Page 96 - 401_

95

I saw an undistinguished back and a small head of grey hair
short and rather thin.
"I wish he'd turn round," I said.
"He will presently."
"Ask him to come and have a drink with us at Morgano's."
"All right."
The instant of overwhelming beauty had passed and the sun,
like the top of an orange, was dipping into a wine-red sea. We turned
round and leaning our backs against the parapet looked at the people
who were sauntering to and fro. They were all talking their heads off
and the cheerful noise was exhilarating. Then the church bell, rather
cracked, but with a fine resonant note, began to ring. The Piazza at
Capri, with its clock tower over the footpath that leads up from the
harbour, with the church up a flight of steps, is a perfect setting for an
opera by Donizetti, and you felt that the voluble crowd might at any
moment break out into a rattling chorus. It was charming and unreal.
I was so intent on the scene that I had not noticed Wilson get
off the parapet and come towards us. As he passed us my friend
stopped him.
"Hulloa, Wilson, I haven't seen you bathing the last few days."
"I've been bathing on the other side for a change."
My friend then introduced me. Wilson shook hands with me
politely, but with indifference; a great many strangers come to Capri
for a few days, or a few weeks, and I had no doubt he was constantly
meeting people who came and went; and then my friend asked him to
come along and have a drink with us.
"I was just going back to supper," he said.
"Can't it wait? " I asked.
"I suppose it can," he smiled.
Though his teeth were not very good his smile was attractive. It
was gentle and kindly. He was dressed in a blue cotton shirt and a
pair of grey trousers, much creased and none too clean, of a thin
canvas, and on his feet he wore a pair of very old espadrilles. The get-
up was picturesque, and very suitable to the place and the weather,
but it did not at all go with his face. It was a lined, long face, deeply
sunburned, thin-lipped, with small grey eyes rather close together and
tight, neat features. The grey hair was carefully brushed. It was not a
plain face, indeed in his youth Wilson might have been good-looking,
but a prim one. He wore the blue shirt, open at the neck, and the grey