I was angry, and as I undressed, I vowed that I would let Leslie entirely alone, and that she could make the first advances--if any at all were ever made--and I wondered what kind of a man _could_ like a girl of Leslie’s type, and what he had said that had made her do a thing that was so evidently distasteful. I was really interested, and I couldn’t help hoping that this man who had been “pushed from her life” had socked it to her _hard_, (and I found later he had!) and I further hoped--without even trying to help it--that I could squelch her some day. Then I said my prayers and crawled into bed. As I pulled up the blankets one of the _sounds_ that belong to Florence tinkled in through my widely opened French windows. . . . Somewhere, in some little church or convent, bells were ringing and sounding out steps in mellow tones that floated softly through the air. . . . It was very, very pretty. . . . And I closed my eyes, and I could see lilies-of-the-valley and blue bells growing near ferns. . . . That doesn’t seem very sensible unless you’ve _heard_ those bells, but if you have--on a warm-aired, soft Italian night--you’ll probably understand. Then the bells died gently down to nothing and I heard another sound, and when I heard that I saw people clogging, for it was a banjo, and I got out of bed in a hurry, and skipped over to the window without even waiting to put on my slippers. I couldn’t see much down in the court, because the wide banners of light that floated out from the doorways only seemed to intensify the shadows, and the banjo-player was sitting on a bench by the side of a back door and not in the light. But I could hear, and I heard, in a very pretty voice with the soft strum of the banjo creeping through: “Dozens and dozens of girls I have met, Sisters and cousins of men in my set: Tried to be cheerful and give them an earful Of soft sort of talk, but, oh, gosh! The strain was something fearful! Always found after a minute or two Just to be civil was all I could do. Now I know why I could never be contented, I was looking for a pal like you.” And I knew the tune, and it is one I liked, and the singing in my own language was cheering and rather jolly, and the feeling the man put into the foolishly light words made me laugh, and I leaned far out and listened. Then I heard a snatch of a Neapolitan song that better fitted the look of the court, and then a bit of opera. . . . The troubadour faltered on that, and right in the middle of it he stopped, repeated one phrase, and then called, “Hi, Gino, old Top! Ta tum, ta tum, ta ta, ta tum--that _right_?” And Gino echoed it in his voice, and answered excitedly, “Si, si, Signor! Brava! Brava, Signor! Brrrava!” And then, warmed and cheered and quite myself again, I went back to bed. CHAPTER EIGHT SIGNOR PAGGI’S COMPLIMENTS