Daphne looked dubiously at him, though he had stated the case
with entire accuracy, and had suggested for her solitary meal
what she most liked. There was a slight pucker in her white
forehead, and she vouchsafed no answer to what she did not
understand.

"Addio, addio," she said earnestly.

"A rivederla!" answered Giacomo, with a courtly sweep of the
chamois skin.

The girl climbed steadily up the moist, steep path leading to the
deep shadow of a group of ilex trees on the hill. At her side a
stream of water trickled past drooping maidenhair fern and over
immemorial moss. Here and there it fell in little cascades,
making a sleepy murmur in the warm air of afternoon.

Halfway up the hill Daphne paused and looked back. Below the
yellow walls of the Villa Accolanti, standing in a wide garden
with encompassing poplars and cypresses, sketched great grassy
slopes and gray-green olive orchards. The water from the stream,
gathered in a stone basin at the foot of the hill, flowed in a
marble conduit through the open hall. As she looked she was
aware of two old brown faces anxiously gazing after her. Giacomo
and Assunta were chattering eagerly in the doorway, the black of
his butler's dress and the white of his protecting apron making
his wife's purple calico skirt and red shoulder shawl look more
gay. They caught the last flutter of the girl's blue linen gown
as it disappeared among the ilexes.