What you want, I should have liked to tell her, is not a child; it’s a clock-work doll or a performing monkey. But I did not say so--partly because I could not think of the Italian for a clock-work doll and partly because I did not want to risk having the rent raised another 15 per cent. “Ah, if only I had a little boy like that!” She sighed and modestly dropped her eyelids. “I adore children. I sometimes think of adopting one--that is, if my husband would allow it.” I thought of the poor old gentleman being dragged along at the heels of his big white dog and inwardly smiled. “But I don’t know if he would,” the Signora was continuing, “I don’t know if he would.” She was silent for a moment, as though considering a new idea. A few days later, when we were sitting in the garden after luncheon, drinking our coffee, Guido’s father, instead of passing with a nod and the usual cheerful good-day, halted in front of us and began to talk. He was a fine handsome man, not very tall, but well proportioned, quick and elastic in his movements, and full of life. He had a thin brown face, featured like a Roman’s and lit by a pair of the most intelligent-looking grey eyes I ever saw. They exhibited almost too much intelligence when, as not infrequently happened, he was trying, with an assumption of perfect frankness and a childlike innocence, to take one in or get something out of one. Delighting in itself, the intelligence shone there mischievously. The face might be ingenuous, impassive, almost imbecile in its expression; but the eyes on these occasions gave him completely away. One knew, when they glittered like that, that one would have to be careful.