“I’ve a subject out here—on the other way to the city. We’ll go there another time. It is a road between two vineyards—quite a narrow one. In one place there are two baroque gates with iron gratings, each of them with a cypress beside it. I have made a couple of coloured drawings. There is a heavy dark blue sky above the cypresses and clearness of green air, and a star, and a faint outline of houses and cupolas in the distant city. I wanted the picture to be sort of stirring, you see.” Twilight began to fall upon them. Her face looked pale under the brim of her hat. “Don’t you think I ought to get well, and be allowed to work?” “Yes,” he said in a low voice; “dear....” He could hear that she was breathing heavily. They were both quiet for a moment, then he said: “You are very fond of your friends, Miss Jahrman?” “I want to like everybody, you see,” she said quietly, taking a long breath. Helge Gram bent suddenly forward and kissed her hand, which rested white and small on the table. “Thank you,” said Francesca in a low voice, and after a short pause: “Let us go back now; it is getting cold.” The next day when he moved into his new room a majolica vase with small blue iris was standing in the sunlight on his table. The signora explained that his “cousin” had brought them. When Helge was alone he bent over the flowers and kissed them one by one. VI Helge Gram liked his lodgings by the Ripetta. It seemed easy to do good work at the little table by the window that looked out on the yard with washing and flower-pots on the balconies. The people opposite had two children—a boy and a girl about six and seven. When they came out on their balcony they nodded and waved to him, and he waved back. Lately he had taken to greeting their mother too, and his nodding acquaintance with these people made him feel more at home in the place. Cesca’s vase stood in front of him; he kept it always filled with fresh flowers. Signora Papi was quick at understanding his Italian. It was because she had had Danish lodgers, Cesca said—Danes can never learn foreign languages. Whenever some errand brought the signora to his room she always stayed a long while chatting by the door. Mostly about his cousin, “_che bella_,” said Signora Papi. Once Miss Jahrman had paid him a visit alone and once she came with Miss Winge, each time to invite him to tea. When Signora Papi at last discovered that she prevented him from working, she broke off the conversation and left. Helge leaned back in his chair, resting his neck on his folded hands. He thought of his room at home, beside the kitchen, where he could hear his mother and sister talking about him, being anxious about him or disapproving of him. He heard every word, as probably they meant him to do. Every day out here was a precious gift. He had peace at last and could work, work.