It was quite a different matter with Gram. He did not arouse any adventurous fancies or wild longings in her. He was not at all stupid, as she had thought at first; it was only that he seemed almost stunted, checked in mental growth, when he came out here, and she at least ought to have understood it. There was something gentle and young and sound about him, which she liked—he seemed more than two years her junior. His talk of being in love with her was nothing but a surplus of the joy he felt at the freedom of his new life. There was no danger in it, either for him or for her. They were fond of her at home, of course, and Gunnar and Francesca were fond of her too, but did any one of them think of her tonight? She was not altogether sorry to know that there was some one who did. IX When she awoke in the morning she told herself that he would very likely not come at all, and so much the better—but when he knocked at her door she was pleased all the same. “I have had nothing to eat yet, Miss Winge. Could you give me a cup of tea and some bread?” Jenny looked about her in the room. “Yes, but the room isn’t done yet.” “I’ll shut my eyes while you lead me on to the balcony,” said Gram from behind the door. “I am dying for a cup of tea.” “Very well, half a minute.” Jenny covered her bed with the counterpane, tidied the dressing-table, and changed her dressing-jacket for a long kimono. “Come in, and please go and sit on the balcony while I get your tea.” She brought out a stool and placed some bread and cheese on it. Gram looked at her bare, white arms in the long, fluttering sleeves of the dark blue kimono with a pattern of yellow and purple iris. “What a pretty thing you have on. It looks like a real geisha dress.” “It is real. Cesca and I bought these in Paris to wear at home in the morning.” “It is a capital idea, I think, to go about like that and look pretty when you are alone. I like it.” He lit a cigarette and gazed at the smoke as it rose in the air. “Ugh! At home the maid and my mother and sister used to look like anything in the morning. Don’t you think women ought always to make themselves look as pretty as possible?” “Yes, but it isn’t always possible when you have to do housework.” “Perhaps not, but they might at least do their hair before breakfast and put on a thing like that, don’t you think?” He was just in time to save a cup, which she was on the point of brushing down with her sleeve. “You see how practical it is. Now, drink your tea; you said you were thirsty.” She discovered suddenly that Cesca’s whole stock of coloured stockings were hanging to dry on the balcony, and she removed them a little nervously. While he was having his tea he explained: “I lay awake last night thinking, almost until dawn, and then, of course, I overslept, so had no time to stop at the _latteria_ on my way. I think we should go to Via Cassia to that anemone place of yours.”