“Oh, not that way back. We can never have too much of the dear Piazza Signoria.”

“They're nice people, the Vyses. So clever — my idea of what's really clever. Don't you long to be in Rome?”

“I die for it!”

The Piazza Signoria is too stony to be brilliant. It has no grass, no flowers, no frescoes, no glittering walls of marble or comforting patches of ruddy brick. By an odd chance — unless we believe in a presiding genius of places — the statues that relieve its severity suggest, not the innocence of childhood, nor the glorious bewilderment of youth, but the conscious achievements of maturity. Perseus and Judith, Hercules and Thusnelda, they have done or suffered something, and though they are