“Hasn’t it been hot to-day?”

“Stifling,” replied Mr. Heard.  “The warmest day we have had, so far.  Not a breath of wind.”

“Not a breath. . . .”

The conversation flagged once more.  They did not hit it off, somehow; they seemed to drift further apart every time they met.  Each was preoccupied with his own thoughts.  The bishop was more taciturn than usual; the interview with his cousin had not been quite a success.

Denis, after a while, made another effort.  He spoke of some of Count Caloveglia’s antiquities and, one thing leading to another, told Mr. Heard the story of a friend of his in Florence who had excavated some wonderful early Italian pots, fragments o them, out of an old garden well.  They were all lustred, he said.

“That must have been a very pleasant surprise,” observed the bishop, who had small use for lustred ware and lunatics who collected it.  Feeling that it was his turn to say something, he remarked: 

“I am dining with the Duchess to-night.  Will you be there?”

“No,” replied the young man with an unwonted air of decision.  Never again would he be seen in that austere old convent, built by the Good Duke Alfred.  Never again!  Promptly, however, he toned down the harshness of his answer by adding that the lady had very kindly asked him to come, but he couldn’t manage it, that evening.

“I shall have to console her about the burglary,” continued the bishop.

“What burglary?”

Mr. Heard explained that the premises had been entered while the Duchess was dining at Madame Steynlin’s on the previous evening, the night of the water-party.  Evidently the work of a man who knew his business.  A man familiar with the ins and outs of the house.  And a man of taste, into the bargain.  All the sham articles had been left untouched; he had gone off with nothing but genuine things—­a few precious crucifixes and bonbonnieres.  No one had the faintest idea who the thief was.  Most mysterious!  The disaster could hardly have occurred but for the fact that the young girl Angelina, who was supposed to sleep on the premises, had been called away late at night to look after a suffering aunt.  The old woman, it appeared, was liable to sudden heart-attacks.  She had been round to see the Duchess early in the morning with endless apologies, and had fortunately been able to corroborate her niece’s story.

“I am glad of it,” concluded the bishop.  “Because that maid, when I saw her, struck me as rather a flighty young person—­the sort of girl who would take advantage of her mistress’s absence to have a little flirtation with a policeman round the corner.  I am glad the aunt could explain things so satisfactorily.  I was wrong about that girl.  Shows how careful one must be in judging of other people, doesn’t it?  I must say she looked to me like a regular little coquette.”

Denis had so little sympathetic comment to make on this painful story that Mr. Heard was quite surprised at his indifference.  He always understood the young man to be a particular friend of the Duchess.