Spring had taken possession of Florence. Its glamour, its dewy freshness, lay over all. The pregnant earth intoxicated with incense of new-born life.

On the hillside, Anne’s garden was abloom. Hyacinths and lilies, daffodils, jonquils and pansies, bordered the graveled paths. Morning-glories crept along the rose-tinted walls. In intricate designs, orderly brigades of tulips, flung heavenwards their gorgeous cups. Lilac bushes showered fragrance from all sides. The fountain, silent all winter, gushed forth in renewed lilt. In its center, a marble cupid, scarred and darkened with years, dimpled, perennially roguish.

On the raised terrace, overlooking the valley, Anne was pouring tea for Vittorio’s mother. Petite, grande dame, the short snow-white hair curling tightly all over her head, the Marchesa looked like an Eighteenth Century porcelain. About the delicately wrinkled old throat coiled a necklace of pearls as large and round as peas. A Chinese shawl, youthfully gay and exotic, draped the frail shoulders. She was talking, as usual, with great animation.

A little pale in her yellow crÈpe gown, Anne leaned back in the Manila chair and listened. A subdued, rather weary, little smile played about her lips. The old lady stopped her chatter and scanned Anne’s face affectionately. The large black eyes were very bright and uncannily piercing.

“What is the matter, Anne? You aren’t a bit like yourself this spring. You seem a little fagged. Are you sure that everything is right with you, dear child?”

Anne’s smile brightened. “Cara Marchesa, of course I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be? Am I not always happy to get back to my beloved Florence?”

The Marchesa laughed happily, like a reassured child.

“You do love it, don’t you? You are a true daughter of the Lily like myself. Just think, Anne, I haven’t been back to America for almost forty years. And after Vittorio’s hectic description of New York, I have no desire to go.”

“What a naughty lady,” Anne laughed. “An unpatriotic little fraud! Nobody would dream you were an old New Yorker, yourself, before your marriage.”

“No,” the Marchesa smiled complacently. “They tell me I am thoroughly Italianized. Frankly, the new America would kill me.”

Anne laughed again. The Marchesa’s little affectation was rather endearing. “I believe it would, Marchesa. You belong in a garden like this, against a background of Tuscan hills.” She waved her hand towards the terraced hillsides.

The Marchesa nodded, pleased at the delicate compliment.

“But Vittorio really likes New York, that is, some aspects of it,” she said courteously.

Anne shook her head with a dry little laugh. “Don’t try to spare my feelings. He hated it. He was horribly bored with us all.”

The Marchesa’s eyes twinkled. She shook a coquettish finger slightly crooked from rheumatism in Anne’s face.

“Not bored with you, my dear. You cannot make me believe that. You are the apple of his eye.”

Anne helped herself hastily to a buttered scone. “I’m afraid the apple stuck in his throat more than once,” she murmured with a nervous laugh.

The old woman looked at her wistfully. No, certainly, Anne was not herself. What could be the matter? Some love affair, perhaps?

“When are you going to make us both happy?” The old voice was very gentle.

“Do you still want me?” With averted head Anne fingered the teacups.

“More than ever, sweet child! I cannot bear to think of poor Vittorio spending the rest of his life pottering about musty old ruins. And that is what he will do if you won’t have him, my dear. He refuses to look at any one else!”

“But he loves ruins, doesn’t he?” Anne teased, her equanimity somewhat restored.

The Marchesa laughed ruefully. “Yes, he seems to have an inextinguishable fondness for antiques, including his mother.”

“Perhaps then, if I wait a little longer, I shall acquire more value in his eyes, become more mellow, you know.”

“Wicked child! You speak of yourself as if you were a cheese!”

“Speaking of cheese, that reminds me. I golfed with the Principe this morning. You know he is in very bad odor here at present? I felt quite devilish being seen with him.”

“Some new scandal?” The black eyes twinkled.

Anne shrugged. “A cinema actress, I believe.” She lighted a cigarette and puffed at it delicately. “He had the temerity to propose to me again.”

The Marchesa’s foot tapped upon the bricks. “Impoverished old wretch! I can’t bear to have you exposed to such things, Anne. Why don’t you marry us, and protect yourself against these adventurers?”

Secure in her own immense fortune, the Marchesa serenely felt her son to be above suspicion.

Anne pretended to be immensely shocked. “The idea of calling the Principe an adventurer. Why, his one foot in the grave would break off if he could hear you. He is count of this, marchese of that,” she flicked her ashes flippantly, “and a Spanish Grandee to boot. I ought to know, he has enumerated his titles to me often enough.”

The Marchesa cackled merrily. “I suggest his getting out a catalogue for the benefit of American heiresses. Old braggart! Why doesn’t he ask me? I’m nearer his age!”

“He is going to invite you to his tennis tea on Sunday,” giggled Anne. “Perhaps you can catch him on the rebound.”

“Never say die! If I can’t have a daughter-in-law, I might as well get me a husband!” The Marchesa rose to her feet rheumatically. “But I must limp along now dear. The sun is beginning to sink behind the Duomo and my old bones will creak if I linger.”

Anne moved towards her quickly. “I hate to have you go, dear lady.”

Arm in arm, they strolled towards the balustrade and leaned there silently. Dotted with occasional villas, the terraced hillsides glowed russet. Dusky cypresses towered beside stone walls. Olive trees, in gray-green uniforms elbowed gayly-blossoming fruit trees, “Like soldiers out with their sweethearts,” murmured Anne. “How Florence grows upon one. What a personality she has! There is something chaste and virginal about her, which is strange when you consider her history. She is as unlike Rome or Venice as Botticelli is different from Michael Angelo and Titian. But I put it so badly!”

“I see what you mean,” broke in the Marchesa. “Florence will always be pre-Raphaelite. She is the Blonde Princess, while Rome and Venice——” she hesitated.

“Are the wicked brunettes—the red-haired villainesses like myself,” finished Anne with a laugh. “But it is beautiful. I never get tired of the Duomo, especially from this distance, do you? Near to, it resembles a mah jong set a little too closely to suit me in flippant moods.”

“Blasphemer!”

In spite of the rheumatism, they lingered while the setting sun cast a ruddy glow over roofs and buildings and stained the Arno pink, as it crawled beneath its bridges, and here and there a window gleamed rose-colored. The crimson dome of the cathedral resembled a mammoth ruby, its columnar campanile soaring ethereally beside it.

Still arm in arm, the two women sauntered away from the scene regretfully, and descended the short flight of steps into the garden.

“What are you doing with yourself to-night?” asked Anne as they strolled down one of the graveled paths.

“I’m looking forward to a perfect evening, child. Dinner by the fire in the saloto, the companionship of Saint Simon, unexpurgated. And you?”

Anne sighed. “Nothing. I refused a bridge. I wasn’t in the mood.”

Her sad face fretted the old Marchesa. What ailed the girl? She certainly must be love-sick. Had Vittorio lost out after all? Her son, she shrewdly suspected, was remaining in Sicily at Anne’s request, for she had never known him to miss a Florentine spring before. About to invite Anne to join forces for the evening, she changed her mind abruptly. If the child wished to work out her problem in solitude, she herself ought to be the last to prevent her, especially if some good should come out of it for Vittorio.

They continued in silence to the end of the garden, where a postern gate in the pink-tinted wall opened on to the Torrigiani property. As the Marchesa passed through she turned and gazed up into the other’s face. Tall and slim as a jonquil in her yellow crÊpe dress, Anne’s hair flamed in the setting sun. The old woman’s eyes looked troubled as they rested upon it.

“My dear, how beautiful you are! I love to look at you! If I were the typical old lady I’d be telling what a beauty I was myself in my palmy days. I don’t seem to know my cues at all. But as a matter of fact, I’m a better looking ruin than I ever was girl! If I were more wily, too, and less wise, I probably wouldn’t urge you quite so heartily, to marry my only son. For there is danger in your beauty, child. But years have taught me to appreciate danger. And I couldn’t be so unkind as to deprive a son of mine of such a precious stimulant.”

With an enigmatic smile she raised herself on tiptoe and pecked daintily at Anne’s chin. The younger woman gathered her impulsively into her arms and squeezed her.

“You delicious old cynic! No wonder Vittorio adores you. I do myself!”

A wistful expression crossed the delicate old face. “Be good to us, my dear,” she whispered. “We need you terribly in our house.” She turned gayly-shawled shoulders, and trotted up the long avenue towards her villa.

Anne gazed after the small figure affectionately. Her absent eyes swept the familiar gardens whose famous boxwood hedges defined the paths with fantastic precision. Here a strange, antediluvian beast, there a gigantic globe, so that to the bird’s-eye view the gardens appeared like an enormous chessboard with pawns at play. In the distance, from behind a mass of towering cypresses, gleamed the villa, its splendid faÇade flanked by a long flight of marble steps.

Anne closed the gate and walked back through her own simple garden. She was anxious to reach the terrace again before all vestige of the sunset should have disappeared, and she mounted the steps with rapid feet. A cape over her shoulders, she drew a chair up by the balustrade and sat there while the henna-colored hills darkened to purple, then faded into lavender, and a mist rolled up from the valley and curled about the city like a smoking halo. Pretty soon a few lights gradually emerged with the evanescent gleam of a flock of fireflies.

Fireflies! Anne’s lips curled downward. She closed her eyes behind smarting tears. Soon would return the season of fireflies and roses. Would Vittorio be there to wander arm in arm as of old in the Viale, beneath a golden moon, while swarms of fireflies danced about them and the scent of roses and verbena ascended to the stars? Anne did not know. She had not been able to bring herself to the point of meeting him again, although she had written of her definite rupture with Alexis only a few weeks after it had taken place. But her heart was still sore from the uprooting, and the necessity for solitude was urgent as the primitive instinct of a wounded animal. So she had begged Vittorio to be patient a little while longer, to give her time to readjust herself to the old life. And he had been generous as usual, with an ecstatic undercurrent coursing beneath the sacrifice; a feeling as of crisis reached and nearly overcome; a premonition of future joys.

Anne had been quick to read this joy concealed between the lines of his letters. But she had not had either the desire or the heart to quench it. Her own unhappiness had made her heart very tender towards Vittorio and she was inexpressibly tired of struggling against the tide. Why not drift into haven at last? If she were good for nothing else, at least, she could make Vittorio happy. Alexis had taught her that, and much besides. No longer the inhibited creature of her first marriage, love and all it implied, no longer repelled her. She had looked upon its naked beauty unashamed.

The first bitterness of parting over, she scarcely knew in what mood she found herself. A great lassitude had fallen upon her. A weariness almost mortal. Although she had realized from the beginning that rupture was inevitable, she had not looked for it so soon, and when the blow fell it stunned her. For days she had gone about her packing numbly, and it was not until after her arrival in Florence that she had been able to think about Alexis without tears, she to whom weeping was strange and almost monstrous.

And yet she had never really loved him as a woman loves a man upon whom she depends for her daily strength. He had been like a dearly loved, temperamental child. Torn from her arms, her tenderness was lost without him. Her heart yearned to mother his sorrow. At times her need of him was so desperate that she would have even welcomed a scene. To feel the eager arms about her, to look upon the beautiful, willful face, would have made up for all. However, in the darkest hour, when the void he had left ached most intolerably, Anne knew that their parting had all been for the best. Their chances of enduring happiness had been so infinitesimal compared to the odds against them. No, even now, hungry for love and solitary as never before, she could still face facts with a certain sturdy wisdom, a cynicism that amazed her, and of which she was even a trifle ashamed.

She found herself reading Vittorio’s letters with a growing nostalgia for his comforting presence. His poise, his masculinity, appealed to her more than ever before. Weary of leaning upon herself, she longed to take refuge behind his strength. How soothing, how comfortable, his untemperamental simplicity, how genuinely lovable his personality. And besides those qualities for which her fatigue yearned, he possessed rare ability, brains, and a growing reputation that was rapidly making him an outstanding figure amongst his colleagues.

Anne rose from her chair by the balustrade and groped her way down into the garden. Yes, she mused, Vittorio was a remarkable man. He deserved a better woman than herself. She ought to be ashamed for having kept him waiting so long. She strolled towards the house, whose lighted windows flickered welcome from behind closed shutters. Should she write to Vittorio to come at once? Perhaps? How happy it would make the dear little Marchesa. Yes, she would write to him now, at once, before the mood passed.

With a resolute step she walked up to the terrace and entered the villa, going directly to her desk in the library.

It was perhaps an evasive little letter, after all, she thought, as she stamped and gave it to the contadine’s boy to mail. But it would fetch Vittorio, of that she was sure. Allowing three or four days for it to reach him (it might just miss the boat from Naples) she ought to be able to count upon seeing him within ten days or perhaps even sooner. She went upstairs and with the help of Regina changed into a loose, peplum-like tea-gown. Supremely happy in her beloved Firenze, the woman chattered volubly and flew about the large, austere room, like a bright-eyed magpie. Amusement curved Anne’s lips as she watched her. What boundless joy it would give Regina when she herself became a Marchesa.

Gleaming hair wound about her head like a copper helmet, amber draperies clinging to the long, slim body, she wended her way downstairs and into the dining room.

After dinner she sat before the fire in the library, whose crowded bookshelves gleamed like jewels in the light of the flames. A volume of memoirs upon her knees, she gazed into the blaze absently. About ten o’clock the gate-bell rang and she heard a car drive into the courtyard. Perhaps the Principe, or some young officer whom she was in the habit of meeting at the Tennis Club in the Cascine. Not in the mood for visitors, she rose and made for the stairs.

“Give my excuses, Sandro,” she commenced, as the old butler appeared in the doorway.

But she was too late, for the visitor had followed close upon the man’s heels. Decidedly annoyed, she turned and faced the intruder, a courteous smile upon her lips.

If Anne had been a frail woman, she might have fainted. As she was, she came nearer to it than ever in her life before. The color drained from her face. She stared with dilated eyes, as a slim, tall man traversed the distance between them in a few short strides.

“Anne, I have come back. Will you take me?”

Falling at her feet, Alexis encircled her knees with relentless young arms.