hushed voice that
belonged to the still hour, "that you ought to motor so loud in the
night. It's common. Rodney specially thinks so. Rodney is sulking; he
won't come and speak to you."

Urquhart called to his cousin: "Come with me to Florence, you and
Margery. Or do you hate them too much?"

"Much too much," Rodney admitted, coming forwards perforce. "Thank you,"
he added, "but I'm on a walking tour, and it wouldn't do to spoil it.
Margery isn't, though. You go, Margery, if you like."

Urquhart said, "Do, Margery," and Peter looked wistful, but declined. He
wanted horribly badly to go with Urquhart; but loyalty hindered.

Urquhart said he was going to Venice afterwards, to stay with his uncle
Evelyn.

"Good," said Peter. "Leslie and I are going to do Venice directly we've
cleared Florence of its Objects of Beauty. You can imagine the way Leslie
will go about Florence, his purse in his hand, asking the price of the
Bargello. 'Worth having, isn't it? A good thing, I think?' If we decide
that it is he'll have it, whatever the price; he always does. He's a
sportsman; I can't tell you how attached I am to him." Peter had not told
even Urquhart that one was ever glad of a rest from Leslie.

Urquhart said, "Well, if you _won't_ come," and hummed into the paling
twilight, and before him fled the circle of golden light and after him
swept the dust. Peter's eyes followed the golden light and the surging
whiteness till a bend in the road took them, and the world was again dim
and grey and very still. Only the little cool wind that soughed among the
olive leaves was like the hushed murmuring of quiet waves. Eastwards,
among the still, mysterious hills and silver plains, a translucent dawn
was coming.

Peter's sigh was very unobtrusive. "After all," he murmured, "motoring
does make me feel sick."

Rodney gave half a cynical smile with the corner of his mouth not
occupied with his short and ugly pipe. Peter was pipeless; smoking,
perhaps, had the same disastrous effect.

"But all the same," said Peter, suddenly aggrieved, "you might be
pleasant to your own cousin, even if he is in a motor. Why be proud?"

He was really a little vexed that Rodney should look with aloofness
on Urquhart. For him Urquhart embodied the brilliance of life, its
splendidness and beauty and joy. Rodney, with his fanatical tilting at
prosperity, would, Peter half consciously knew, have to see Urquhart
unhorsed and stripped bare before he would tak