"I 've given orders for my four-in-hand to come round here and pick us up," said Franco. "Shall we all go for a spin, and get an appetite for luncheon?"
"In the afternoon, if there 's a breeze, I propose a sail," said Baldo. "I 've just got a new boat out from England, schooner-rigged, the Spindrift. I 've not yet really had a fair chance to try her."
"Do you go in for tennis?" asked Franco. "We 've got a court at the villa."
"I don't know whether you care for swimming," said Baldo. "You get a fairly decent dive-off from the landing-stage at the end of our garden. The water here is pooty good. My brother and I generally go for a swim before dinner."
"Ah, here 's Tom with the four-in-hand," said Franco. And then, with a readiness for self-effacement that was surely less British than the language in which it found expression, "Would you care to take the ribbons, Count?" he asked. And when Anthony had declined, "Would you, Willes?" he proceeded.
"Not just at the start, thanks," said Adrian. "I should like to watch 'em step a bit first."
The hypocrite. As if he would have known what to do with the ribbons, had they been given to him.
So Franco took them himself, while Baldo blew the horn.
"Have you visited Castel San Guido yet?" Franco questioned. "Shall we make that our objective?"
They drove up and up, round and round the winding road that leads to Castel San Guido, where it clings to the almost vertical mountainside. For the greater part the road was bordered by olive orchards, but sometimes there were vineyards, sometimes groves of walnut-trees, clumps of stone-pines, or fields of yellowing maize, and everywhere there were oleanders growing wild, and always there was the view.