Mrs. Aldwinkle meanwhile went the round of the sights with Chelifer. She had hopes that the Sistine Chapel, the Appian Way at sunset, the Coliseum by moonlight, the gardens of the Villa d’Este might arouse in Chelifer’s mind emotions which should in their turn predispose him to feel romantically towards herself. The various emotions, she knew by experience, are not boxed off from one another in separate pigeon-holes; and when one is stimulated it is likely that its neighbours will also be aroused. More proposals are made in the taxi, on the way home from a Wagner opera, in the face of an impressive view, within the labyrinth of a ruined palace, than in drab parlours or the streets of West Kensington. But the Appian Way, even when the solitary pine trees were black against the sunset and the ghosts were playing oboes, not for the sensual ear, in the ruined sepulchres; the Coliseum, even under the moon; the cypresses, the cascades and the jade-green pools of Tivoli—all were ineffective. Chelifer never committed himself; his behaviour remained perfectly courteous. Seated on a fallen column in the ruins of Hadrian’s Villa, Mrs. Aldwinkle even went so far as to tell him about certain amorous passages in her past life. She told him, with various little modifications of the facts, modifications in which she herself had long ago come implicitly to believe, the story of the affair with Elzevir, the pianist—such an artist! to his finger-tips; with Lord Trunion—such a _grand seigneur_ of the old school! But concerning Mr. Cardan she was silent. It was not that Mrs. Aldwinkle’s mythopoeic faculties were not equal to making something very extraordinary and romantic out of Mr. Cardan. No, no; she had often described the man to those who did not know him; he was a sort of village Hampden, a mute inglorious What’s-his-name, who might have done anything—but anything—if he had chosen to give himself the trouble. He was a great Don Juan, actual in this case, not merely potential. He was a mocking devil’s advocate, he was even a devil. But that was because he was misunderstood—misunderstood by everybody but Mrs. Aldwinkle herself. Secretly he was so sensitive and kind-hearted. But one had to be gifted with intuition to find it out. And so on; she had made a capital mythical figure out of him. But an instinct of caution restrained her from showing off her myths too freely before people who were well acquainted with the originals. Chelifer had never met Lord Trunion or the immortal Elzevir. He _had_ met Mr. Cardan.