yours he can find--rather bores me, in fact, sometimes--not, of course,
that I haven't been interested in what you were doing."

She spoke so coldly that I feared that, after all, I had best go my way
with Bennett and his brother. I told her how I had travelled with
them, and how the motor had broken down, and how my finding her was by
the barest chance, for in a few hours I should have been on my way to
Florence.

"It's strange," she said. "Our motor broke down, too, last night--just
as we reached the gates; but this afternoon we hope to be off again to
Rome."

"We?" I questioned.

"Uncle Rufus and I," she said.

"And Mrs. Bannister?"

"Married a year ago to a rich broker," she answered, laughing.

"How long I have been away!" I exclaimed.

I glanced covertly at Penelope. Despite the tone of formality in which
she addressed me she seemed quite content to sit here weaving
hieroglyphics with the point of her parasol, for I noticed that she was
smiling, unconscious, perhaps, that I was studying her face. A while
ago I had stood a little in awe of Penelope, but it was an awe inspired
by her surroundings rather than by her. Going from Miss Minion's to
face the critical eye of her pompous English butler was itself an
ordeal; to Mrs. Bannister I was a poor young man whom it was a form of
charity to patronize; the great library, the carved mantel, the
portrait, the heavy silver on the tea-table, these were emblems of
another world than mine. But here in this piazzetta, with the broad
Italian landscape before us, those days of awkward constraint were in
the far past. This quiet Penelope at my side contentedly tracing
circles in the sand was, after all, the simple, kindly Penelope of the
days in the valley. I had no fear of her. If she tossed her head
disdainfully, I could fancy the blue ribbon bobbing there again and
smile to myself as I recalled the morning when we had galloped together
out of the mountains on the mule. There were questions which I wanted
answered, and I dared to ask them.

"Penelope," I said, "I am glad to hear that Mrs. Bannister is happily
married. Now tell me of my friend Talcott--what of him?"

Penelope sat up very straight and her head tossed. "David, I should
think that one subject which you would avoid."

"I confess myself consumed with merely idle curiosity," I returned.
"Talcott once made a great deal of trouble for me. Don't you remember
the day on the Avenue when you cut