"Well--I have heard it whispered among the Italians here that he associates with some queer people sometimes. Of course, he's an Inglese, and quite in ignorance of what they really are. The better-class Italians have nothing to do with him, and as the English colony here is so very small, poor Lucie's life can't be a very gay one. Indeed, I'm often sorry for the girl. Except for visiting us sometimes, and going to the houses of two or three of the English business people here, they go nowhere. Milner, when he's here, spends each morning alone on the Squarci baths, reading the newspaper, and in the evening takes one turn up and down the promenade." "Yes," declared her daughter. "He's a most lonely, melancholy man." "There's some mystery behind him, I suppose," remarked the Countess. "We have so many queer English and Americans out here nowadays. Italy is really becoming the dumping-ground for all people who, from some reason or other, find their own country too sultry for them. Take Rome, for instance: why, the place is simply full of people one can't possibly know, while Florence is proverbial for undesirables." "But you don't think this man Milner is an undesirable, do you? I mean you've never heard anything against him?" "Well, nothing absolutely direct," was her answer. "Only if I were you I wouldn't be too friendly with them. It will go very much against you, more especially in Italian society." "Italian society, Countess, doesn't interest me really very much," I exclaimed. "I know you think me a terrible barbarian, but remember I'm only a wanderer and a Bohemian at that." "Ah!" she sighed, "you men are free. It is unfortunately not so with us women, especially with a woman like myself, who, though I love freedom, am compelled to exist in this narrow-minded little world of the Italian aristocracy. I need not tell you how exclusive we all are--you know us too well. Why, when an English royal prince or princess comes to an Italian city hardly any one ever goes out of his way to call. They actually wait for the royalty to make the first call! And if you hear three school-girls of fourteen talking together, you will most certainly hear them discussing the _nobilta_, and sneering at their schoolfellows whose parents are without titles. Yes, Mr Leaf," she sighed, "ours is a strange complex life here, in modern Italy."