e himself," was Frau Brandt's blunt
advice.

Maria Dolores laughed. "It seems like an _impasse_," she said. "Who is
to break the news to my brother?"

"We will wait until there is some news to break," the old woman amiably
grumbled.

Again at the sunset hour Maria Dolores met him in the garden. He was
seated on one of their marble benches, amongst marble columns,
(rose-tinted by the western light, and casting long purple shadows), in
a vine-embowered pergola. He was leaning forward, legs crossed, brow
wrinkled, as one deep in thought. But of course at the sound of her
footstep he jumped up.

"What mighty problem were you revolving?" she asked. "You looked like
Rembrandt's _philosophe en meditation_."

"I was revolving the problem of human love," he answered. "I was
mutilating Browning.

'_Was it something said,
Something done,
Was it touch of hand,
Turn of head?_'

I was also thinking about you. I was wondering whether it would be my
cruel destiny not to see you this evening, and thinking of the first
time I ever saw you."

"Oh," said she, lightly, "that morning among the olives,--when you
gathered the windflowers for me?"

"No," said he. "That was the second time."

"Indeed?" said she, surprised. She sat down on the marble bench. John
stood before her.

"Yes," said he. "The first time was the day before. You were crossing
the garden--you were bending over the sun-dial--and I spied upon you
from a window of the _piano nobile_. Lady Blanchemain was there with me,
and she made a prediction."

"What did she predict?" asked Maria Dolores, unsuspicious.

"She predicted that I would fall--" But he dropped his sentence in the
middle. "She predicted what has happened."

"Oh," murmured Maria Dolores, and looked at the horizon. By-and-by,
"That morning among the olives was the first time that I saw you--when
you dashed like a paladin to my assistance. I feel that I have never
sufficiently thanked you."

"A paladin oddly panoplied," said John. "Tell me honestly, weren't you
in two minds whether or not to reward me with largesse? You had silver
in your hand."

Maria Dolores laughed. I think she coloured a little.

"Perhaps I was, for half a second," she confessed. "But your grand
manner soon put me in one mind."

John also laughed. He took a turn backwards and forwards. "I have waked
in the dead of night, and grown hot and cold to remember the figure of
fun I was."

"No," said M