"And what were you doing 'down there,' besides making yourself sick, if I may ask?" said Ferguson. "Oh, I went down for the hunting, of course. What else does one go to such a place for?" "Tell me a little about that, if you don't mind," said the Englishman, interested for the first time. "M. de Verneuil wants us all to go to the Deserto some day soon," said Fanny; "a lunch party. We shall be sure to enjoy it; M. de Verneuil's parties are always delightful." III The end of the week had been appointed for Pierre's excursion. The morning opened fair and warm, with the veiled blue that belongs to the Bay of Naples, the soft hazy blue which is so different from the dry glittering clearness of the Riviera. Fanny was mounted on a donkey; Eva preferred to walk, and Mademoiselle accompanied her. Pierre had included in his invitation the usual afternoon assemblage at the villa--Dallas, Mark Ferguson, Bartholomew, Gordon-Gray, and David Rod. For Fanny had, as Dallas expressed it, "taken up" Rod; she had invited him twice to dinner. The superfluous courtesy had annoyed Dallas, for of course, as Rod himself was nothing, less than nothing, the explanation must lie in the fact that Horace Bartholomew had suggested it. "Bartholomew was always wrong-headed; always picking up some perfectly impossible creature, and ramming him down people's throats," he thought, with vexation. Bartholomew was walking now beside Fanny's donkey. Mark Ferguson led the party, as it moved slowly along the narrow paved road that winds in zigzags up the mountain; Eva, Mademoiselle, Pierre, Dallas, and Rod came next. Fanny and Bartholomew were behind; and behind still, walking alone and meditatively, came Gordon-Gray, who looked at life (save for the hunting) from the standpoint of the Italian Renaissance. Gordon-Gray knew a great deal about the Malatesta family; he had made a collection of Renaissance cloak clasps; he had written an essay on the colors of the long hose worn in the battling, leg-displaying days which had aroused his admiration, aroused it rather singularly, since he himself was as far as possible from having been qualified by nature to shine in such vigorous society. Pierre went back to give some directions to one of the men in the rear of their small procession. When he returned, "So the bears sometimes get among the canes?" Eva was saying. "But then, how very convenient," said Pierre; "for they can take the canes and chastise them punctually." He spoke in his careful English. "They're sugar-canes," said Rod. "It's his plantation we are talking about," said Eva. "Once it was a military post, he says. Perhaps like Ehrenbreitstein." "Exactly," said Dallas, from behind; "the same massive frowning stone walls." "There were four one-story wooden barracks once," said Rod; "whitewashed; flag-pole in the centre. There's nothing now but a chimney; we've taken the boards for our mill." "See the cyclamen, good folk," called out Gordon-Gray.