Once more in his blue silk bedroom, Aaron grimaced to himself and stood in the middle of the room grimacing. His hostess’ admonitions were like vitriol in his ears. He looked out of the window. Through the darkness of trees, the lights of a city below. Italy! The air was cold with snow. He came back into his soft, warm room. Luxurious it was. And luxurious the deep, warm bed.

He was still asleep when the man came noiselessly in with the tray: and it was morning. Aaron woke and sat up. He felt that the deep, warm bed, and the soft, warm room had made him sleep too well: robbed him of his night, like a narcotic. He preferred to be more uncomfortable and more aware of the flight of the dark hours. It seemed numbing.

The footman in his grey house–jacket was neat and Italian and sympathising. He gave good–morning in Italian—then softly arranged the little table by the bedside, and put out the toast and coffee and butter and boiled egg and honey, with silver and delicate china. Aaron watched the soft, catlike motions of the man. The dark eyes glanced once at the blond man, leaning on his elbow on the pillow. Aaron’s face had that watchful, half–amused expression. The man said something in Italian. Aaron shook his head, laughed, and said:

“Tell me in English.”

The man went softly to the window curtains, and motioned them with his hand.

“Yes, do,” said Aaron.

So the man drew the buff–coloured silk curtains: and Aaron, sitting in bed, could see away beyond red roofs of a town, and in the further heaven great snowy mountains.

“The Alps,” he said in surprise.

“Gli Alpi—si, signore.” The man bowed, gathered up Aaron’s clothes, and silently retired.

Aaron watched through the window. It was a frosty morning at the end of September, with a clear blue morning–sky, Alpine, and the watchful, snow–streaked mountain tops bunched in the distance, as if waiting. There they were, hovering round, circling, waiting. They reminded him of marvellous striped sky–panthers circling round a great camp: the red–roofed city. Aaron looked, and looked again. In the near distance, under the house elm–tree tops were yellowing. He felt himself changing inside his skin.

So he turned away to his coffee and eggs. A little silver egg–cup with a curious little frill round it: honey in a frail, iridescent glass bowl, gold–iridescent: the charm of delicate and fine things. He smiled half mockingly to himself. Two instincts played in him: the one, an instinct for fine, delicate things: he had attractive hands; the other, an inclination to throw the dainty little table with all its niceties out of the window. It evoked a sort of devil in him.

He took his bath: the man had brought back his things: he dressed and went downstairs. No one in the lounge: he went down to the ground floor: no one in the big hall with its pillars of yellow marble and its gold arches, its enormous, dark, bluey–red carpet. He stood before the great glass doors. Some red flowers still were blooming in the tubs, on the steps, handsome: and beautiful chrysanthemums in the wide portico. Beyond, yellow leaves were already falling on the green grass and the neat drive. Everywhere was silent and empty. He climbed the wide stairs, sat in the long, upper lounge where the papers were. He wanted his hat and coat, and did not know where to find them. The windows looked on to a terraced garden, the hill rising steeply behind the house. He wanted to go out.