adventure.  A castle in a garden, a flowering valley, and the Italian sky—­the Italian sun and moon!  Your portraits of these smiling dead women too, if you like, to keep your imagination working.  And blackcaps singing in the mimosa.  No, no.  The lady of the piece is waiting in the wings—­my thumbs prick.  Give her but the least excuse, she’ll enter, and ...  Good Heavens, my prophetic soul!” she suddenly, with a sort of catch in her throat, broke off.

She turned and faced him, cheeks flushed, eyes flashing.

“Oh, you hypocrite!  You monstrous fibber!” she cried, on a tone of jubilation, looking daggers.

“Why?  What’s up?  What’s the matter?” asked John, at fault.

“How could you have humbugged me so?” she wailed, in delight, reverting to the window.  “Anyhow, she’s charming.  She’s made for the part.  I couldn’t pray for a more promising heroine.”

“She?  Who?” asked he, crossing to her side.

“Who?  Fie, you slyboots!” she crowed with glee.

“Ah, I see,” said John.

For, below them, in the garden, just beyond the mimosa (all powdered with fresh gold) where the blackcap was singing, stood a woman.

IX

She stood in the path, beside a sun-dial, from which she appeared to be taking the time of day, a crumbling ancient thing of grey stone, green and brown with mosses; and she was smiling pleasantly to herself the while, all unaware of the couple who watched her from above.  She wore a light-coloured garden-frock, and was bare-headed, as one belonging to the place.  She was young—­two or three and twenty, by her aspect:  young, slender, of an excellent height, and, I hope you would have agreed, a beautiful countenance.  She studied the sun-dial, and smiled; and what with her dark eyes and softly chiselled features, the pale rose in her cheeks and the deeper rose of her mouth, with her hair too, almost black in shadow, but where the sun touched it turning to sombre red,—­yes, I think you would have agreed that she was beautiful.  Lady Blanchemain, at any rate, found her so.

“She’s quite lovely,” she declared.  “Her face is exquisite—­so sensitive, so spiritual; so distinguished, so aristocratic.  And so clever,” she added, after a suspension.

“Mm!” said John, his forehead wrinkled, as if something were puzzling him.

“She has a figure—­she holds herself well,” said Lady Blanchemain.

“Mm!” said John.

“I suppose,” said she, “you’re too much a mere man to be able to appreciate her frock?  It’s the work of a dressmaker who knows her business.  And that lilac muslin (that’s so fashionable now) really does, in the open air, with the country for background, show to immense advantage.  Come—­out with it.  Tell me all about her.  Who is she?”

“That’s just what I’m up a tree to think,” said John.  “I can’t imagine.  How long has she been there?  From what direction did she come?”