said she wanting to say something sympathetic, “a clergyman that does have fences, and the most dreadful ones, is Mr. Eager, the English chaplain at Florence. He was truly insincere — not merely the manner unfortunate. He was a snob, and so conceited, and he did say such unkind things.”

“What sort of things?”

“There was an old man at the Bertolini whom he said had murdered his wife.”

“Perhaps he had.”

“No!”

“Why 'no'?”

“He was such a nice old man, I'm sure.”

Cecil laughed at her feminine inconsequence.