anners. In the democracy
of the caffe or the street the great question of our life has been
solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But is accomplished at
the expense of the sisterhood of women. Why should you not make friends
with your neighbour at the theatre or in the train, when you know and
he knows that feminine criticism and feminine insight and feminine
prejudice will never come between you? Though you become as David and
Jonathan, you need never enter his home, nor he yours. All your lives
you will meet under the open air, the only roof-tree of the South, under
which he will spit and swear, and you will drop your h's, and nobody
will think the worse of either.

Meanwhile the women--they have, of course, their house and their church,
with its admirable and frequent services, to which they are escorted by
the maid. Otherwise they do not go out much, for it is not genteel to
walk, and you are too poor to keep a carriage. Occasionally you will
take them to the caffe or theatre, and immediately all your wonted
acquaintance there desert you, except those few who are expecting
and expected to marry into your family. It is all very sad. But one
consolation emerges--life is very pleasant in Italy if you are a man.

Hitherto Gino had not interfered with Lilia. She was so much older than
he was, and so much richer, that he regarded her as a superior being who
answered to other laws. He was not wholly surprised, for strange rumours
were always blowing over the Alps of lands where men and women had the
same amusements and interests, and he had often met that privileged
maniac, the lady tourist, on her solitary walks. Lilia took solitary
walks too, and only that week a tramp had grabbed at her watch--an
episode which is supposed to be indigenous in Italy, though really less
frequent there than in Bond Street. Now that he knew her better, he
was inevitably losing his awe: no one could live with her and keep it,
especially when she had been so silly as to lose a gold watch and chain.
As he lay thoughtful along the parapet, he realized for the first time
the responsibilities of monied life. He must save her from dangers,
physical and social, for after all she was a woman. "And I," he
reflected, "though I am young, am at all events a man, and know what is
right."

He found her still in the living-room, combing her hair, for she had
something of the slattern in her nature, and there was no need to keep
up appearances.