"We'll go on Sunday and settle how to arrange it," said Antonio, and Regina thought dolefully of all the fatigue and worry awaiting her. "Fancy coping with a servant!" she reflected, panic-struck. On Sunday morning they went to their little habitation. It was late in January, a pure, soft morning with whiffs of spring in the air. Regina ran up the hundred-odd steps, and when, panting and perspiring, she arrived at her hall door she amused herself by ringing the bell. "Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle! Who is there? Mr. Nobody! What fun going to visit Mr. Nobody!" Antonio opened with a certain air of mystery and marched in first. Then he turned and made Regina a low bow. She looked round astonished, and exclaimed, with faint irony, "But I thought this kind of thing only happened in romances!" The Apartment was all in complete order. Curtains veiled the half-open windows. The large white bed stood between strips of carpet, upon which were depicted yellow dogs running with partridges in their mouths. Even in the kitchen nothing was missing or awry. Antonio stood at the window, leaving Regina time to get over her surprise. She hated herself because somehow she did not feel all the pleasurable emotion which her husband might justly expect of her. However, she understood quite well what she must do. She thought-- "I must kiss him and say, 'How good you are!'" So she did kiss him, and said "How good you are!" quite cheerfully. His eyes filled with boyish delight, and at sight of this she felt touched in earnest. "Antonio," she cried, "you really are good, and I am very wicked. But I'm going to improve, I really, really am!" And for a week or a fortnight she was good; docile and even merry. She was very busy settling her treasures in the cabinets, her clothes in the wardrobes, altering this table and that picture; never in her whole life had she worked so hard! The first night she slept in the soft new bed, between the fine linen sheets of her trousseau, she felt as if delivered from an incubus, and about to begin a new life, with all the happiness, all the renewed energy of a convalescent. By this time fine weather had come. The Roman sky was cloudless; springtime fragrance filled the air; the city noises reached Regina's rooms like the sound of a distant waterfall, subdued and sweet. In the sun-dappled garden below, a thin curl of water was flung by a tiny fountain into a tiny vase, dotted with tiny goldfish; monthly roses bloomed; and a couple of white kittens chased each other along the paths. The little garden seemed made expressly for the two graceful little beasts.