But it was, after all, for Denis to effect that severing, to cut himself
loose from that oppressing and impossible weight.

He did so.

"I don't see," said Denis, "that we need ... that we can ... do anything
about it."

Above the clear mountains the sun swung up triumphant, and the wide river
valley was bathed in radiant gold.




CHAPTER VI

HILARY, PEGGY, AND HER BOARDERS


When Leslie and Peter went to Venice to pick up Berovieri goblets and
other things, Leslie stayed at the Hotel Europa and Peter in the Palazzo
Amadeo. The Palazzo Amadeo is a dilapidated palace looking onto the Rio
delle Beccarie; it is let in flats to the poor; and in the sea-story
suite of the great, bare, dingy, gilded rooms lived Hilary and Peggy
Margerison, and three disreputable infants who insisted on bathing in the
canals, and the boarders. The boarders were at the moment six in number;
Peter made seven. The great difficulty with the boarders, Peggy told him,
was to make them pay. They had so little money, and such a constitutional
reluctance to spend that little on their board.