"Parla bene il signore la nostra lingua."

John said: "It's his mother's – Italojacobite exilic, Charlie is my darling. How were the Ewing marbles?"

"I think," said Severn reverently, "he has an exquisite talent. There is a quality of true sentiment, the stone eyes have a look positively languishing in one of his demure maidens. He has done a pair of spaniels that belie their marble. His marble comes from Pietrasanta, where Michelangelo got his. That alone makes him take fire. Oh yes, exquisite work."

"Alas alas," Gulielmi said, "it was not the marble that Michelangelo would have chosen if he had had any say in the matter. His and everyone's preferred blocks come from Carrara. But he was at work on Medici commissions and the Medici family owned the Pietrasanta quarries and imposed their stuff upon him. Soft and dirty he called it." The poet's eyes smiled. I take to him, thought Gulielmi.

"Ewing in Italy," John said, "hewing so prettily."

"Oh, very prettily, John," Severn said. "You must come, you will be impressed."

"I must be impressed to come, press-ganged. I have had my fill of marble and only half-digested it. The Elgins, I chew their cud still. Give us some music, Severn. Something not too melting."

All this time, nursing his rebuke, Clark had said nothing. Now he said: "Haydn."

John smiled and said: "We are grateful, Dr Clark, you must know that. For the loan of your music. For much else." Clark reluctantly smiled back.

Severn pulled at his fingers, cracking them, then sat at the ill-tuned pianoforte they had rented. He played the first movement of a Haydn sonata, one in D major. John leaned on the instrument, surveying Severn's dancing or walking fingers in wonder. "He's like a child," he said in glee at the end. "You never know what he will do next."