At her park entrance, which was also the stopping-place for Joanna’s tram, three street musicians were tuning up. There was a harpist on a camp stool, a standing fiddler, and a cripple in a wheeled chair, with a rug hiding his legs. They had settled themselves in the corner made by a church and the park railings, and instinctively Rasponi and Joanna paused, waiting for them to strike up.

Joanna glanced back towards the University. At the top of Gilmorehill where the road cuts the sunset across, two cyclists had that moment mounted from the far side. Their figures, poised in the golden air of the summit, stayed for a breath, suspended as by a miracle. Then their machines swept downwards. There was a rush of wind, a shrill whirring of bells, and they disappeared round the curve of the tramlines.

And that same instant, as if by conspiracy, the little band by the gates broke into dance music.

In the girl something was set free, and her heart exulted.

“No wonder Pilcher chose this hill to test his gliders.”

She looked at Rasponi to discover the meaning of his remark. He too was staring back up the way they had come, but his eyes shone with purpose.

“Perhaps you saw him trying them?” he continued. “It must be about five years since his Glasgow experiments. A good man, that Pilcher.”

“But Joanna had not heard of Pilcher till now. She felt ashamed under Rasponi’s incredulous glance, and was relieved when he put the subject aside.

There was still no car at the terminus. The harpist was thrumming diligently, the fiddler swayed as he tore the insistent melody out of his instrument, the deformed man in the chair gave forth the same air more delicately on a flute. They played well, and Joanna stood with Rasponi to hear the valse out.

“Ah! You see that?”

This exclamation, vibrating and jubilant, was drawn from her companion by an action of the busy little flautist. He had swiftly exchanged his flute for a handful of bound reeds lying concealed on his knees, and at a recurring phrase of the melody he blew into the Pan-pipes, drawing them sharply back and forward against his lips.

“Now we know why he has to hide his feet!” said Rasponi. And this time Joanna understood. He had moved closer to her under cover of the music. He spoke low, intimately.

She nodded, smiling too and their eyes met. Elated the Italian was twisting up his moustache and for the first time the girl saw his narrow, rapacious lips. Ah, yes, Mrs. Lovatt was right. Beautiful he was – fine – gem-like. Yet for all his delicate, glittering quality, more male than any other man she had yet seen.