"What have I in common with ruins and white peacocks?"
Peter demanded tragically, when Marietta had brought her
much-gesticulated exposition to a close. "Let me impress upon
you once for all that I am not a tripper. As for your castle
--you invite me to a banquet-hall deserted. As for your park, I
see quite as much of it as I wish to see, from the seclusion of
my own pleached garden. I learned long ago the folly of
investigating things too closely, the wisdom of leaving things
in the vague. At present the park of Ventirose provides me
with the raw material for day-dreams. It is a sort of
looking-glass country,--I can see just so far into it, and no
farther--that lies beyond is mystery, is potentiality--terra
incognita, which I can populate with monsters or pleasant
phantoms, at my whim. Why should you attempt to deprive me of so
innocent a recreation?"

"After the return of the family," said Marietta, "the public
will no longer be admitted. Meantime--"

"Upon presentation of my card, the porter will conduct me from
disenchantment to disenchantment. No, thank you. Now, if it
were the other way round, it would be different. If it were
the castle and the park that had gone to Rome, and if the
family could be visited on presentation of my card, I might be
tempted."

"But that would be impossible, Signorino," said Marietta.