id
her thanks become more sincere.

"So we shall be a partie carree," said the chaplain. "In these days of
toil and tumult one has great needs of the country and its message of
purity. Andate via! andate presto, presto! Ah, the town! Beautiful as it
is, it is the town."

They assented.

"This very square--so I am told--witnessed yesterday the most sordid of
tragedies. To one who loves the Florence of Dante and Savonarola
there is something portentous in such desecration--portentous and
humiliating."

"Humiliating indeed," said Miss Bartlett. "Miss Honeychurch happened to
be passing through as it happened. She can hardly bear to speak of it."
She glanced at Lucy proudly.

"And how came we to have you here?" asked the chaplain paternally.

Miss Bartlett's recent liberalism oozed away at the question. "Do
not blame her, please, Mr. Eager. The fault is mine: I left her
unchaperoned."

"So you were here alone, Miss Honeychurch?" His voice suggested
sympathetic reproof but at the same time indicated that a few harrowing
details would not be unacceptable. His dark, handsome face drooped
mournfully towards her to catch her reply.

"Practically."

"One of our pension acquaintances kindly brought her home," said Miss
Bartlett, adroitly concealing the sex of the preserver.

"For her also it must have been a terrible experience. I trust that
neither of you was at all--that it was not in your immediate proximity?"

Of the many things Lucy was noticing to-day, not the least remarkable
was this: the ghoulish fashion in which respectable people will nibble
after blood. George Emerson had kept the subject strangely pure.

"He died by the fountain, I believe," was her reply.

"And you and your friend--"

"Were over at the Loggia."

"That must have saved you much. You have not, of course, seen the
disgraceful illustrations which the gutter Press--This man is a public
nuisance; he knows that I am a resident perfectly well, and yet he goes
on worrying me to buy his vulgar views."

Surely the vendor of photographs was in league with Lucy--in the eternal
league of Italy with youth. He had suddenly extended his book before
Miss Bartlett and Mr. Eager, binding their hands together by a long
glossy ribbon of churches, pictures, and views.

"This is too much!" cried the chaplain, striking petulantly at one of
Fra Angelico's angels. She tore. A shrill cry rose from the vendor. The
book it seemed, was more valuable than one w