The following spring, when he went abroad, Mrs. Memorall offered him
letters to everybody, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Louise Michel.
She did not include Mrs. Anerton, however, and Danyers knew, from a
previous conversation, that Silvia objected to people who "brought
letters." He knew also that she travelled during the summer, and was
unlikely to return to Rome before the term of his holiday should be
reached, and the hope of meeting her was not included among his
anticipations.

The lady whose entrance broke upon his solitary repast in the restaurant
of the Hotel Villa d'Este had seated herself in such a way that her
profile was detached against the window; and thus viewed, her domed
forehead, small arched nose, and fastidious lip suggested a silhouette of
Marie Antoinette. In the lady's dress and movements--in the very turn of
her wrist as she poured out her coffee--Danyers thought he detected the
same fastidiousness, the same air of tacitly excluding the obvious and
unexceptional. Here was a woman who had been much bored and keenly
interested. The waiter brought her a _Secolo,_ and as she bent above it
Danyers noticed that the hair rolled back from her forehead was turning
gray; but her figure was straight and slender, and she had the invaluable
gift of a girlish back.

The rush of Anglo-Saxon travel had not set toward the lakes, and with the
exception of an Italian family or two, and a hump-backed youth with an
_abbe_, Danyers and the lady had the marble halls of the Villa d'Este to
themselves.

When he returned from his morning ramble among the hills he saw her
sitting at one of the little tables at the edge of the lake. She was
writing, and a heap of books and newspapers lay on the table at her side.