I


"Good morning, Prospero," said Annunziata.

"Good morning, Wide-awake," responded John.

He was in the octagonal room on the _piano nobile_ of the castle, where
his lost ladies of old years smiled on him from their frames. He had
heard an approaching patter of feet on the pavement of the room beyond;
and then Annunziata's little grey figure, white face, and big grave
eyes, had appeared, one picture the more, in the vast carved and gilded
doorway.

"I have been looking everywhere for you," she said, plaintive.

"Poor sweetheart," he commiserated her. "And can't you find me?"

"I couldn't," said Annunziata, bearing on the tense. "But I have found
you _now_."

"Oh? Have you? Where?" asked he.

"_Where?_" cried she, with a disdainful movement. "But _here_, of
course."

"I wouldn't be too cocksure of that," he cautioned her. "_Here_ is a
mighty evasive bird. For, suppose we were elsewhere, then _there_ would
be here, and here would be somewhere else."