“Now,” she said, genially imperative, whilst all manner of kindly and admiring interest shone in her face, “there are exactly nine million and ninety-nine questions that you’ll be obliged to answer before I’ve done with you.  But to begin, you must clear up at once a mystery that’s been troubling me ever since you dashed to my rescue at the gate.  What in the name of Reason is the cause of your residence in this ultramundane stronghold?”

John—­convict me of damnable iteration if you must:  Heaven has sent me a laughing hero—­John laughed.

“Oh,” he said, “there are several causes—­there are exactly nine million and ninety-eight.”

“Name,” commanded Lady Blanchemain, “the first and the last.”

“Well,” obeyed he, pondering, “I should think the first, the last, and perhaps the chief intermediate, would be—­the whole blessed thing.”  And his arm described a circle which comprehended the castle and all within it, and the countryside without.

“It has a pleasant site, I’ll not deny,” said Lady Blanchemain.  “But don’t you find it a trifle far away?  And a bit up-hill?  I’m staying at the Victoria at Roccadoro, and it took me an hour and a half to drive here.”

“But since,” said John, with a flattering glance, “since you are here, I have no further reason to deplore its farawayness.  So few places are far away, in these times and climes,” he added, on a note of melancholy, as one to whom all climes and times were known.

“Hum!” said Lady Blanchemain, matter-of-fact.  “Have you been here long?”

“Let me see,” John answered.  “To-day is the 23rd of April.  I arrived here—­I offer the fact for what it may be worth—­on the Feast of All Fools.”

“Absit omen,” cried she.  “And you intend to stay?”

“Oh, I’m at least wise enough not to fetter myself with intentions,” answered John.

She looked about, calculating, estimating.

“I suppose it costs you the very eyes of your head?” she asked.

John giggled.

“Guess what it costs—­I give it to you in a thousand.”

She continued her survey, brought it to a period.

“A billion a week,” she said, with finality.  John exulted.

“It costs me,” he told her, “six francs fifty a day—­wine included.”

“What!” cried she, mistrusting her ears.

“Yes,” said he.

“Fudge!” said she, not to be caught with chaff.

“It sounds like a traveller’s tale, I know; but that’s so often the bother with the truth,” said he.  “Truth is under no obligation to be vraisemblable.  I’m here en pension.”

Lady Blanchemain sniffed.

“Does the Prince of Zelt-Neuminster take in boarders?” she inquired, her nose in the air.

“Not exactly,” said John.  “But the Parroco of Sant’ Alessina does.  I board at the presbytery.”

“Oh,” said Lady Blanchemain, beginning to see light, while her eyebrows went up, went down.  “You board at the presbytery?”