red-hot compasses, and could
she suggest a remedy? Sophy brought him ten grains of phenacetine from
her little travelling medicine-chest, and in an hour he was much
relieved. These pains were all the more annoying, as he had heard lately
of the yearly boat-races on Lago Maggiore, and was keen on having Amaldi
enter _The Wind-Flower_ for these races.

"And if I get shelved with an attack of sciatica, there's the end of
it!" he growled. "It nipped me once before, in Canada, so I know the
strength of its cursed fangs."

Amaldi, finding that he would have to endure more than a good deal of
Chesney's company, unless he devised some mitigation, had introduced him
to several friends of his--keen yachtsmen, members of the R. V. Y. C.
(Royal Verbano Yacht Club), an offshoot of the R. I. Y. C. This club has
no seat, and its funds are devoted to prizes. It meets at Stresa, in a
room, always gratuitously provided by the _Hotel des Isles Barromees_.
There Amaldi took Chesney. The latter was much pleased with these
Italian devotees of _le sport_, though he was also vastly tickled by
some things about them. For instance, he could not get over the fact
that, while they were one and all very well dressed in London clothes,
three at least of them wore evening pumps with their yachting flannels,
and one kept gloves on all the time, and even shook hands in them. That
they spoke such excellent English struck him as astonishing. He had
thought Amaldi an exception.

So Chesney was invited to sail also in other yachts, and Amaldi was
relieved from such incessant contact with him. However, he found it
impossible, with civility, to decline all his invitations to lunch and
dine at Villa Bianca. In this way he saw even more of Sophy than he had
hitherto done. But seeing her in this way was more painful to him than
not seeing her at all. He longed for the time to come when they would
leave Lago Maggiore. And Sophy talked very little when the two men were
present.

"I thought you liked Amaldi?" Chesney said one day, looking at her
rather keenly.

"I do," said Sophy. "Very much," she added, feeling that the coldness of
her tone might seem singular.

"Well, upon my soul, no one would guess it," he retorted, rather
crossly. Those pains were beginning to irritate him again. "Sometimes I
wonder that he comes here at all--you're so confoundedly glacial and
snubby in your manner to him."

"I?... 'Snubby' to Marchese Amaldi?" asked Sophy, really s