There were two memorial tablets, one on each side wall. Mrs. Drew, glancing away from this terrible symmetry, met the Contessa’s eye.

The old lady nodded. “My elder son was killed in Greece, in 1941.” When her visitor was silent, thinking of the other, rougher tablet on the mountainside, she went on, “Yes, the campaign of Italy against Greece—you’re thinking, What could be worse?” She repeated, after a moment, “What could be worse?” The Conte went across the room to unbolt the doors into the garden. A shaft of hot light struck the travertine paving where they stood, and the Contessa said in a low voice, “The following year, our other son was reported missing in North Africa. We did everything to get news of him, things one could never imagine oneself doing. I went down to Rome. Through my mother I had a distant connection with the Pacelli family, and I used this remorselessly to get help from the Pope in finding out if my son was alive. When we discovered he was a prisoner, I made more trouble to have parcels sent to him, badgered people to get letters through. You think yourself incapable of behaving in this way, but when your child’s life is involved you find you can do anything.” Now she did turn away, and they walked slowly out into the garden. The Contessa took her guest’s arm, not for support but with an air of giving encouragement. “Anything at all,” she said.

“I’ll get Fulco to bring the car round,” the Conte said. “He can dust it off a bit for you.” He disappeared around the side of the house. They were standing at one end of an allée of immense lavender bushes in full flower.

“Do you like it?” the Contessa asked.

Mrs. Drew smiled with pleasure. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “Can we go down a little way?”

They strolled along together between the double row of bushes, whose scent and color were so deep as to give an illusion of shade. Every bush was filled with the whirring of bees.

“It makes the finest honey of all.” The Contessa stopped to break off a faded sprig or two. “The flowers are past their best now. At the end of June it was marvelous—so beautiful that I wouldn’t have exchanged it even for the avenue of lemon trees they have at Montegufoni. There are some new plants here—the bushes get tired after a few seasons and have to be renewed. But we should have shown you this garden from above—it should be seen first from an upstairs window, because of the patterns of the flowers and the boxwood. We designed it all so carefully, long ago, and it’s only now coming to perfection.”