"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.