“It always will be, to me,” assented her friend Mrs. Ansley, with so slight a stress on the “me” that Mrs. Slade, though she noticed it, wondered if it were not merely accidental, like the random underlinings of old-fashioned letter writers.

“Grace Ansley was always old-fashioned,” she thought; and added aloud, with a retrospective smile: “It’s a view we’ve both been familiar with for a good many years. When we first met here we were younger than our girls are now. You remember!”

“Oh, yes, I remember,” murmured Mrs. Ansley, with the same undefinable stress—“There’s that headwaiter wondering,” she interpolated. She was evidently far less sure than her companion of herself and of her rights in the world.

“I’ll cure him of wondering,” said Mrs. Slade, stretching her hand toward a bag as discreetly opulent-looking as Mrs. Ansley’s. Signing to the headwaiter, she explained that she and her friend were old lovers of Rome, and would like to spend the end of the afternoon looking down on the view—that is, if it did not disturb the service! The headwaiter, bowing over her gratuity, assured her that the ladies were most welcome, and would be still more so if they would condescend to remain for dinner. A full moon night, they would remember. . . .

Mrs. Slade’s black brows drew together, as though references to the moon were out of place and even unwelcome. But she smiled away her frown as the headwaiter retreated. “Well, why not! We might do worse. There’s no knowing, I suppose, when the girls will be back. Do you even know back from where? I don’t!”

Mrs. Ansley again colored slightly. “I think those young Italian aviators we met at the Embassy invited them to fly to Tarquinia for tea. I suppose they’ll want to wait and fly back by moonlight.”

“Moonlight—moonlight! What a part it still plays. Do you suppose they’re as sentimental as we were?”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t in the least know what they are,” said Mrs. Ansley. “And perhaps we didn’t know much more about each other.”

“No, perhaps we didn’t.”

Her friend gave her a shy glance. “I never should have supposed you were sentimental, Alida.”