That summer they drove into Italy with David sitting up proudly beside Burton. David barked at the peasants and challenged the dogs and generally assumed a grand air of importance. They decided to spend two months on Lake Como, and went to the Hotel Florence at Bellagio. The hotel gardens ran down to the lake—it was all very sunny and soothing and peaceful. Their days were passed in making excursions, their evenings in drifting about on the water in a little boat with a gaily striped awning, which latter seemed a strange form of pleasure to David. Many of the guests at the Florence were English, and not a few scraped an acquaintance with Stephen, since nothing appears to succeed like success in a world that is principally made up of failure. The sight of her book left about in the lounge, or being devoured by some engrossed reader, would make Stephen feel almost childishly happy; she would point the phenomenon out to Mary. ‘Look,’ she would whisper, ‘that man’s reading my book!’ For the child is never far to seek in the author. Some of their acquaintances were country folk and she found that she was in sympathy with them. Their quiet and painstaking outlook on life, their love of the soil, their care for their homes, their traditions were after all a part of herself, bequeathed to her by the founders of Morton. It gave her a very deep sense of pleasure to see Mary accepted and made to feel welcome by these grey-haired women and gentlemanly men; very seemly and fitting it appeared to Stephen. And now, since to each of us come moments of respite when the mind refuses to face its problems, she resolutely thrust aside her misgivings, those misgivings that whispered: ‘Supposing they knew—do you think they’d be so friendly to Mary?’ Of all those who sought them out that summer, the most cordial were Lady Massey and her daughter. Lady Massey was a delicate, elderly woman who, in spite of poor health and encroaching years, was untiring in her search for amusement—it amused her to make friends with celebrated people. She was restless, self-indulgent and not over sincere, a creature of whims and ephemeral fancies; yet for Stephen and Mary she appeared to evince a liking which was more than just on the surface. She would ask them up to her sitting-room, would want them to sit with her in the garden, and would sometimes insist upon communal meals, inviting them to dine at her table. Agnes, the daughter, a jolly, red-haired girl, had taken an immediate fancy to Mary, and their friendship ripened with celerity, as is often the way during idle summers. As for Lady Massey she petted Mary, and mothered her as though she were a child, and soon she was mothering Stephen also.