‘Mostica not now.’

There was a little bulbous press in each room, a misty, gilt-framed mirror, and no other furniture. The floor was of bare marble slabs.

‘A bit bleak?’ asked Sebastian.

‘Bleak? Look at that.’ I led him again to the window and the incomparable pageant below and about us.

‘No, you couldn’t call it bleak.’

A tremendous explosion drew us next door. We found a bathroom which seemed to have been built in a chimney. There was no ceiling; instead the walls ran straight through the floor above to the open sky. The butler was almost invisible in the steam of an antiquated geyser. There was an overpowering smell of gas and a tiny trickle of cold water.

‘No good.’

‘Sì, Sì, subito, signori.’

The butler ran to the top of the staircase and began to shout down it; a female voice, more strident than his, answered. Sebastian and I returned to the spectacle below our windows. Presently the argument came to an end and a woman and child appeared, who smiled at us, scowled at the butler, and put on Sebastian’s press a silver basin and ewer of boiling water. The butler meanwhile unpacked and folded our clothes and, lapsing into Italian, told us of the unrecognized merits of the geyser, until suddenly cocking his head sideways he became alert, said ‘Il marchese,’ and darted downstairs.

‘We’d better look respectable before meeting papa,’ said Sebastian. ‘We needn’t dress. I gather he’s alone at the moment.’

I was full of curiosity to meet Lord Marchmain. When I did so I was first struck by his normality, which, as I saw more of him, I found to be studied. It was as though he were conscious of a Byronic aura, which he considered to be in bad taste and was at pains to suppress. He was standing on the balcony of the saloon and, as he turned to greet us, his face was in deep shadow. I was aware only of a tall and upright figure.

‘Darling papa,’ said Sebastian, ‘how young you are looking!’

He kissed Lord Marchmain on the cheek and I, who had not kissed my father since I left the nursery, stood shyly behind him.

‘This is Charles. Don’t you think my father very handsome, Charles?’

Lord Marchmain shook my hand.

‘Whoever looked up your train,’ he said – and his voice also was Sebastian’s – ‘made a bêtise. There’s no such one.’

‘We came on it.’

‘You can’t have. There was only a slow train from Milan at that time. I was at the Lido. I have taken to playing tennis there with the professional in the early evening. It is the only time of day when it it not too hot. I hope you boys will be fairly comfortable upstairs. This house seems to have been designed for the comfort of only one person, and I am that one. I have a room the size of this and a very decent dressing-room. Cara has taken possession of the other sizeable room.’