She stood in the path, beside a sun-dial, from which she appeared to be
taking the time of day, a crumbling ancient thing of grey stone, green
and brown with mosses; and she was smiling pleasantly to herself the
while, all unaware of the couple who watched her from above. She wore a
light-coloured garden-frock, and was bare-headed, as one belonging to
the place. She was young--two or three and twenty, by her aspect: young,
slender, of an excellent height, and, I hope you would have agreed, a
beautiful countenance. She studied the sun-dial, and smiled; and what
with her dark eyes and softly chiselled features, the pale rose in her
cheeks and the deeper rose of her mouth, with her hair too, almost black
in shadow, but where the sun touched it turning to sombre red,--yes, I
think you would have agreed that she was beautiful. Lady Blanchemain, at
any rate, found her so.
"She's quite lovely," she declared. "Her face is exquisite--so
sensitive, so spiritual; so distinguished, so aristocratic. And so
_clever_," she added, after a suspension.
"Mm!" said John, his forehead wrinkled, as if something were puzzling
him.
"She has a figure--she holds herself well," said Lady Blanchemain.
"Mm!" said John.
"I suppose," said she, "you're too much a mere man to be able to
appreciate her frock? It's the work of a dressmaker who knows her
business. And that lilac muslin (that's so fashionable now) really does,
in the open air, with the country for background, show to immense
advantage. Come--out with it. Tell me all about her. Who _is_ she?"
"That's just what I'm up a tree to think," said John. "I can't imagine.
How long has she been there? From what direction did she come?"
"Don't try to hoodwink me any longer," remonstrated the lady,
unbelieving.
"I've never in my life set eyes on her before," he solemnly averred.
She scrutinized him sharply.
"Hand on heart?" she doubted.
And he, supporting her scrutiny without flinching, answered, "Hand on
heart."
"Well, then," concluded she, with a laugh, "it looks as if I were even
more of an old witch than I boasted--and my thumbs pricked to some
purpose. Here's the lady of the piece already arrived. There, she's
going away. How well she walks! Have after her--have after her quick,
and begin your courtship."
The smiling young woman, her lilac dress softly bright in the sun, was
moving slowly down the garden path, towards the cloisters; and now she
entered them, and disappeared. But John, instead of "having after her,"
remained at his counsellor's side, and watched.
"She came from that low doorway, beyond there at the right, where the
two cypresses are; and she came at the very climax of my vaticination,"
said her ladyship. "Without a hat, you'll hardly dispute it's probable
she's staying in the house."
"No--it certainly would seem so," said John. "I'm all up a tree."
"The garden looks rather dreary and empty, now that she has left,
doesn't it?" she asked. "Yet it looked jolly enough before her advent.
And see--the lizards (there are four of them, aren't there?) that
whisked away from the dial at her approach, have come back. Well, _your_
work's cut out. I suppose it wouldn't be possible for you to give a poor
woman a dish of tea?"
"I was on the very point of proposing it," said John. "May I conduct you
to my quarters?"