If Bertuccio had but shown any signs of having seen her companion of yesterday, Daphne's bewilderment would have been less; but to keep meeting a being who claimed to belong to another world, who came and went, invisible, it would seem, when he chose, to other eyes except her own, might well rouse strange thoughts in the mind of a girl cut off from her old life in the world of commonplace events. To be sure, the shepherd Antoli had seen him, but had spoken of him voluntarily as a mysterious creature, one of the blessed saints come down to aid the sick. The beggar woman had seen him, but had fallen prostrate at his feet as in awe of supernatural presence. When the wandering god had talked across the hedge the eyes of Giacomo and Assunta had apparently been holden; and now Bertuccio, whose ears were keen, and whose eyes, in their lazy Italian fashion, saw more then they ever seemed to, Bertuccio had been all the afternoon within a stone's throw of the place where the god had played to her, and Bertuccio gave no sign of having seen a man. She eyed him questioningly as they started out the next morning on their way to the ruins of some famous baths on the mountain facing them. There was keenness in the autumn air that morning, but the green slopes far and near bore no trace of flaming color or of decay, as in fall at home; it was rather like a glimpse of some cool, eternal spring. A stream of water trickled down under thick grass at the side of the road, and violets grew there. "San Pietro!" said Daphne, with a little tug at the bridle. The long ears were jerked hastily back to hear what was to come. "I know you disapprove of me, for you saw it all." The ears kept that position in which any one who has ever loved a donkey recognizes scathing criticism. Daphne fingered one of them with her free hand. "It is only on your back that I feel any strength of mind," she added. "When I am by myself something seems sweeping me away, as the tides sweep driftwood out to sea; but here, resolution crawls up through my body. We must be a new kind of centaur, San Pietro." Suddenly her face went down between his ears. "But if you and I united do drive him away, what shall we do,--afterwards?" "Signorina!" called Bertuccio, running up behind them. "Look! The olives pick themselves."