accustomed to suffer or enjoy without moving a muscle.

Privacy favours the growth of individual types, differing widely from
each other; the destruction of it makes people very much alike.
Marcello's mother asked herself whether she had done well in rearing him
as a being apart from those amongst whom he must spend his life.

And yet, as she looked at him, he seemed to be so nearly the ideal of
which she had dreamt throughout long years of loving care that she was
comforted, and the shadow passed away from her sweet face. He had
answered that she could do nothing that was not right; she prayed that
his words might be near the truth, and in her heart she was willing to
believe that they were almost true. Had she not followed every good
impulse of her own good heart? Had she not tried to realize literally
for him the most beautiful possibilities of the Christian faith? That,
at least, was true, and she could tell herself so without any mistaken
pride. How, then, had she made any mistake? The boy had the face of a
young saint.

"Are you ready, my dear?" she asked suddenly, as a far-off clock struck.

"Yes, mother, quite ready."

"I am not," she answered with a little laugh. "And Folco is waiting, and
I hear the carriage driving up."

She slipped from Marcello's side and left the room quickly, for they
were going to drive down to the sea, to a little shooting-lodge that
belonged to them near Nettuno, a mere cottage among the trees by the
Roman shore, habitable only in April and May, and useful only then, when