Colville found Mrs. Bowen's room half full of arriving and departing visitors, and then he remembered that it was this day she had named to him on the Ponte Vecchio, and when Miss Graham thanked him for coming his first Thursday, he made a merit of not having forgotten it, and said he was going to come every Thursday during the winter. Miss Graham drew him a cup of tea from the Russian samovar which replaces in some Florentine houses the tea-pot of Occidental civilisation, and Colville smiled upon it and upon her, bending over the brazen urn with a flower-like tilt of her beautiful head. She wore an aesthetic dress of creamy camel's-hair, whose colour pleased the eye as its softness would have flattered the touch. "What a very Tourgueneffish effect the samovar gives!" he said, taking a biscuit from the basket Effie Bowen brought him, shrinking with redoubled shyness from the eyebrows which he arched at her. "I wonder you can keep from calling me Fedor Colvillitch. Where is your mother, Effie Bowenovna?" he asked of the child, with a temptation to say Imogene Grahamovna. They both looked mystified, but Miss Graham said, "I'm sorry to say you won't see Mrs. Bowen today. She has a very bad headache, and has left Effie and me to receive. We feel very incompetent, but she says it will do us good." There were some people there of the night before, and Colville had to talk to them. One of the ladies asked him if he had met the Inglehart boys as he came in. "The Inglehart boys? No. What are the Inglehart boys?" "They were here all last winter, and they've just got back. It's rather exciting for Florence." She gave him a rapid sketch of that interesting exodus of a score of young painters from the art school at Munich, under the head of the singular and fascinating genius by whose name they became known. "They had their own school for a while in Munich, and then they all came down into Italy in a body. They had their studio things with them, and they travelled third class, and they made the greatest excitement everywhere, and had the greatest fun. They were a great sensation in Florence. They went everywhere, and were such favourites. I hope they are going to stay." "I hope so too," said Colville. "I should like to see them." "Dear me!" said the lady, with a glance at the clock. "It's five! I must be going." The other ladies went, and Colville approached to take leave, but Miss Graham detained him. "What is Tourgueneffish?" she demanded. "The quality of the great Russian novelist, Tourgueneff," said Colville, perceiving that she had not heard of him. "Oh!" "You ought to read him. The samovar sends up its agreeable odour all through his books. Read _Lisa_ if you want your heart really broken. "I'm glad you approve of heart-breaks in books. So many people won't read anything but cheerful books. It's the only quarrel I have with Mrs. Bowen. She says there are so many sad things in life that they ought to be kept out of books."