Then he leaned back in his chair and with interest--I don't mean
curiosity, I mean interest: "Does anybody know besides the two
parties concerned?" he asked, with something as it were renewed (or
was it refreshed?) in his unmoved quietness. "I ask because one
has never heard any tales. I remember one evening in a restaurant
seeing a man come in with a lady--a beautiful lady--very
particularly beautiful, as though she had been stolen out of
Mahomet's paradise. With Dona Rita it can't be anything as
definite as that. But speaking of her in the same strain, I've
always felt that she looked as though Allegre had caught her in the
precincts of some temple . . . in the mountains."

I was delighted. I had never heard before a woman spoken about in
that way, a real live woman that is, not a woman in a book. For
this was no poetry and yet it seemed to put her in the category of
visions. And I would have lost myself in it if Mr. Blunt had not,
most unexpectedly, addressed himself to me.

"I told you that man was as fine as a needle."

And then to Mills: "Out of a temple? We know what that means."
His dark eyes flashed: "And must it be really in the mountains?"
he added.

"Or in a desert," conceded Mills, "if you prefer that. There have
been temples in deserts, you know."

Blunt had calmed down suddenly and assumed a nonchalant pose.

"As a matter of fact, Henry Allegre caught her very early one