Bertuccio sprawled on his stomach on the grassy floor of the
presence chamber in a palace of the Caesars', kicking with one
idle foot a bit of stone that had once formed the classic nose of
a god. San Pietro Martire was quietly grazing in the long spaces
of the Philosophers' Hall, nibbling deftly green blades of grass
that grew at the bases of the broken pillars. Near by lay the
old amphitheatre, with its roof of blue sky, and its rows of
grassy seats, circling a level stage and pit, and rising, one
above another, in irregular outlines of green. Here, in the spot
on which the central royal seat had once been erected, sat Daphne
on her Scotch plaid steamer blanket: her head was leaning back
against the turf, her lips were slightly parted, her eyes half
closed. She thought that she was meditating on the life that had
gone on in this Imperial villa two thousand years ago: its
banquets, its philosophers' disputes, its tragedies and comedies
played here with tears and laughter. In reality she was half
asleep.

They were only a half mile from home, measuring by a straight
line through the intervening hill; in time they were two hours
away. San Pietro had climbed gallantly, with little silvery bells
tinkling at his ears, to the summit of the mountain, and had
descended, with conviction and with accuracy, planting firm
little hard hoofs in the slippery path where the dark soil bore a
coating of green grass and moss. For all their hard morning's
work they were still on the confines of the Villa Gianelli, whose
kingdom was partly a kingdom of air and of mountain.

Drowsing there in the old theatre in the sun, Daphne presently