He was right. She was so desperately anxious that they should be pleased with her: and excitement had oiled her discretion. She could not resist marshalling all her acquirements at once for their inspection. Mrs. Cloud suddenly pulled down Laura’s glowing face to her and kissed it. “I can’t help it. I’m nearly bursting.” Laura answered her apologetically, though she had said nothing at all. And then, with a rush, “Oh, Mrs. Cloud, you are a dear!” They perfectly understood each other. But Justin stared at them and disapproved. It was so unlike his mother to be demonstrative ... and he wished Laura would sit down and read.... She talked too much. She did at last, as the dusk fell and they left the high lands behind them, settle down to the dear, blameless English magazines, but not before she had had him thoroughly on edge. By the end of two days she was on edge herself. She always remembered Milan as a series of spires and roofs, up and down which she toiled after a Justin who never waited for her, who always made his remarks just too far off for her to hear what he said. And he hated repeating himself. She did not know what had come to either of them. They were always on the verge of perfect agreement or a serious quarrel and nothing ever happened, except that Justin had the bored look in his eyes that Laura dreaded, and Laura had a lump in her throat all day long. Yet sometimes Laura wondered if she imagined the whole thing. Mrs. Cloud did not seem disturbed. Mrs. Cloud drove with them in the mornings, and rested in the afternoons, and listened to them in the evenings, and beamed at them both as if she found life as pleasant as usual. And she approved of Laura. Of that there was no doubt. It was Mrs. Cloud who nodded congratulations when Laura, on their first evening, in her first evening dress, swished her way in and out of the dining-tables, very grown-up and shy and uncomfortable. Mrs. Cloud would not have changed Justin for a dozen Lauras, and yet, watching her entry, quite alive to the heads that turned, and the murmur at the nearer tables, she wished she had a beautiful young daughter of her own of whom to be critically proud. “Green’s your colour!” said Mrs. Cloud, as Laura settled herself. No more—but it was the accolade. Laura blushed and glanced at Justin. “Chianti or white wine?” he enquired with some interest. “No, thank you. Water, please.” (... Men were queer!) “Oh, if you’d rather!” (... Odd things, women!) It was the last straw when Art, the Italian jade, plucked at Justin’s sleeve, whispering that two were company ... and Justin went out to Pavia all by himself. Mrs. Cloud had a headache. Laura, because she felt like it, spent her afternoon at the _Campo Santo_, and, among tombs, made up her mind to have it out with Justin.