"A little business to attend to first. A small inheritance to cash in on." "Inheritance!" cried Livingstone, sitting up straight. "The very word makes my mouth water. Why doesn't that ever happen to me?" The expression on his face was like that of the loungers in front of the Cathedral when they heard the coin drop. Through the lather of soap-suds on his face, Neale laughed, "A very two-for-a-cent inheritance. An old great-uncle I hardly knew--never saw him but once or twice, years ago when I was a kid, left me his home and his little old-fashioned saw-mill and wood-working plant, back up at the end of nowhere in Vermont." "_No money!_" sympathized Livingstone. "But then of course you can sell all that for _some_thing. But no real money at all?" "There's what he had in the savings bank--about four thousand dollars, the executor writes. Just enough to do nothing at all with." Livingstone made a mental calculation. "I wouldn't wonder if you might get fifty dollars a month out of the whole thing. And that's enough. Ma foi! That's enough if you cut corners a little. _I_ only have eighty-five. And then you can always give an occasional English lesson to piece out. You won't need ever to do a lick of work or ever live in the States. Mes felicitations! That's the life! You'll be knowing Europe as well as I do, next. How soon will you be back?" "I'm not coming back," said Neale, buttoning on a clean collar. "When I've cashed in and got what I can out of my uncle's business I'm going overland to San Francisco, and from there to the East." Livingstone considered this, "Well, they do say that Chinese cooking is super-excellent once you get used to it." "I'm not going for the cooking." "No? What _are_ you going for?" "Oh, I don't know," said Neale rather sharply. "Because I feel like it. Why shouldn't I?" Livingstone perceived that he had run on a hidden reef and backed off. "Don't you want to come on into the salon and let me present you to the crowd?" he asked standing up and moving towards the door. "Since you were here some awfully nice people have come over from the Pension Alfierenti. Poor old Alfierenti died suddenly and his place is shut up for the present." "No, thanks," said Neale. "I'm going up on the roof for a smoke before I go to bed." "Oh, yes," Livingstone remembered, "you always did prefer the terrazza and your solitary pipe to the society of the ladies. Well, there is a nice view from up there; but between a view and a pretty girl who could hesitate?" "Who, indeed?" said Neale dryly, going off up the stairs. * * * * * The plaster floor and low walls of the terrazza gleamed white and empty. As Neale had hoped there was not a soul there. Below him spread the roofs and domes and streets of Rome, richly-colored even in the white light of the moon, hanging like a great lamp over the city.