But Marcello did not come in.

Soon after eight o'clock his mother appeared on the verandah. Folco
dropped his newspaper and hastened to make her comfortable in her
favourite chair. Though she was not strong, she was not an invalid, but
she was one of those women whom it seems natural to help, to whom men
bring cushions, and with whom other women are always ready to
sympathise. If one of Fra Angelico's saints should walk into a modern
drawing-room all the men would fall over each other in the scramble to
make her comfortable, and all the women would offer her tea and ask her
if she felt the draught.

The Signora looked about, expecting to see her son.

"Marcello has not come in," said Folco, understanding. "He seems to have
gone for a long walk."

"I hope he has put on his thick boots," answered the Signora, in a
thoughtful tone. "It is very wet."

She asked why Folco was not with him shooting, and was told that there
were no birds in such weather. She had never understood the winds, nor
the points of the compass, nor why one should see the new moon in the
west instead of in the east. Very few women do, but those who live much
with men generally end by picking up a few useful expressions, a little
phrase-book of jargon terms with which men are quite satisfied. They
find out that a fox has no tail, a wild boar no teeth, a boat no prow,
and a yacht no staircase; and this knowledge is better than none.

The Signora accepted the fact that there were no birds that morning, and