“Ah, yes, bachelor-evenings are not for me any more,” he said gaily. “I’m a father, a heavy father, Mr. Cecil, and I read the lessons in church on Sunday mornings. Imagine if some respectable neighbour from Stanier saw me razzle-dazzling in shady places in Neapolitan slums! I should be thought such a hypocrite. But this missal: couldn’t I send Nino across to Naples to-morrow, with a note from you to your housekeeper, telling her to look on a certain shelf, and let him have a certain book?” Mr. Cecil gave a complacent little giggle. “I’m afraid that would hardly do,” he said. “That book is locked away in a cupboard, and there are some other things there I should hardly like my housekeeper to see. One or two of those terra-cottas from Pompeii; not quite in my housekeeper’s style. You remember her? Comes from Aberdeen; Aberdeen granite I call her.” Colin had to continue propitiating this dreadful little man till he had got what he wanted. “Excellent!” he said. “What a knack you have of hitting a person off, Mr. Cecil. I remember her perfectly. Aberdeen granite! Awfully good!... But I’ve got to go to Naples soon. Would it bore you too much if I came across with you on Monday?” “By all means do that, and I’ll shew you the missal. But it’s queer to me that you are so anxious to see it. What was my phrase for it just now? A mere farrago of blasphemy. That’s all it is.” “Somehow, you’ve interested me in it,” said Colin. “Well, what do you say about bed? I’ve got no amusing little night-haunts to shew you in Capri. We’re innocent Arcadians here, Mr. Cecil, who eat lotuses and go to bed at ten.” Colin shewed his guest to his room, and went to his own. The scirocco, which an hour ago had been raging, had quite died down, and he threw open his closed shutters, and looked out on to the ‘darkness thick and hot.’ That furious wind which had clamoured round the house, until it had burst open the Venetian shutters, and then, as if its purpose had been fulfilled, had ceased altogether, seemed to have charged the night with power; it tingled round him in bubbling eddies.... He could hear the sea, maddened by that fierce tempest, buffeting along the rocky coast to the south, and surely not far away the wind still yelled. But just here there was calm as at the centre of some cyclone.... * * * * * Colin accompanied Mr. Cecil to Naples on Monday morning, and they went straight to his house. Presently the cupboard containing the objects which were not fit for the stony eyes of Aberdeen granite was open, and Mr. Cecil drew out a very thin quarto volume, finely bound in tooled morocco, but much worn. “There’s your book for you,” he said. “It’s quite a long time since I set eyes on it: a fine binding, and I see, what I had forgotten, that there’s a coronet and a coat of arms on the back.”