r hat, Luigi knocked at the door to say that the
Marchese was in the drawing-room. She went down at once, and found that
Amaldi had come to bring a note from his mother asking Cecil and herself
to lunch at Le Vigne the next day. She said that they would be glad to
come--if her husband were well enough. He had been suffering a good deal
of late. While they were talking, Luigi came again to say that the
_carrozzella_ was waiting. Amaldi rose at once, but she said:

"No--don't hurry away. I'm only going shopping. I can go just as well a
little later."

But though Amaldi sat down again, they could not find the pleasant,
natural ease of their other talk over the photographs of "Sweet-Waters."
There was a constraint on them both. Sophy asked about the Marchesa and
the autumn crops at Le Vigne. They were talking in this rather forced,
desultory fashion, when she heard Cecil's step coming fast up the
terrace stairs.

He, in the meantime, had looked in vain at Cerro for the rowboat that he
wanted. This, of course, put him in a still worse humour. He had also
miscalculated the duration of that eighth of morphia taken in the early
morning. Its effects had entirely worn off by two o'clock. This left him
stranded at Cerro, with that gone feeling of intense weakness. He went
from the boat-yard to the little _osteria_, and asked for Cognac. Of
course there was none; but the Padrone, who spoke a sort of bastard
French, explained that they had the most excellent _Grappa_. In his
opinion, _Grappa_ was superior to all the Cognac in the world.

"_Q'est ce que c'est que ce sacre 'Grappa'?_" Chesney had growled. Then
the Padrone explained, and further illuminated his explanation by
bringing a bottle of the clear white, fiery liquor--one of the fieriest
and most heady of all liquors--the native spirits of Italy distilled
from the must of grapes. Chesney, not aware of its strength, drank
several glasses. This made him feel so much more "fit" that he drank yet
another before leaving. By the time he was halfway across the lake on
his way back, his brain was in flames from the ardent spirit. He found
himself clenching his teeth till his jaw ached, in a spasm of vague rage
against everything--every one! Then he recalled Sophy's refusal to go
with him--and his anger concentrated on her.

When he ran up the terrace steps at Villa Bianca, fifteen minutes later,
he was half-blind with unreasoning fury. Hearing voices in the
drawing-room, he tore