I do not love monks, I only
respect them, which is so disagreeable. But the Baron took us. _Dio
mio!_ I have no warm blood left. It was frozen up there. And then,
that our carriage should have broken down at a little place--the wrong
end of nowhere--Bourg St. Something! We had to stop all night. Fancy
me without my maid, who was to meet me here. I do not know if my dress
is not on wrong side before. Later, we all have to go on to Chamounix
and then to Aix-les-Bains. I've taken a villa there for a month. You
_must_ come and see me."

Thus she chattered on as we entered the hotel, and then, suddenly, her
bright eyes fell upon the Boy, who had retired near the stairway.
There he stood, with a book in his hand, and an unwonted colour in his
brown cheeks, glowing red under the strange blue jewels of his eyes.

"What a divine boy!" the Countess half whispered to me, not taking her
gaze from him. "He is exactly like a wonderful painting by some old
Master of my own dear country. What eyes! They are better and bigger
sapphires than any I own, though I've some famous ones. And how
strange they are--looking out of his brown face, from under such
black lashes, too. Oh, a picture, certainly. He is not like a modern,
every-day boy, at all. He can't be English, of that I'm sure, and
yet----"

"He is American," I said, when she paused thoughtfully, the Boy at his
distance reading or pretending to read, as he stood. "But you are
right. He is very far from being an every-day boy."

"You know him, then?"

"We've been travelling companions for days, and have got to be
tremendous pals."

"How old is he?" asked the Contessa, a deep glow of interest and
curiosity kindling in her warm brown eyes.

"I don't know. He has talked freely about himself only once or twice,
though we've discussed together most other subjects under the sun."

"How deliciously mysterious. Mysterious! yes, that's the word for him.
He has mysterious eyes; a mysterious face. There is a shadow upon it.
That is part of the fascination, is it not? I am sure he is
fascinating."

"Extraordinarily so. I have never met anyone at all like him."

"He might be a boy Tasso. But he has suffered; he is not a child any
more, though his face is smooth as mine. He must be eighteen or
nineteen?"

"I should give him less, though he has read and thought a tremendous
lot for a boy."

"Men are not judges of age, thank heaven. Women are. I _will_ have it
that your friend is ni