! Your dinner! How will you get your dinner!" she cried
regretfully. "I am so selfish--I had forgotten all about your dinner!
There will be nothing--nothing at all for you to eat at--at my villa. I
told Luigi not to order dinner--just to have some milk and bread and
fruit for me."

Amaldi reassured her, smiling.

"There are dozens of places where I can dine capitally," he said. "The
'Isola Pescatori'--just ahead of us to the left there--that is a
delightful place to dine. You must go there with us--Baldi and me--some
time---- That is, if you'd care to----"

"Oh, I should--of course. But I can't think of anything now but that
you'll be hours late for your dinner. It's so far yet to Ghiffa."

"We shall be there in half an hour--easily," he consoled her. He glanced
at his watch. "It's not yet half-past seven."

But Sophy felt very worried. She was essentially the old-fashioned woman
where the regularity of masculine meals was concerned. In regard to
food, men impressed her as machines that would run down or collapse
altogether unless stoked, so to speak, at exact intervals. Women were
flightier, more happy-go-lucky creatures, when the solemnities of eating
were in question. She had bee