For a time Paul subsided, but their controversy closed with the laugh on his side. Apropos of riots, his thesis was that they were on the whole very jolly. And he upheld this shockingly barbaric view with the plea that he always liked to see people having a good time, and that next to sleeping in the sun and eating macaroni the Italians were never so happy as when engaged in a row. For his part, he affirmed, he expected to find them tearing up the golden paving-stones of paradise to heave at each other! The image wrung a smile from even Sybert’s gravity; It contained just enough of truth, and not too much, to make it funny. Pietro’s announcement, at this point, that the carriages were ready to drive their excellencies to the festa dissolved the party in a scurry for hats and wraps. Sybert at first had declined the festa, on the plea that he had business in Rome. Marcia had accepted his excuse with the simply polite statement that they would be sorry not to have him, but Eleanor Royston had refused to let him off. ‘I’ve known a great many diplomats,’ she affirmed; ‘and though they are supposed to be engaged with the business of nations, I have never yet seen one who was too busy to attend a party. We shan’t let you off on that score.’ Somewhat to Paul’s secret annoyance, and not entirely to Marcia’s gratification, he finally consented to change his mind. As the carriage started, Marcia glanced back toward the loggia steps, where the two little boys, one with yellow curls and one with black, were standing hand in hand, wistfully watching the departure. ‘Good-bye, Gerald and Gervasio,’ she called. ‘If you are very good, I’ll bring you something nice from the festa.’ The Copley pilgrimage was not the only one bound for Genazzano that day. They passed on the road countless bands of contadini, both on foot and on donkey-back, journeying toward the festa, their babies and provisions in baskets on their heads. Genazzano, on St Mark’s day, wisely unites pleasure and piety, with masses in the cathedral and jugglers in the piazza. The party from the villa devoted the larger share of their time to the piazza, laughing good-naturedly at the ‘Inglese! which was shouted after them at every turn. They lunched on the terrace of the very modest village inn, in company with a jovial party of young Irish students from the Propaganda who seemed to treat the miracles of the wonder-working Madonna in the light of an ecclesiastical joke. The afternoon found the sight-seeing ardour of the two elder ladies somewhat damped. There was to be a function in the cathedral at three, and they stated their intention of stopping quietly in the low-raftered parlour of the inn until it should commence. Eleanor Royston issued a frank invitation to Sybert to explore the old Colonna castle which surmounted the town, and he accepted with what struck Marcia as a flattering show of interest.