The day was rainy. Aaron stayed indoors alone, and copied music and slept. He felt the same stunned, withered feeling as before, but less intensely, less disastrously, this time. He knew now, without argument or thought that he would never go again to the Marchesa: not as a lover. He would go away from it all. He did not dislike her. But he would never see her again. A great gulf had opened, leaving him alone on the far side.

He did not go out till after dinner. When he got downstairs he found the heavy night-door closed. He wondered: then remembered the Signorina’s fear of riots and disturbances. As again he fumbled with the catches, he felt that the doors of Florence were trying to prevent his egress. However, he got out.

It was a very dark night, about nine o’clock, and deserted seeming. He was struck by the strange, deserted feeling of the city’s atmosphere. Yet he noticed before him, at the foot of the statue, three men, one with a torch: a long torch with naked flames. The men were stooping over something dark, the man with the torch bending forward too. It was a dark, weird little group, like Mediaeval Florence. Aaron lingered on his doorstep, watching. He could not see what they were doing. But now, the two were crouching down; over a long dark object on the ground, and the one with the torch bending also to look. What was it? They were just at the foot of the statue, a dark little group under the big pediment, the torch-flames weirdly flickering as the torch-bearer moved and stooped lower to the two crouching men, who seemed to be kneeling.

Aaron felt his blood stir. There was something dark and mysterious, stealthy, in the little scene. It was obvious the men did not want to draw attention, they were so quiet and furtive-seeming. And an eerie instinct prevented Aaron’s going nearer to look. Instead, he swerved on to the Lungarno, and went along the top of the square, avoiding the little group in the centre. He walked the deserted dark-seeming street by the river, then turned inwards, into the city. He was going to the Piazza Vittoria Emmanuele, to sit in the cafe which is the centre of Florence at night. There he could sit for an hour, and drink his vermouth and watch the Florentines.

As he went along one of the dark, rather narrow streets, he heard a hurrying of feet behind him. Glancing round, he saw the torch-bearer coming along at a trot, holding his flaming torch up in front of him as he trotted down the middle of the narrow dark street. Aaron shrank under the wall. The trotting torch-bearer drew near, and now Aaron perceived the other two men slowly trotting behind, stealthily, bearing a stretcher on which a body was wrapped up, completely and darkly covered. The torch-bearer passed, the men with the stretcher passed too, hastily and stealthily, the flickering flames revealing them. They took no notice of Aaron, no notice of anything, but trotted softly on towards the centre of the city. Their queer, quick footsteps echoed down the distance. Then Aaron too resumed his way.

He came to the large, brilliantly-lighted cafe. It was Sunday evening, and the place was full. Men, Florentines, many, many men sat in groups and in twos and threes at the little marble tables. They were mostly in dark clothes or black overcoats. They had mostly been drinking just a cup of coffee — others however had glasses of wine or liquor. But mostly it was just a little coffee-tray with a tiny coffee pot and a cup and saucer. There was a faint film of tobacco smoke. And the men were all talking: talking, talking with that peculiar intensity of the Florentines. Aaron felt the intense, compressed sound of many half- secret voices. For the little groups and couples abated their voices, none wished that others should hear what they said.

Aaron was looking for a seat — there was no table to him-— when suddenly someone took him by the arm. It was Argyle.

“Come along, now! Come and join us. Here, this way! Come along!”

Aaron let himself be led away towards a corner. There sat Lilly and a strange man: called Levison. The room was warm. Aaron could never bear to be too hot. After sitting a minute, he rose and took off his coat, and hung it on a stand near the window. As he did so he felt the weight of his flute — it was still in his pocket. And he wondered if it was safe to leave it.

“I suppose no one will steal from the overcoat pockets,” he said, as he sat down.

“My dear chap, they’d steal the gold filling out of your teeth, if you happened to yawn,” said Argyle. “Why, have you left valuables in your overcoat?”

“My flute,” said Aaron.

“Oh, they won’t steal that,” said Argyle.

“Besides,” said Lilly, “we should see anyone who touched it.”

And so they settled down to the vermouth.

“Well,” said Argyle, “what have you been doing with yourself, eh? I haven’t seen a glimpse of you for a week. Been going to the dogs, eh?”

“Or the bitches,” said Aaron.

“Oh, but look here, that’s bad! That’s bad! I can see I shall have to take you in hand, and commence my work of reform. Oh, I’m a great reformer, a Zwingli and Savonarola in one. I couldn’t count the number of people I’ve led into the right way. It takes some finding, you know. Strait is the gate — damned strait sometimes. A damned tight squeeze. . . .” Argyle was somewhat intoxicated. He spoke with a slight slur, and laughed, really tickled at his own jokes. The man Levison smiled acquiescent. But Lilly was not listening. His brow was heavy and he seemed abstracted. He hardly noticed Aaron’s arrival.

“Did you see the row yesterday?” asked Levison.

“No,” said Aaron. “What was it?”

It was the socialists. They were making a demonstration against the imprisonment of one of the railway-strikers. I was there. They went on all right, with a good bit of howling and gibing: a lot of young louts, you know. And the shop-keepers shut up shop, and nobody showed the Italian flag, of course. Well, when they came to the Via Benedetto Croce, there were a few mounted carabinieri. So they stopped the procession, and the sergeant said that the crowd could continue, could go on where they liked, but would they not go down the Via Verrocchio, because it was being repaired, the roadway was all up, and there were piles of cobble stones. These might prove a temptation and lead to trouble. So would the demonstrators not take that road — they might take any other they liked.— Well, the very moment he had finished, there was a revolver shot, he made a noise, and fell forward over his horse’s nose. One of the anarchists had shot him. Then there was hell let loose, the carabinieri fired back, and people were bolting and fighting like devils. I cleared out, myself. But my God — what do you think of it?”

“Seems pretty mean,” said Aaron.

“Mean!— He had just spoken them fair — they could go where they liked, only would they not go down the one road, because of the heap of stones. And they let him finish. And then shot him dead.”

“Was he dead?” said Aaron.

“Yes — killed outright, the Nazione says.”

There was a silence. The drinkers in the cafe all continued to talk vehemently, casting uneasy glances.

“Well,” said Argyle, “if you let loose the dogs of war, you mustn’t expect them to come to heel again in five minutes.”

“But there’s no fair play about it, not a bit,” said Levison.

“Ah, my dear fellow, are you still so young and callow that you cherish the illusion of fair play?” said Argyle.

“Yes, I am,” said Levison.

“Live longer and grow wiser,” said Argyle, rather contemptuously.

“Are you a socialist?” asked Levison.

“Am I my aunt Tabitha’s dachshund bitch called Bella,” said Argyle, in his musical, indifferent voice. “Yes, Bella’s her name. And if you can tell me a damneder name for a dog, I shall listen, I assure you, attentively.”

“But you haven’t got an aunt called Tabitha,” said Aaron.

“Haven’t I? Oh, haven’t I? I’ve got TWO aunts called Tabitha: if not more.”

“They aren’t of any vital importance to you, are they?” said Levison.

“Not the very least in the world — if it hadn’t been that my elder Aunt Tabitha had christened her dachshund bitch Bella. I cut myself off from the family after that. Oh, I turned over a new leaf, with not a family name on it. Couldn’t stand Bella amongst the rest.”

“You must have strained most of the gnats out of your drink, Argyle,” said Lilly, laughing.

“Assiduously! Assiduously! I can’t stand these little vermin. Oh, I am quite indifferent about swallowing a camel or two — or even a whole string of dromedaries. How charmingly Eastern that sounds! But gnats! Not for anything in the world would I swallow one.”

“You’re a bit of a SOCIALIST though, aren’t you?” persisted Levison, now turning to Lilly.

“No,” said Lilly. “I was.”

“And am no more,” said Argyle sarcastically. “My dear fellow, the only hope of salvation for the world lies in the re-institution of slavery.”

“What kind of slavery?” asked Levison.

“Slavery! SLAVERY! When I say SLAVERY I don’t mean any of your damned modern reform cant. I mean solid sound slavery on which the Greek and the Roman world rested. FAR finer worlds than ours, my dear chap! Oh FAR finer! And can’t be done without slavery. Simply can’t be done.— Oh, they’ll all come to realise it, when they’ve had a bit more of this democratic washer-women business.”

Levison was laughing, with a slight sneer down his nose. “Anyhow, there’s no immediate danger — or hope, if you prefer it — of the re- instituting of classic slavery,” he said.

“Unfortunately no. We are all such fools,” said Argyle.

“Besides,” said Levison, “who would you make slaves of?”

“Everybody, my dear chap: beginning with the idealists and the theorising Jews, and after them your nicely-bred gentlemen, and then perhaps, your profiteers and Rothschilds, and ALL politicians, and ending up with the proletariat,” said Argyle.

“Then who would be the masters?— the professional classes, doctors and lawyers and so on?”

“What? Masters. They would be the sewerage slaves, as being those who had made most smells.” There was a moment’s silence.

“The only fault I have to find with your system,” said Levison, rather acidly, “is that there would be only one master, and everybody else slaves.”

“Do you call that a fault? What do you want with more than one master? Are you asking for several?— Well, perhaps there’s cunning in THAT.— Cunning devils, cunning devils, these theorising slaves —” And Argyle pushed his face with a devilish leer into Aaron’s face. “Cunning devils!” he reiterated, with a slight tipsy slur. “That be-fouled Epictetus wasn’t the last of ’em — nor the first. Oh, not by any means, not by any means.”

Here Lilly could not avoid a slight spasm of amusement. “But returning to serious conversation,” said Levison, turning his rather sallow face to Lilly. “I think you’ll agree with me that socialism is the inevitable next step —”

Lilly waited for some time without answering. Then he said, with unwilling attention to the question: “I suppose it’s the logically inevitable next step.”

“Use logic as lavatory paper,” cried Argyle harshly. “Yes — logically inevitable — and humanly inevitable at the same time. Some form of socialism is bound to come, no matter how you postpone it or try variations,” said Levison.

“All right, let it come,” said Lilly. “It’s not my affair, neither to help it nor to keep it back, or even to try varying it.”

“There I don’t follow you,” said Levison. &ldqu............