Annunziata looked up, surprised.  “Casalone?  That is my name,” she said.

“Yes,” said John.  “Yours will be the image.”

Annunziata gave her head a toss.  “Maria Dolores did not tell me her Pagan name,” she said.

“At any rate,” said he, “to judge by the company she keeps, we may safely classify her as unborn.  She is probably the daughter of a miller,—­of a miller (to judge also a little by the frocks she wears) in rather a large way of business, who (to judge finally by her cultivated voice, her knowledge of languages, and her generally distinguished air) has spared no expense in the matter of her education.  I shouldn’t wonder a bit if she could even play the piano.”

“No,” agreed Annunziata, “that is very likely.  But why”—­she tilted upwards her inquisitive little profile—­“why should you think she is the daughter of a miller?”

“Miller,” said John, “I use as a generic term.  Her father may be a lexicographer or a dry-salter, a designer of dirigible balloons or a manufacturer of air-pumps; he may even be a person of independent means, who lives in a big, new, stuccoed villa in the suburbs of Vienna, and devotes his leisure to the propagation of orchids:  yet all the while a miller.  By miller I mean a member of the Bourgeoisie:  a man who, though he be well to do, well educated, well bred, does not bear coat-armour, and is therefore to be regarded by those who do with their noses in the air,—­especially in Austria.  Among Austrians, unless you bear coat-armour, you’re impossible, you’re nowhere.  We mustn’t let you become enamoured of her if she doesn’t bear coat-armour.”

Annunziata’s eyes, during this divagation, had wandered to the window, the tall window with its view of the terraced garden, where the mimosa bloomed and the blackcaps carolled.  Now she turned them slowly upon John, and he saw from their expression that at last she was coming to what for her (as he had known all along) was the real preoccupation of the moment.  They were immensely serious, intensely concerned, and at the same time, in their farther recesses, you felt a kind of fluttering shyness, as if I dare not were hanging upon I would.

“Tell me,” she began, on a deep note, a deep coaxing note....  Then I dare not got the better, and she held back....  Then I would took his courage in both hands, and she plunged.  “What have you brought for me from Roccadoro?” And after one glance of half-bashful, all-impassioned supplication, she let her eyes drop, and stood before him suspensive, as one awaiting the word of destiny.

John’s “radiant blondeur,” his yellow beard, pink face, and sea-blue eyes, lighted up, more radiant still, with subcutaneous laughter.

“The shops were shut,” he said.  “I arrived after closing time.”

But something in his tone rendered this grim announcement nugatory.  Annunziata drew a long breath, and looked up again.  “You have brought me something, all the same,” she declared with conviction; and eagerly, eyes gleaming, “What is it?  What is it?” she besought him.