er the question you will not answer?"

"The question I have answered," said Lamberti, correcting him. "Yes. Ask
her."

"Your mother was an old friend of her mother's," Guido said, with a new
thought.

"Yes."

"Why is it impossible that you two should have met before now?"

"Because I tell you that we have not. If we had, I should not have any
reason for hiding the fact. It would be much easier to explain, if we
had. But I am not going to argue about the matter, for it is quite
useless. Before you quarrel with me, go and ask the Contessina to
explain, if she will, or can. If she cannot, or if she can and will not,
I shall try to make you understand as much as I do, though that is very
little."

Guido listened without attempting to interrupt. He was not a rash or
violent man, and he valued Lamberti's friendship far too highly to
forfeit it without the most convincing reasons. Unfortunately, what he
had seen would have convinced an even less suspicious man that there was
a secret which his friend shared with Cecilia, and which both had an
object in concealing from him. Lamberti ceased speaking and a long
silence followed, for he had nothing more to say.

At last Guido straightened himself with an evident effort, as if he had
forced himself to decide the matter, but he did not look at Lamberti.

"Very well," he said. "I will speak to her."

Lamberti bent his head, silently acknowledging Guido's sensible
conclusion. Then Guido turned and went away alone. It was long before
Lamberti left the balcony, for he was glad of the solitude and the
chance of quietly thinking over his extraordinary situation.

Meanwhile Guido found it no easy matter to approach Cecilia at all, and
it looked as if it would be quite impossible to speak with her alone. He
went back through the great hall where people were beginning to gather
about the tea-table, and he stood in the vast door that opens upon the
close garden. Cecilia was still standing beside her mother, but they
were surrounded by a group of people who all seemed to be trying to talk
to them at once. The garden was crowded, and it would be impossible for
Guido to get near them without talking his way, so to say, through
countless acquaintances. By this time, however, most of the guests had
arrived, and those who were in the inner garden would soon begin to go
out to the grounds.

Cecilia was no longer pale; on the contrary, she had more colour than
usual, and delicate though