It transpired that the _Merrythought_ would put out to the high seas on the twenty-second, and it was in the flutter of their practical adjustments to meet this date that Peter found the ten days of his engagement move so swiftly; to engage servants, to interview tradespeople, to prune the neglected garden--it was Savilla's notion that they should do this themselves--all the stir of domestic life made so many points of advantage to support him above that dryness of despair from which he had moments of feeling himself all too hardly rescued. He had come up out of it sufficiently by the help that Italy afforded, to glimpse once more the country of his dreams, only by this act of his marriage to turn his back on it forever. Savilla Dassonville was a dear little thing; if it came to that, a revered and valued thing, but she was not, he had never pretended it, the Lovely Lady, and the door that shut them in as man and wife was to shut _her_ forever out of his life. And yet though this was his accepted, his official position, it was remarkable even to himself how much less frequently as the preparations for his marriage went forward, he found himself obliged to fall back upon it; how much more he projected himself into his future as the adored and protecting male. He recalled in this connection that the Princess had said to him that he should visit his House no more, and it was part of the proof of the notion he entertained toward himself as a man done with the imaginative life, that he accepted it with no more fuss about it. He had in fact his mind's eye on a piece of ground which Lessing could buy for him, on the river, an hour from the city, where he could manage for Savilla at least, a generous substitute for dreams, and a situation for himself for which he began to discover more appetite than he would have believed. It was likely, he thought, that he would himself take a turn at planning the garden. It was very early in the morning when the wedding party which had been reinforced by the consul, the mistress of Casa Frolli, and the minister, who had turned out to be exactly of Mrs. Merrithew's persuasion, went aboard the _Merrythought_, blooming out amazingly in bunting and roses for the occasion. The morning blueness had drained out from the city and stained the waters eastward as they put out between the red and yellow sails of the fishing fleet. They saw the cypress-towered islands of romance melt in the morning haze. The steam launch which was to take them ashore again ploughed alongside, and there was a pleasant sort of home smell from the cook's quarters. Peter sat forward with the bride's hand tucked under his arm and presently he heard her laughing softly, delightedly. "Peter, do you know what that is, that good smell I mean?" "What do you think it is?" "It's pie baking. Truly, don't you think I'm enough of a housewife to know that?" "I know you're everything you ought to be."