First came the concierge. “You are really not leaving to-morrow morning, ladies? For what day do you wish me to get your tickets stamped?” He was startledly incredulous when told that the day was still too far in the future for a date to be fixed. The porter came to ask at what time he was to carry out their luggage in the morning—the head waiter to know for which train they wished to be called. The stolid chambermaid’s mouth fell open in surprise when asked 205to move their things to other rooms. The two-foot-high Buttons shifted about chairs four times his own size in the lobby to get a chance to gaze satisfactorily at such peculiar ladies, and by tea-time the German waiters were staring as they carried about tea-trays, and pointing out to one another the strangely behaving two who were not leaving the next day! The pretty little hotel was like a railway restaurant. Successive sets of hurried tourists appeared, made a one-meal or a one-night stop, and rushed on, leaving their places to others. In a week’s time so many sets had come and gone that Peripatetica and Jane began to take on the air of pre-historic aborigines; as if they had been sitting on their sunny bank watching all the invading hordes of nations since the Carthagenians made their first raid. By way of emphasizing the superior intelligence of their own methods they savoured slowly and lingeringly Girgenti’s endless charms. Loafing placidly on the flowery terrace for an hour after breakfast to enjoy the distant view of the golden temples, or to watch the patient labours of ancient brown Orlando and his ancient grey ass Carlo, who spent all their waking hours in climbing down, down the precipitous road to the Fonte dei Greci with empty water-barrels, and toilsomely bringing them up full and dripping to be emptied into the terrace well with its lovely carved well head. Or they retired to the niche below the terrace stairs under the feathery pepper tree, and sat amid a blaze of poppies and mauve to write letters, punctuated by frequent pauses to look across the olive orchards and young wheat fields to the wide blue fields of the sea. And every day they strolled away through 206the orchard footpaths towards the temples, which were ever their goal, though they might be hours in reaching that goal because of being led away by adventures on the road. It was by way of this footpath that they first fell into the hands of Fortunato. They were forever falling into some one’s hands and finding the results agreeable, for they kept their minds open to suggestion and abjured all hard and fast lines of intention, being wise enough to realize that what is known as “a good traveller” usually misses all the good of travel by the cut-and-driedness of his aims.