'm not sure I shouldn't become
enamoured of her on the spot. Well, I shall know to-morrow. By this time
to-morrow I shall possess her entire _dossier_. It may interest you to
learn that I am employing a detective to investigate her."

"A detective? What do you mean?" said Lady Blanchemain.

"A private detective, a female detective, whom, the next time you come
to Sant' Alessina, I'll introduce to you," said John.

"What on earth do you mean?" said Lady Blanchemain.

"The most amusing, the most adorable little detective unhung," said he.
"People are all love and laughter whenever they look at her. She'll worm
its inmost secrets from my sphinx's heart."

"What pleasure can you take in practising upon a poor old woman who only
by a sort of fluke isn't your grandmother?" said she.

"Lady Louisa FitzStephen, Miss Scope," said her servant, opening the
door.

VI

The nightingales sang him home, and the moon lighted him, the liquid
moon of April and Italy. As he approached the castle, through the purple
and silver garden, amid the mysterious sweet odours of the night, he
glanced up vaguely at the pavilion beyond the clock. He glanced up
vaguely, but next second he was no longer vague.

There, on a low-hung balcony, not ten feet above him, full in the
moonlight, stood a figure in white--all in white, with a scarf of white
lace thrown over her dark hair. The nightingales sang and sobbed, the
moon rained its amethystine fire upon the earth, the earth gave forth
its mysterious sweet night odours, and she stood there motionless, and
breathed and gazed and listened.

But at the sound of wheels in the avenue, she turned slightly, and
looked down. Her face was fair and delicate and pure in the moonlight,
and her eyes shone darkly bright.

She turned, and looked down, and her eyes met John's.

"Given the hour and the place, I wonder whether I ought to bow," he
thought.

Before he could make up his mind, however, his hand had automatically
raised his hat.

She inclined her head in acknowledgment, and something softly changed in
her face.

"She smiled!" he said, and caught his breath, with a kind of astonished
exultancy.

That soft change in her face came and went and came again through all
his dreams.

PART THIRD

I

"Good morning, Prospero," said Annunziata.

"Good morning, Wide-awake," responded John.

He was in the octagonal room on the _piano nobile_ of the castle, where
his lost la