ith
her came a person to visit her. That is the person whose form you have
seen in the garden."

"How do you know it wasn't the form of the Signora Brandi herself?" John
said.

"Oh, no," said Annunziata. "The Signora Brandi is not young. She is old.
She is as old as--"

"Methuselah? Sin? The hills?" suggested John, Annunziata having paused
to think.

"No," said Annunziata, repudiating the suggestion with force. "No one is
so old as Methuselah. She is as old as--well, my uncle."

"I see," said John. "Yes, it's all highly mysterious."

"Mysterious?" said Annunziata.

"I should think so," asseverated he. "Cryptic, enigmatic, esoteric to
the last degree. To begin with, how does the Signora Brandi, being an
Austrian, come by so characteristically un-Austrian a name? Is that
mysterious? And in the next place, why does an Austrian Signora Brandi
so far forget what is due to her nationality as to live, not in Austria,
but in Lombardy? And--as if that were not enough--at Castel Sant'
Alessina? And--as if that were not more than enough--in the pavilion
beyond the clock? Come, come! Mysterious!"

"You are living in Lombardy, you are living at Castel Sant' Alessina,
yourself," said Annunziata.

"I hardly think so," said John. "You can scarcely with precision call
this living--this is rather what purists call sojourning. But even were
it otherwise, there's all the difference in the world between my case
and the Signora Brandi's. I am middle-aged and foolish, but she is as
old as your uncle. Don't you see the mysterious significance of that
coincidence? And I haven't a young woman visiting me. _Who is the young
woman?_ Is that a mystery? My sweet child, we tread among mysteries. We
are at the centre of a coil of mysteries. _Who is the young woman?_ And
how--consider well upon this--how does it happen that the young woman
speaks English? Mysterious, indeed!"

He rose, and bowed, with ceremony.

"But we burn daylight. I must not detain you longer. Suffer me to
imprint upon your hand of velvet a token of my high regard."

And taking Annunziata's frail little white hand, he bent low to kiss it;
and though his blue eyes were full of laughter, I think that behind the
laughter there was a great deal of real fondness and admiration.

IV

Half-way down the long straight avenue of ilex-trees that led from the
castle to the principal entrance of the garden, Annunziata, in her
pale-grey pinafore (that was so like a pep