“And what is her name?” asked the lady.

“Her name is Maria Dolores,” answered John, (and he experienced a secret joy, strange to him, in pronouncing it).

“Maria Dolores?” said Lady Blanchemain, (and he experienced a secret joy in hearing it).  “Maria Dolores—­what?”

“My detective didn’t discover her Pagan name,” said John.

“So that you are still in doubt whether she’s the daughter of a miller?” Lady Blanchemain raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, no:  I think she’s a miller’s daughter safely enough,” said he.  “But she’s an elaborately chiselled and highly polished one.  Her voice is like ivory and white velvet; and to hear her speak English is a revelation of the hidden beauties of that language.”

“Hum!” said Lady Blanchemain, eyeing him.  “So you’ve advanced to the point of talking with her?”

“Well,” answered John, weighing his words, “I don’t know whether I can quite say that.  But accident threw us together for a minute or two this afternoon, and we could scarcely do less, in civility, than exchange the time of day.”

“And are you in love with her?” asked Lady Blanchemain.

“I wonder,” said he.  “What do you think?  Is it possible for a man to be in love with a woman he’s seen only half a dozen times all told, and spoken with never longer than a minute or two at a stretch?”

“Was it only a minute or two—­really?” asked Lady Blanchemain, wooing his confidence with a glance.

“No,” said John.  “It was probably ten minutes, possibly fifteen.  But they passed so quickly, it’s really nearer the truth to describe them as one or two.”

Lady Blanchemain shifted her sunshade, and screwed herself half round, so as to face him, her soft old eyes full of smiling scrutiny and suspicion.

“I never can tell whether or not you’re serious,” she complained.  “If you are serious,—­well, a quand le mariage?”

“The marriage?” cried John.  “How could I marry her?  Such a thing’s out of all question.

“Why?” asked she.

“A miller’s daughter!” said John.  “Would you have me marry the daughter of a miller?”

“You said yourself yesterday—­” the lady reminded him.

“Ah, yes,” said he.  “But night brings counsel.”

“If she’s well educated,” said Lady Blanchemain, “if she’s well-bred, what does it matter about her father?  Though a nobody in Austria, where nothing counts but quarterings, he’s probably what we’d call a gentleman in England.  Suppose he’s a barrister?  Or the editor of a newspaper?  Or—­”

She paused, thoughtful-eyed, to think of respectable professions.  At last she gave up the effort.

“Well, anything decent,” she concluded, “so long as he had plenty of money.”

“Ah,” said John, sadly, and with perhaps mock humility.  “If he had plenty of money, he’d never consent to his daughter marrying a son of poverty like me.”