," he answered, with allowance for her point, "your
Scottish gardener has. At his caprice, he turns this torrent on or
off, with a tap. For all its air of naturalness and frank impetuosity,
it is an entirely artificial torrent; and your Scottish gardener turns
it on and off with a tap."

"He sways the elements," murmured Susanna, as with awe. "Portentous
being." Then, changing her note to one of gaiety, "_Ecco_," she cried,
"Signor Cinciallegra has completed his ablutions--and _ecco_, he flies
away. Won't you--won't you sit down?" she asked, as her eyes came back
from the departing bird; and a motion of her hand made him free of the
pine-needles.

"Thank you," responded Anthony, taking a place opposite her. "I 'm not
sure," he added, "whether in honesty I ought n't to confess that I have
just been calling upon you."

"Oh," she said, with the politest smile and bow. "I am so sorry to
have missed your visit."

"You are very good." He bowed in his turn. "I wanted to consult you
about a trifling matter of business," he informed her.

"A matter of business--?" she wondered; and her face became all
attention.

"Exactly," said he. "I wanted to ask what you meant by stating that it
was your habit always to be abroad in the hours immaculate? I happened
by the merest chance to be abroad in them myself this morning. I
examined every nook and cranny of them, I turned them inside out; but
not one jot or tittle of you could I discover."

Susanna's eyes were pensive.

"I was speaking of Italy, was I not?" she replied. "I said, I think,
that it was the habit of the people in my part of Italy. But, anyhow,
one sometimes varies one's habits. And, after all, one sometimes makes
statements that are rash."

"And one is always free to repudiate one's responsibilities,"
suggestively supplemented our young man.

"Fortunately," she agreed. "Moreover," she changed her ground, "one
should not be too exclusive in one's sympathies, one should not be
unfair to other hours. This present hour here now--is it not
immaculate also? With its pure sky, and its odour of warm pines, its
deep cool shadows, its patines of bright gold where the sun penetrates,
and then, plashing through it, this curling, dimpling, artificial
torrent? It is not the hour's fault if it happens to arrive somewhat
late in the day--it had to wait its turn. Besides, if one can believe
what one reads in books, it will be the very earliest of early
hour