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Page 48
She did not know. He was away on business. He might be
back this evening, he might not. He had gone to Poggibonsi.
At the sound of this word the little girl put her
fingers to her nose and swept them at the plain. She sang
as she did so, even as her foremothers had sung seven
hundred years back--
Poggibonizzi, fatti in la,
Che Monteriano si fa citta!
Then she asked Philip for a halfpenny. A German lady,
friendly to the Past, had given her one that very spring.
"I shall have to leave a message," he called.
"Now Perfetta has gone for her basket," said the little
girl. "When she returns she will lower it--so. Then you
will put your card into it. Then she will raise it--thus.
By this means--"
When Perfetta returned, Philip remembered to ask after
the baby. It took longer to find than the basket, and he
stood perspiring in the evening sun, trying to avoid the
smell of the drains and to prevent the little girl from
singing against Poggibonsi. The olive-trees beside him were
draped with the weekly--or more probably the monthly--wash.
What a frightful spotty blouse! He could not think where he
had seen it. Then he remembered that it was Lilia's. She
had brought it "to hack about in" at Sawston, and had taken
it to Italy because "in Italy anything does." He had
rebuked her for the sentiment.
"Beautiful as an angel!" bellowed Perfetta, holding out
something which must be Lilia's baby. "But who am I addressing?"
"Thank you--here is my card." He had written on it a
civil request to Gino for an interview next morning. But
before he placed it in the basket and revealed his identity,
he wished to find something out. "Has a young lady happened
to call here lately--a young English lady?"
Perfetta begged his pardon: she was a little deaf.
"A young lady--pale, large, tall."
She did not quite catch.
"A YOUNG LADY!"
"Perfetta is deaf when she chooses," said the Dogana's
relative. At last Philip admitted the peculiarity and
strode away. He paid off the detestable child at the
Volterra gate. She got two nickel pieces and was not
pleased, partly because it was too much, partly because he
did not look pleased when he gave it to her. He caught her
fathers and cousins winking at each other as he walked past
them. Monteriano seemed in one conspiracy to make him look
a fool. He felt tired and anxious and muddled, and not sure
of anything except that his temper was lost. In this mood
he returned to the Stella d'Italia, and there, as he was
ascending the stairs, Miss Abbott popped out of the
dining-room on the first floor and beckoned to him mysteriously.
"I was going to make myself some tea," he said, with his
hand still on the banisters.
"I should be grateful--"
So he followed her into the dining-room and shut the door.
"You see," she began, "Harriet knows nothing."
"No more do I. He was out."
"But what's that to do with it?"
He presented her with an unpleasant smile. She fenced
well, as he had noticed before. "He was out. You find me
as ignorant as you have left Harriet."
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