III + 

It was one o’clock, clients were beginning to arrive, Daniele was ready and smiling. Gian-Luca stood silently waiting near the table by the window in his octagon room. It was ten past one, then a quarter-past one, then all of a sudden it was half-past; the room had filled up, all the tables were occupied except that one by the window. It was twenty to two; Gian-Luca stiffened, Doria and his friend were late. Stooping down, he fingered the red carnations, very slightly changing their angle. Then someone was coming in at the door, a woman, the little Milady; and after her followed a white-haired man who was taking off pale grey gloves. + 

All in a moment Gian-Luca perceived him; every detail struck through to his brain; a bulky, elderly man of sixty with a self-willed mouth that had weakened and coarsened, with pale eyes that looked small because of the skin that was gathered in bladders beneath them. A man with a face that looked foolish at that moment because it was close to Milady, or rather to Milady’s elegant back which preceded it into the room. + 

Gian-Luca stepped forward and bowed very low. “Signor Doria’s table?” he inquired. + 

“Ma si, I have booked a table,” said Doria, “I have booked a table for two.” + 

“It is ready, signore,” Gian-Luca murmured. “It is ready⁠—this way please, Milady.” + 

They sat down, and Doria smiled at his companion and she smiled back at Doria, and Gian-Luca served them with artichokes in oil and other delectable things. + 

Doria was talking in broken English, making gestures with his long white hands; every few minutes Milady laughed softly, and whenever she laughed Ugo Doria stopped talking, and his eyes looked sheepish, but old and tired⁠—too tired to do justice to Milady. + 

“Open the champagne, waiter,” he ordered. + 

And Gian-Luca opened the champagne. He filled their glasses, while Milady said, still laughing, that she really preferred ginger-beer. + 

Presently they were comfortably launched, and Doria nodded with approval. “Buonissimo, quel poulet Maryland!” he murmured, spearing a piece with his fork. + 

And now he must drink very much champagne, because he was tired and ageing, and because Milady, who was little and lovely, was as greedy in passion as in food. Doria’s eyes grew bolder, ridiculously bold for a man who was tired and ageing, while over his face spread a deep red flush that was less of virility than wine. + 

He said softly: “You are beautiful like morning, bellezza, you are like my ‘Gioia della Luce.’ Have you read my ‘Gioia della Luce,’ bellezza?” + 

“Of course I have read it,” Milady lied; “everyone has read the ‘Gioia.’ ” + 

Gian-Luca smiled coldly as he poured the champagne: “Un’altra bottiglia?” he whispered. + 

Doria nodded: “Si, un’altra bottiglia!” + 

Then Gian-Luca opened a fresh bottle. + 

As he drank, Ugo Doria felt younger and younger, but his face remained terribly old. Milady’s eyes wandered away at moments to someone who sat near the door. And seeing this, Doria must work for her favors, smiling, and trying to be gay; trying to look clear-eyed and fair-haired and twenty, like the person who sat near the door. He talked of his poems, of his literary triumphs, laughing as though he were amused. + 

“A ridiculous success it have been, my new epic; what you call it?⁠—a bumper success!” + 

He bragged like a child who covers its bragging with a flimsy pretense of humility; while his eyes, those lustful, miserable eyes, demanded and cringed and worshipped by turns whenever they dwelt on Milady. + 

Tall and silent, but terribly watchful, stood Gian-Luca, always at his elbow. From time to time he refilled Doria’s glass, and whenever he did this his lips would smile coldly; a queer, cruel smile that distorted his features, twisting the corners of his mouth. + 

Forgetting the presence of this soft-moving waiter, Doria expanded more and more; dragging his exquisite art in the mire, using his immortality as a cloak for a brainless woman to tread on. A large, foolish, lovesick viveur of sixty, greasy with food and wine; hot with the passing caprice of the moment⁠—a triumph of a poet, a disaster of a man; this then was Ugo Doria. + 

Gian-Luca calmly brought in his coffee and poured out his liqueur brandy; very calmly, too, he presented the bill, which Doria paid with scarcely a glance. Then Milady got up, and as she did so, she smiled and nodded at Gian-Luca. Then Doria got up, but heavily, slowly; and he handed Gian-Luca a tip of two pounds in order to impress Milady. Not that he was rich, Ugo Doria, far from it⁠—it costs money to make the beau geste; and all his life he had made the beau geste, whenever it seemed worth while. + 

He said to Gian-Luca: “It have been a fine meal,” and his voice was a little husky. + 

Gian-Luca bowed and held open the door: “Buon giorno, signore, e grazie.” + 

When Doria looked back, Gian-Luca was still standing with his hand on the open door. + 

And that was how Gian-Luca served his father; and that was how Doria was served by his son⁠—neither of them any the wiser. + 