“It’s all right,” said Lord Hovenden. They were running smoothly now along the right-hand road. Ten minutes later, from the crest of a little pass, they saw Perugia on its mountain, glittering in the sunlight. They found, when they reached the hotel, that the rest of the party had long since arrived. “We took ve wrong turning,” Lord Hovenden explained. “By ve way,” he added, turning to Mr. Cardan, “about vat lake we passed—wasn’t it Hannibal or some one....” “Such a lot of lakes,” Miss Elver was telling Mrs. Chelifer. “Such a lot!” “Only one, surely, my dear,” Mrs. Chelifer mildly insisted. But Miss Elver wouldn’t hear of it. “Lots and lots.” Mrs. Chelifer sighed compassionately. Before dinner Irene and Lord Hovenden went for a stroll in the town. The huge stone palaces lowered down at them as they passed. The sun was so low that only their highest windows, their roofs and cornices took the light. The world’s grey shadow was creeping up their flanks; but their crests were tipped with coral and ruddy gold. “I like vis place,” said Lord Hovenden. In the circumstances he would have liked Wigan or Pittsburg. “So do I,” said Irene. Through the window in her thick hair her face looked smiling out, merry in its childishness. Leaving the stately part of the town, they plunged into the labyrinth of steep alleys, of winding passage-ways and staircases behind the cathedral. Built confusedly on the hillside, the tall houses seemed to grow into one another, as though they were the component parts of one immense and fantastical building, in which the alleys served as corridors. The road would burrow through the houses in a long dark tunnel, to widen out into a little well-like courtyard, open to the sky. Through open doors, at the head of an outside staircase, one saw in the bright electric light a family sitting round the soup tureen. The road turned into a flight of stairs, dipped into another tunnel, made cheerful by the lights of a subterranean wine shop opening into it. From the mouth of the bright cavern came up the smell of liquor, the sound of loud voices and reverberated laughter.