the picturesque (her own word again) gaiety
of the Toledo in the late November evening. Her walk through it was a
veritable orgie to her. Her intelligent profile wore at moments a
strained look; it was as if the impressions pressed in with almost too
great a rapidity and force for capture. Capture was all she attempted;
digestion might come later. The same anxious strain may be observed in
the face of the gourmand confronted, he half fears, with more than his
match. This anxiety perhaps takes the edge from entire enjoyment; but
Mrs. Venables had not entered into life to receive pleasure, but
impressions. It was all copy to her: the pedlars' stalls with their
lights and groups of loafers, the unkempt men and women gutter-picking
('the _mozzonari_, Warren,' said Mrs. Venables, impressed), the people
eating macaroni under the awnings of travelling cooks, the rag-sellers
and the bone-buyers, and the general noisy sociability. It was all
absorbed; it would all be squeezed forth in due time; nothing would be
kept back, for the atmosphere of Southern Italy, so unique, depended on
these details. 'Be truthful, and you will certainly be interesting,' was
Mrs. Venables' theory of art; not at all 'Be interesting, and you may
possibly be truthful incidentally.' For which she deserved credit, as
the holder of a commendable ideal.

Her son Warren knew that this walk was of the nature of an orgie. The
curve of his mother's fine lips would alone have conveyed that to him.
The set of his own evinced a little amusement; the scene to him was
ordinary enough, and there seemed to him to be a good many rather
obnoxious people about. People, obnoxious or agreeable, were not to him
copy, unless he wanted to paint them. His dark, clever face missed the
ideality of his mother's; his speculative eyes saw a good deal more.

Outside a cafe a noisy group lounged. One of them was reading something
aloud from a paper; it seemed to be amusing. An explosion of laughter
interrupted the stuttering voice of the reader, as the Venables passed.
The reader, glancing up, looked Warren Venables full in the face. Then
the stuttering voice went on. More laughter exploded.

'What are they reading?' Mrs. Venables wondered, as they left the group
behind them.

'Oh, some rotten thing....' Warren Venables looked abstracted for a
moment or two. Then he jerked back his head, in sudden enlightenment.
'That was it--he was in my house in my last year at school. An infant