But while he was speaking a similar glare appeared on a mountain in the south. And then a third in the east. Many summits and flanks of the Apennines were in sight, and before long there were fifty of the blazing signals visible, some near, some distant, but all at high points. "It's the vigil of the Ascension, the night when the mountain peasants light bonfires on their peaks as a species of religious rite," explained Dennison. "In reality it is a relic of pagan times. Their belief is that the ceremony will bring tranquillity to their families during the year." A figure which had come from the house now passed them. "Lordships will pardon," said Modesta's voice; "they know that I would not wish to disturb. But from the kitchen it is not possible to count the mountain fires. And to count them all is important, since tranquillity is most surely a blessed thing. Excuses." She passed on to a distant angle of the wall, where she stood for five or ten minutes. "What did she say?" asked Gray, who was sure that he could learn to speak Italian in a week or two. Simplest thing in the world--so much like Latin. Dennison translated the phrases--the lordships, the excuses, and the proffered opinion as to tranquillity. "It's awfully pretty," said Gray, admiringly. Modesta, after finishing her counting, crossed the piazza to the little church. In the starlit darkness they could see her kneel down there in the porch. "She is clinching it--the tranquillity--by a few private orisons," said Dennison. Presently, her devotions concluded, the waitress returned to the house. The two men remained where they were. They had all sorts of subjects to thresh out together. They took them up, or rather Gray did, by fits and starts. "Well, Jack, it's settled, then, that you're never coming home?" he remarked, as he accepted another cigarette. "Not at all," Dennison answered. "I shall come back by-and-by, when I feel like it. In the meanwhile I pay my taxes regularly over there, and I subscribe to all the charities I believe in--three or four. If there were to be another war (but there won't be) I should return at once." "Well, I don't call it a useful life." "Is it more useful to make money--at somebody else's expense?" "It's more useful to be a good citizen; to bring up one's family well; to--" "Let's stop there," Dennison interposed. "People with families never approve of the people who haven't those blessings. It doesn't occur to them that nobody forced them to marry; they selected the lot, and therefore they accepted responsibilities. But a man who has not undertaken family life ought not to be saddled with its cares. You chose your boys and girls; I chose Italy. Each to his taste. You may ask, 'Isn't the world to be peopled, then?' No trouble about that; it always will be. Personally my own answer to the same question might be, however, the old one, 'Je n'en vois pas la nécessité.'" "That's where you all end; dreary nihilism!"