V

AND so began for him a second period of youthfulness. Without leaving his beloved Tuscany he found that illusive Florida fountain whose waters are more precious than the gold and opals of ten El Dorados. No longer was his existence like the sound of distant silver trumpets. From the new Leonie he recovered at least a measure of what the old Leonie had taken away from him. Life, like the fine Florentine April, once again came to flower.

Every day he and Leonie did something together. They went to Certosa del Galuzzo, that sprawling monastery on a hilltop. They drove through the farm

rubbers and her platitudes and her obsession for buying things so that he could take Leonie for a five-day trip to Siena, Perugia, and Assisi, those towns among the hills.

What pleased him more than anything was that she seemed to pick out intuitively the things that made him love this multi-colored garden of Italy and love them also. Without being any less the charming and thoroughly human young lady, with a sure touch she avoided the obvious. He was surprised. "Her mother wouldn't have chosen the crimson and blue paintings of Fra Angelico," he thought. "She would have looked at pictures by the followers of Raphael. Her mother wouldn't have chosen the square

towers of San Gemignano. She would have admired the strange nineteenthcentury statues in front of the Uffizi because they are of famous men."

VI

It was raining. Nowhere in the world can it rain as it does in Tuscany. Low, frayed gray clouds drifted against the encircling gray-green mountains. When for a few moments they parted, showing tatters of pale-blue sky, you could see white that was new snow on the higher ridges. In the city it rebounded from the pavement. A raincoat was no protection. Holland Porter had planned to take Leonie for another drive. He came in from the villa to tell her that this would be useless. As the rain slatted against the tan, rubberized curtains of his carozza, he was almost childishly irritated. Since Leonie was only going to be in Florence a month, it seemed the least the weather could do was to stay clear. When he reached the pension he found her in the same mood.

"Let's do something anyway," she said. "What, for example?"

"Go to Rajola's. We could dance. Would you mind awfully?"

"But I don't know how. I haven't for years, you know."

"Of course you do. Anyway I'll show you."

He agreed.

Rajola's is a dancing establishment, the one Florentine counterpart of the Club de Vingt or Zelli's. It is in an old building not completely remodelled. Frilly decorations add a touch of modernity, however. It has a noisy dance orchestra well versed in the Continental theory that anything discordant is jazz and American. The prices of its highballs and excellent champagne cocktails are high enough to keep it thoroughly in fashion.

The clientele is an assortment. For a large part it consists of those admirable young Florentine counts who hope to endow themselves for life by marrying an American heiress and of those sage American heiresses who think that the abovementioned are just adorable. There is also a handful of inexperienced collegians on a first trip abroad. And a few sub

débutantes, alert for excitement, escaped from their chaperons. And a few eagereyed chaperons escaped from their subdébutantes. Nevertheless all Americans except artists and unsuccessful writers rather like the place. Holland Porter could not stand it.

And yet, though he hated to admit the fact even to himself, this time he rather enjoyed it. In the first place, he danced well. He had a good ear for rhythm and an instinctive dignity. In the second place, Leonie told him he did. He ought to have been old enough to be immune to flattery, but he wasn't. He liked that. He wanted more.

VII

Ir so happened that as they walked out of Rajola's they met Colonel Allentown. His small office, where he did a pleasant business in Florentine real estate, was on the same street. The same one at whose tea Holland Porter met Elena da Ripoli twenty years ago, though he was seventy-five he still went to this regularly. An Englishman either always works or never works. He grumbled courteously, though often a little profanely, at the legend he had invented that he had to do this. He didn't have to, but nothing could have persuaded him to give it up.

When he saw them, his thin, intent face lighted pleasurably. "How'd ye do, Holland? I haven't seen you in a long time." Underlying a typical British accent was a mannerism of biting together some words and drawling out others. Later he would say: "Oh, b't I like Leonie. She's so American. She makes me laarf.”

Holland Porter indicated that he did well enough.

"And is this Miss Paulin?" Holland indicated, that it was Miss Paulin.

"My deah Miss Paulin, I'm delighted to meet you."

Then he turned to Holland. "She must see my garden. Won't you bring her out to tea on Sunday? You will come to tea on Sunday, won't you, Miss Paulin? Everybody comes to my teas."

Everybody did come to Colonel Allentown's teas. Socially Florence is divided into two factions. No member of either is

on calling terms with any member of the other. Every member of each considers all the members of the other either just a little stupid or just a little "ord'nary." Colonel Allentown delighted in having elderly, black-clad ladies, dangling eyeglasses, come up to him and say: "But I had no idea you knew Mrs. Blyghter. I always thought she was rather-comHe found it especially amusing since Mrs. Blyghter had invariably made the same remark not more than a few minutes previously. He dubbed them the Guelphs and the Ghibellines and always managed to invite a few members of each. For him it was great fun.

But for one who, like Holland Porter, was a true dilettante-one who delights in things-it was infinitely boring. The small talk of Florentine scandlemongery did not interest him. As to how many and what sort of lovers the Principessa Caldezza possessed he hadn't the slightest interest. He was not one of them, thank God! Yet he preferred conversation on this subject to the babble of some lisping art enthusiast or the drawling pauses of some woman compatriot who conceded this was nearly as pretty as southern California.

It was into just this that he was plunged with Leonie. On one side of the bric-à-brac-crowded room stood a man with a face like a pug half metamorphosed to that of a sea-lion by drooping tobaccostained mustaches. He was tearing apart reputations for a couple of countesses whose own could not have been entirely unshopworn. Alone in a corner was the Marchese di Bono, the last of the Sforzas. A distracted octogenarian, in his veins actually, if somewhat incredibly, flowed the blood of the great condottiere. He spilled tea into his saucer and on his trousers. Then he spilled more as he tried to remedy the first catastrophe with dabs of his handkerchief. By the window the giggly, high-voiced young man with red hair who had once written a book on primitive art was expounding his theories. A cruel observer might have explained him out of Havelock Ellis. Two young ladies, Americans, who taught at a school in Florence listened intently with large eyes.

As Holland Porter entered, he was introduced to the lady from Des Moines,

who was also among those present. It seems Allentown told her that there was going to be another American. She insisted upon meeting him.

"It does you good to talk to some one from your own part of the world after all these foreigners, dontcher know," she said after he had been given that pleasure. "Land, it don't seem to me I've spoken to anybody but Frenchmen and Eyetalians for a year, it seems. I can't make them understand me. The only Italian I ever spoke to before was our vegetable man, dontcher know. Louie Bagucci his name was, but we always called him Tony."

In the midst of this was Leonie, poised and assured of herself. When he escaped and was talking to Allentown's servant Maria, who was solid and pleasant like Giuseppina, Leonie engaged lightly in the ping-pong game of conversation and outpointed all these veteran players of it. She paused before each person and said something charming or gracious. What she said was acknowledged. She made a favorable impression with all of them. Holland Porter was amazed.

How did she do it, he asked himself. What was her formula? "She doesn't like most of these people or think any more of them than I do. Yet she is perfectly sincere in being nice to them."

His quickened pulses sent a warm blood coursing through him. He realized that he had felt that way only once before!

VIII

THE Giuseppe Garibaldi of the Lloyd Italiano gave its prolonged blast of warning. Then slowly, with the assistance of half a dozen officious tugboats, it backed into the olive-drab Hudson River. Once clear of the dock, it turned with deliberation. Once turned, its two black and white funnels gleaming, it started downstream.

On shore there was a flutter of handkerchiefs and a mixture of Italian and English. "Buon viaggio."

"A rivederci."

"Have a good time, old man. See you in September.'

"Beva il buon vino d'Italia." "Send me a cable if the Pope gets married.”