Peter bowed, standing aside to let them pass.

But when he looked up, the Duchessa had stopped, and was
smiling on him.

His heart beat harder.

"A lovely day," said the Duchessa.

"Delightful," agreed Peter, between two heart-beats.--Yet he
looked, in his grey flannels, with his straw-hat and his
eyeglass, with his lean face, his even colour, his slightly
supercilious moustaches--he looked a very embodiment of
cool-blooded English equanimity.

"A trifle warm, perhaps?" the Duchessa suggested, with her air
of polite (or was it in some part humorous?) readiness to defer
to his opinion.

"But surely," suggested he, "in Italy, in summer, it is its
bounden duty to be a trifle warm?"

The Duchessa smiled.

"You like it? So do I. But what the country really needs is
rain."

"Then let us hope," said he, "that the country's real needs may
remain unsatisfied."