‘Yes,’ he went on meditatively, ‘I’m sure you are right, Sprats, quite right. I’ll act on your advice. I’ll go down to Simonstower to-morrow and see if Uncle Pepperdine can let me have that thousand, and if there is any money of my own, and when I come back I’ll see if Robertson will buy my copyrights--I may be able to clear the debt off with all that. If not, I shall sell the furniture, books, pictures, everything, and Haidee and I will go to Italy, to Florence, and live cheaply. Ah! I know the loveliest palazzo on the Lung’ Arno--I wish we were there already. I’m sick of England.’ ‘It will make a difference to Haidee, Lucian,’ said Sprats. ‘She likes England--and English society.’ ‘Yes,’ he answered thoughtfully, ‘it will make a great difference. But she gave up a great deal for me when we married, and she’ll give up a great deal now. A woman will do anything for the man she loves,’ he added, with the air of a wiseacre. ‘It’s a sort of fixed law.’ Then he went away, and Sprats, after spending five minutes in deep thought, remembered her other children and hastened to them, wondering whether the most juvenile of the whole brood were quite so childish as Lucian. ‘It will go hard with him if his disillusion comes suddenly,’ she thought, and for the rest of the day she felt inclined to sadness. Lucian went home in a good humour and a brighter flow of spirits. He was always thus when a new course of action suggested itself to him, and on this occasion he felt impelled to cheerfulness because he was meditating a virtuous deed. He wrote some letters, and then went to his club, and knowing that his wife had an engagement of her own that night, he dined with an old college friend whom he happened to meet in the smoking-room, and to whom before and after dinner he talked in lively fashion. It was late when he reached home, and he was then more cheerful than ever; the picture of the old palazzo on the Lung’ Arno had fastened itself upon the wall of his consciousness and compelled him to look at it. Haidee had just come in; he persuaded her to go with him into his study while he smoked a final cigarette, and there, full of his new projects, he told her what he intended to do. Haidee listened without saying a word in reply. Lucian took no notice of her silence: he was one of those people who imagine that they are addressing other people when they are in reality talking to themselves and require neither Yea nor Nay; he went on expatiating upon his scheme, and the final cigarette was succeeded by others, and Haidee still listened in silence. ‘You mean to do all that?’ she said at last. ‘To sell everything and go to Florence? And to live there?’ ‘Certainly,’ he replied tranquilly; ‘it will be so cheap.’ ‘Cheap?’ she exclaimed. ‘Yes--and dull! Besides, why this sudden fuss about owing Darlington money? It’s been owing for months, and you didn’t say anything.’