I told it to Mr. Terrance Wake as if he could see our house, and knew the people in it, including Miss Sheila, who abandoned the party with whom she was motoring and came to stay with us for a time. And as I ended it, on that Italian train that was taking me nearer and nearer to Florence, I looked up to see that Mr. Wake was still twisting a scarab ring and looking down at it. “So you see,” I said, “why I am here, and why I love Miss Sheila--” “Yes,” he said, and he raised his head to smile at me in a strange way. “Yes--I see--” and then he looked away from me and down again at his scarab ring. CHAPTER FOUR FLORENCE AND THE NEW HOME When we reached Florence, which was well along in the afternoon, Mr. Wake went with me to the Pension Dante, which is on the Piazza Indipendenza, not far from the station, and is the place where Miss Sheila had arranged to have me stay. Again a facchino took our baggage and piled it all up, trunks and bags together, in a wheelbarrow, and then started ahead of us, singing. “Don’t you live in the country?” I asked of Mr. Wake, for I had understood from Mrs. Hamilton that he did. “Yes, out the Fiesole way,” he answered; “my goods go to the Piazza del Duomo where I take a tram.” “What’s a duomo?” I asked, because I imagined it was some kind of an officer in a high, bear-skin cap. It seemed to me that it sounded like that. But it wasn’t, it was something quite different. “It’s the greatest church in an Italian city,” Mr. Wake answered, “and I think you will probably be able to see the dome of this one from your window. It is one of the largest domes in Italy; it was the model for St. Peter’s in Rome, and it was alike the despair of Michael Angelo, and the pride of its maker, Brunelleschi.” I said, “Oh,” because at that time such facts seemed dry to me, and dulled by dust. I had not learned how much romance may be unearthed by a puff of breath from some one who knows, as does Mr. Wake, how to blow aside the years. “About a month,” he said, “and you’ll like it, and you’ll be hunting for old facts.” And then he smiled at me in a way that told me he had understood my feeling. After that our facchino paused and dumped my baggage out of his wheelbarrow and rang a bell. “You’ve evidently reached home,” Mr. Wake hazarded, “and a mighty nice place it is too, isn’t it, with this square before you? Probably puff up a million stairs now, and then you’ll tell me I have too much tummy, won’t you?” “No,” I answered, “I did tell you that.” He laughed, and we followed the facchino who had put my trunk on his shoulders, and started before us, up three flights to the Pension Dante. “Look here,” said Mr. Wake as we paused on the first landing, “suppose you take me in training? You walk?” “I have to,” I answered. “Father made me promise to walk at least five miles every day--” “Well, that ought to help me,” Mr. Wake commented; “suppose I go, too, and show you the town?” I said I’d like it.