lix--I 'm not sure whether
it's Mildmay or Wildmay. He began life, by the bye, in the Diplomatic,
and was attache for a while at Berlin, or Petersburg, or somewhere; but
whether (in the elegant language of Diplomacy) he 'chucked it up,' or
failed to pass his exams, I'm not in a position to say. He will be near
thirty, and ought to have a couple of thousand a year--more or less.
His father, at any rate, was a great man at the bar, and must have left
something decent. And the only other thing in the world I know about
him is that he's a great friend of that clever gossip Margaret
Winchfield--which goes to show that however obscure he may be as a
scribbler of fiction, he must possess some redeeming virtues as a social
being--for Mrs. Winchfield is by no means the sort that falls in love
with bores. As you 're not, either--well, verbum sap., as my little
brother Freddie says."

Beatrice gazed off, over the sunny lawn, with its trees and their
long shadows, with its shrubberies, its bright flower-beds, its marble
benches, its artificial ruin; over the lake, with its coloured sails,
its incongruous puffing steamboats; down the valley, away to the rosy
peaks of Monte Sfiorito, and the deep blue sky behind them. She plucked
a spray of jessamine, and brushed the cool white blossoms across her
cheek, and inhaled their fairy fragrance.

"An obscure scribbler of fiction," she mused. "Ah, well, one is an
obscure reader of fiction oneself. We must send to London for Mr. Felix
Mildmay Wildmay's works."

VIII

On Monday evening, at the end of dinner, as she set the fruit before
him, "The Signorino will take coffee?" old Marietta asked.

Peter frowned at the fruit, figs and peaches--

"Figs imperial purple, and blushing peaches"--

ranged alternately, with fine precision, in a circle, round a central
heap of translucent yellow grapes.

"Is this the produce of my own vine and fig-tree?" he demanded.

"Yes, Signorino; and also peach-tree," replied Marietta.

"Peaches do not grow on fig-trees?" he enquired.

"No, Signorino," said Marietta.

"Nor figs on thistles. I wonder why not," said he.

"It is n't Nature," was Marietta's confident generalisation.

"Marietta Cignolesi," Peter pronounced severely, looking her hard in the
eyes, "I am told you are a witch."

"No," said Marietta, simply, without surprise, without emotion.

"I quite understand," he genially persisted. "It's a part of the game
to deny it. Bu