"At any rate," he answered, with allowance for her point, "your Scottish gardener has. At his caprice, he turns this torrent on or off, with a tap. For all its air of naturalness and frank impetuosity, it is an entirely artificial torrent; and your Scottish gardener turns it on and off with a tap."
"He sways the elements," murmured Susanna, as with awe. "Portentous being." Then, changing her note to one of gaiety, "Ecco," she cried, "Signor Cinciallegra has completed his ablutions—and ecco, he flies away. Won't you—won't you sit down?" she asked, as her eyes came back from the departing bird; and a motion of her hand made him free of the pine-needles.
"Thank you," responded Anthony, taking a place opposite her. "I 'm not sure," he added, "whether in honesty I ought n't to confess that I have just been calling upon you."
"Oh," she said, with the politest smile and bow. "I am so sorry to have missed your visit."
"You are very good." He bowed in his turn. "I wanted to consult you about a trifling matter of business," he informed her.
"A matter of business—?" she wondered; and her face became all attention.
"Exactly," said he. "I wanted to ask what you meant by stating that it was your habit always to be abroad in the hours immaculate? I happened by the merest chance to be abroad in them myself this morning. I examined every nook and cranny of them, I turned them inside out; but not one jot or tittle of you could I discover."
Susanna's eyes were pensive.
"I was speaking of Italy, was I not?" she replied. "I said, I think, that it was the habit of the people in my part of Italy. But, anyhow, one sometimes varies one's habits. And, after all, one sometimes makes statements that are rash."
"And one is always free to repudiate one's responsibilities," suggestively supplemented our young man.