Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Italy, Philip had always maintained, is only her true self
in the height of the summer, when the tourists have left
her, and her soul awakes under the beams of a vertical sun.
He now had every opportunity of seeing her at her best, for
it was nearly the middle of August before he went out to
meet Harriet in the Tirol.

He found his sister in a dense cloud five thousand feet
above the sea, chilled to the bone, overfed, bored, and not
at all unwilling to be fetched away.

"It upsets one's plans terribly," she remarked, as she
squeezed out her sponges, "but obviously it is my duty."

"Did mother explain it all to you?" asked Philip.

"Yes, indeed! Mother has written me a really beautiful
letter. She describes how it was that she gradually got to
feel that we must rescue the poor baby from its terrible
surroundings, how she has tried by letter, and it is no
good--nothing but insincere compliments and hypocrisy came
back. Then she says, 'There is nothing like personal
influence; you and Philip will succeed where I have failed.'
She says, too, that Caroline Abbott has been wonderful."

Philip assented.

"Caroline feels it as keenly almost as us. That is
because she knows the man. Oh, he must be loathsome!
Goodness me! I've forgotten to pack the ammonia! . . . It
has been a terrible lesson for Caroline, but I fancy it is
her turning-point. I can't help liking to think that out of
all this evil good will come."

Philip saw no prospect of good, nor of beauty either.
But the expedition promised to be highly comic. He was not
averse to it any longer; he was simply indifferent to all in
it except the humours. These would be wonderful. Harriet,
worked by her mother; Mrs. Herriton, worked by Miss Abbott;
Gino, worked by a cheque--what better entertainment could he
desire? There was nothing to distract him this time; his
sentimentality had died, so had his anxiety for the family
honour. He might be a puppet's puppet, but he knew exactly
the disposition of the strings.

They travelled for thirteen hours down-hill, whilst the
streams broadened and the mountains shrank, and the
vegetation changed, and the people ceased being ugly and
drinking beer, and began instead to drink wine and to be
beautiful. And the train which had picked them at sunrise
out of a waste of glaciers and hotels was waltzing at sunset
round the walls of Verona.

"Absurd nonsense they talk about the heat," said Philip,
as they drove from the station. "Supposing we were here for
pleasure, what could be more pleasurable than this?"

"Did you hear, though, they are remarking on the cold?"
said Harriet nervously. "I should never have thought it cold."