And then she fell to examining his clothes: his loose, soft, very blue blue flannels, with vague stripes of darker blue; his soft shirt, with its rolling collar; his red tie, knitted of soft silk, and tied in a loose sailor’s-knot. She liked his clothes, and she liked the way he wore them. They suited him. They were loose and comfortable and unconventional, but they were beautifully fresh and well cared for, and showed him, if indifferent to the fashion-plate of the season, meticulous in a fashion of his own. “It’s hard to imagine him dressed otherwise,” she said, and instantly had a vision of him dressed for dinner.
But what—what—what was he doing at Castel Sant’ Alessina?
VI
Meanwhile he plainly knew a tremendous lot about Italian art. Lady Blanchemain herself knew a good deal, and could recognize a pundit. He illumined their progress by a running fire of exposition and commentary, learned and discerning, to which she encouragingly listened, and, as occasion required, amiably responded. But Boltraffios, Bernardino Luinis, even a putative Giorgione, could not divert her mind from its human problem. What was he doing at Castel Sant’ Alessina, the property, according to her guide-book, of an Austrian prince? What was his status here, apparently (bar servants) in solitary occupation? Was he its tenant? He couldn’t, surely, this well-dressed, high-bred, cultivated young compatriot, he couldn’t be a mere employe, a steward or curator? No: probably a tenant. Antecedently indeed it might seem unlikely that a young Englishman should become the tenant of an establishment so huge and so sequestered; but was it conceivable that this particular young Englishman should be a mere employe? And was there any other alternative? She hearkened for a word, a note, that might throw light; but of such notes, such words, a young man’s conversation, in the circumstances, would perhaps naturally yield a meagre crop.
“You mustn’t let me tire you,” he said presently, as one who had forgotten and suddenly remembered that looking at pictures is exhausting work. “Won’t you sit here and rest a little?”