We parted from Mr. Peter A. Chasemore at Bologna owing to a slight difference of opinion.  Carolyn Stokes and myself had the notion that we should find Venice damp and possibly cold; Mr. Chasemore declared that to go home without seeing a gondola would give him a pain compared with which rheumatism might be considered a sensation of acute delight.  There is no use denying the fact that we two women missed Mr. Chasemore a good deal.  Confusion took place on the journey, for which I blamed Carolyn Stokes, and she blamed me.  When with the assistance of luck we did reach the Belvedere our tempers were not improved by the fact that a young man and an elderly lady occupied, for the moment, the attention of the hotel people.

“Norman,” she said to him, as the p. 149proprietor eventually came to us, “you can consider yourself free for the remainder of the day.”  He bowed.  “Give me that; I will take charge of it.”  Both Carolyn Stokes and myself noticed the name on the label as the leather case was being transferred.

I suppose the fact that there are no such titles where we come from caused the encounter to make an impression upon us; we watched her as she went up in the elevator, and noticed the special consideration paid by attendants.  At home we reckon everybody to be equal, with a few exceptions, but here it was evident that to be called Lady Mirrible counted for something, and we naturally fell in with the local view.  When you are in Rome you should do as the Romans do; the remark applies equally well to Florence.  The young man gave way to us at the desk of the concierge, and Carolyn Stokes offered him a large smile.

“Have you come far?” she asked.

“Fairly good distance.”

“Are you going soon?”

“That doesn’t quite depend upon me,” he replied.

I mentioned when we were in our room that p. 150a considerable amount of information had not been extracted, and Carolyn Stokes said no doubt I should prove more successful in the game.  I replied that this seemed highly probable, and we did not speak to each other again until the gong sounded in the corridor announcing that the meal was almost ready.  Downstairs in the reading-room we encountered a nasty jar in the discovery that none of the rest of the people had dressed specially for dinner.  This was one of the small difficulties caused by the absence of a man capable of making inquiries beforehand.

“I beg your pardon,” he remarked.  He had taken the Herald from the table just as my hand went out; he replaced it and selected a London journal.  I was determined to let Carolyn Stokes see that I could manage the situation better than she had done.

“You are not an American?” I asked.

“I am only English.”

“We have met several very pleasant folk from your country in the course of our travels.”

“How extremely fortunate.”

“What startles us amongst you is your class distinctions.  You should, I think, make an endeavour to break down the barriers.”

p. 151“Something ought certainly to be done,” he agreed.  And went off with his newspaper.

Carolyn Stokes mentioned—not for the first time—that she was old enough to be my mother, and went on to argue that whereas it was quite permissible for a woman of her age to speak at an hotel to a stranger, the case was entirely different where a girl of twenty was concerned.  All the same when she found him seated at the next table in the dining-room she allowed me to take the chair which enabled me to speak across to him without twisting my neck.  From what I heard him say to the waiter I gained that her ladyship was taking the meal in her own room.

Carolyn Stokes has many estimable qualities, but I have more than once had to point out to her that she does not exercise a sufficient amount of restraint over her conversational powers.  Also she pitches her voice somewhat high, rather as though she, being at Liverpool, were addressing a public meeting in New York.  I am myself a good and fluent talker, but my chances are small if I enter into competition with Carolyn.  It was difficult, however, to overlook the fact that he preferred listening to me, and when we both spoke at p. 152once it was I who secured his attention.  I asked him what there was to be seen in Florence of an evening when the picture galleries were closed, and he said we could not do better than stroll down the Lung ’Arno, see the Vecchio bridge, returning by way of the Piazza Vittore Emmanuele.

“We should scarcely dare to go out alone,” I remarked.

He crumbled his bread for a moment.

“I think,” he said, “it will be possible for me to place myself at your disposal.”

“That is perfectly sweet of you,” cried Carolyn Stokes.  We arranged to meet at nine o’clock in the entrance hall.

Taking our coffee in the drawing-room Carolyn and myself came to the conclusion that there was more in the wisdom of Providence than some people care to admit.  If Mr. Chasemore had decided to come on with us to Florence the likelihood was that we should have had no opportunity of making this very fortunate and delightful acquaintance; there would have been less to record in our diaries under the heading of that day.  Carolyn’s impression was that the son of a titled lady was a viscount, but she could not be p. 153certain; she had on some far-distant occasion studied the matter thoroughly, but most of the information then acquired seemed to have been erased from her mind.  Anyway the chance was too good to lose, and Carolyn Stokes said the great thing was to exhibit not too much eagerness, but to allow friendship to ripen, so to speak, in the course of the next twenty-four hours.  Carolyn has a distinct streak of sentimentality in her character, and she spoke of the influence of blue Italian skies and the moon shining on the water, and Dante and Beatrice, and the new hat I had purchased in the Via Condotti at Rome.  We went upstairs to put on some wraps.

In the passage her ladyship’s head was out of her door, and she was calling in an imperative kind of way.

“Norman, Norman!  Where on earth has he got to again?  Never here somehow when he’s wanted.”  One of the hotel maids came along and she gave her a message.  “The lad really,” she said, taking her head in, “is perfectly useless.”

Carolyn Stokes was occupying a few minutes later a central position at the mirror in our room............