Clara d'Ellébeuse, Clara d'Ellébeuse. She saw herself so clearly as the _marchesa_. They would have a house in Rome, a palace. She saw herself in the Palazzo Spada--it had such a lovely vaulted passage leading from the courtyard to the gardens at the back. "MARCHESA PRAMPOLINI, PALAZZO SPADA, ROMA"--a great big visiting-card beautifully engraved. And she would go riding every day in the Pincio. "_Mi porta il mio cavallo_" she would say to the footman, who answered the bell. _Porta_? Would that be quite correct? Hardly. She'd have to take some proper Italian lessons to talk to the servants. One must never be ridiculous before servants. "_Voglio il mio cavallo._ Haughtily one would say it sitting at one's writing-table in a riding-habit, without turning round. It would be a green riding-habit, with a black tricorne hat, braided with silver. "_Prendero la mia collazzione al letto."_ Was that right for breakfast in bed? Because she would have breakfast in bed, always. And when she got up there would be lovely looking glasses with three panels where one could see oneself sideface. She saw herself leaning forward, powdering her nose, carefully, scientifically. With the monkey creeping up behind? Ooh. Horrible! _Ho paura di questa scimmia, questo scimmione_. She would come back to lunch after her ride. Perhaps Prampolini would be there; she had rather left him out of the picture so far. "_Dov' è il Marchese?_" "_Nella sala di pranza, signora_." I began without you, I was so hungry. _Pasta asciutta_. Where have you been, my love? Riding, my dove. She supposed they'd get into the habit of saying that sort of thing. Everyone seemed to. And you? I have been out with the Fascisti. Oh, these Fascisti! Would life be worth living when he was always going out with pistols and bombs and things? They would bring him back one day on a stretcher. She saw it. Pale, pale, with blood on him. _Il signore è ferito. Nel petto. Gruvamente. E morto_. How could she bear it? It was too awful; too, too terrible. Her breath came in a kind of sob; she shuddered as though she had been hurt. _E morto, E morto_. The tears came into her eyes. She was roused suddenly by a dazzling light. The storm had receded far enough into the distance to permit of Mrs. Topes's opening the shutters. "It's quite stopped raining." To be disturbed in one's intimate sorrow and self-abandonment at a death-bed by a stranger's intrusion, an alien voice.... Barbara turned her face away from the light and surreptitiously wiped her eyes. They might see and ask her why she had been crying. She hated Mrs. Topes for opening the shutters; at the inrush of the light something beautiful had flown, an emotion had vanished, irrecoverably. It was a sacrilege. Mr. Buzzacott looked at his watch. "Too late, I fear, for a siesta now," he said. "Suppose we ring for an early tea." "An endless succession of meals," said Mr. Topes, with a tremolo and a sigh. "That's what life seems to be--real life."