This easy, unsurprised acceptance of things as they were, in which Prudence Varley might have discovered insult, bore to the Crevequers no message, no implication. Their attitude towards such tolerance was the measure of their inapprehensiveness. But, as Betty had had her moment of half-realization, so Tommy had his. Perhaps such moments came to the one whose turn to drive it was not, and who had therefore leisure to perceive. Tommy's moment came through _Marchese Peppino_. Betty observed, abstractedly, between fluctuating swerves and recoveries: 'Tommy's paper, you know ... has been getting into rows ... being sued for libel....' Venables, his eyes on the road, his hand waiting in nervous readiness for emergency, said: 'Yes?... Mind that flock of goats.' It was, possibly, the distance of the flock of goats--quite two hundred yards--which partly gave Tommy his moment of enlightenment. Perhaps he had half known it before; anyhow, he took in freshly now that the large acceptance did not quite include _Marchese Peppino_. Even the tolerance of contempt has got, after all, to draw its line somewhere. Tommy almost took in, too, the slight lift of the brows, which might be taken to convey 'Does anyone really think it worth the sueing--that rag?' Venables himself had certainly the air of not thinking it, under any circumstances, in the least worth the sueing. Tommy, his melancholy eyes on Venables' profile, faintly flushed. CHAPTER VI GRADONI 'Les clefs des portes sont perdues, Il faut attendre, il faut attendre, Les clefs sont tombées de la tour, Il faut attendre, il faut attendre, Il faut attendre d'autres jours....' MAETERLINCK. There are steep streets called _gradoni_, which climb up from the old town below to the new town above; their slope is assisted by shallow steps at intervals. So shallow are the steps that you hardly notice each as you take it. Not until you arrive at the top and look down on the ascending way do you perceive how its climbing was assisted. Of like nature is the ascending alley of human penetration. At the top is the daylight; in the analogy, perceptiveness quite achieved. In her ascending alley Betty should, by the end of February, have got far enough not to have taken Miranda Venables to lunch at the Trattoria Buonaventura with her friends Gina Lunelli and Morello, the painter. She met Miranda on Santa Lucia. Miranda remarked: