“I put it to you as an observer of life,” said John, “do peasants, do villagers, wear diaphanous garments?”

“A visitor, a sight-seer, from some place on the lake,” said Don Ambrogio.

“I put it to you as a student of probabilities,” said John, “would a visitor, would a sight-seer, from some place on the lake, walk in the garden of the castle without a hat?  And would she appear at Sant’ Alessina on two days in succession?”

But Don Ambrogio had finished his veal, and when he had finished his veal he always left the table, first twice devoutly making the sign of the Cross, and then with a bow to John, pronouncing the formula, “You will graciously permit?  My affairs call me.  A thousand regrets.”  To-day he slightly amplified that formula.  “A thousand regrets,” he said, “and as many excuses for my inability to afford the information desired.”

After his departure, John turned to Annunziata, where, in her grey cotton pinafore, her lips parted, her big eyes two lively points of interrogation, she sat opposite to him, impatient to take up the theme.

“Well, Mistress Wisdom!” he saluted her, smiling, and waving his hand.  “It is a good and wholesome thing for the young to witness the discomfiture of the wicked.  Your uncle retreats with flying colours.  He made, to be sure, a slender dinner, but that’s his daily habit.  If you have tears to shed, shed them for me.  I have made none at all.”

From points of interrogation, Annunziata’s eyes changed to abysses of wonder, and, big as they were, seemed to grow measurably bigger.

“You have made no dinner?” she protested, in that strangely deep voice of hers, with its effect of immense solemnity.

“No, poor dear,” said John, with pathos, “no, I have made no dinner.”

“But you have eaten a great deal,” exclaimed Annunziata, frowning, nonplussed.  “And you are still eating.”

“Quite so,” responded John, “though I think it’s perhaps the merest trifle unhandsome of you to fling it in my face.  I have eaten a great deal, and I am still eating.  That is what I come to table for.  In an orderly life like mine there is a place for everything.  I come to table to eat, just as I go to bed to sleep and to church to say my prayers.  Would you have me sleep at table, eat in church, and say my prayers in bed?  Eating, however, has nothing to do with the case.  I spoke of dining—­I said I had not dined.  Now you shall be the judge.  The question is, can a Christian man dine twice on the same day?  Answer me that.”

“Oh, no,” answered Annunziata, her pale face very sober, and she lengthened out her vowels in deprecation of the idea.  “At least, it would be gluttony if he did.”