Little did I dream, when I flippantly spoke of our expedition as “driving out to pay calls,” how nearly my thoughtless words were to be realised.  We started immediately after an early dejeuner, sitting side by side in a little low-swung carriage, a superior phaeton, or poor relation of a victoria.  The day was hot, but a delicious breeze came to us from the snow mountains, and there was a peculiar buoyancy in the air.

Our first castle was Sarre, the Chateau Royal, an enormous brown building with a disproportionately high tower.  This hunting-lodge of the King would have been grimly ugly, were it not for its rocky throne, high above the river bed, and its background of glistening white mountains.  The huge pile looked like a sleeping dragon with its hundreds of window-eyes close-lidded, and I could not imagine it an amusing place for a house party.  I was glad that the Boy was not animated with that wild mania for squeezing the last drop from the orange of sightseeing which makes some travelling companions so depressing.  The castle was closed to visitors, yet many people would have insisted on climbing the steep hill for the barren satisfaction of saying that they had been there.  I rejoiced that my little Pal was not one of these; but I should have been more prudent had I waited.

We drove on, after a pause for inspection, along a road which would have rejoiced the motor-loving heart of Jack Winston, and I made a note to tell him what a magnificent tour he might have in this enchanted country one day with his car, tooling down from Milan.  As I mentally arranged my next letter to the Winstons, the Boy gave a little cry of delight.  “Oh, what a queer, delightful place!  It’s all towers, just held together by a thread of castle.  It must be Aymaville.”

I looked up and beheld on a high hill an extraordinary chateau, something like four chess castles grouped together at the corners of a square heap of dice.  It does not sound an attractive description, yet the place deserved that adjective.  It was charming, and wonderfully “liveable,” among its vineyards, commanding such a view as is given to few show-places in the world.

“The descendants of the original family have restored it, and live there, don’t they?” asked the Boy in Italian of the cocher.

The man answered that this was the case, and was inspired by my evil genius to enquire if ces messieurs would like to go over the chateau.

“Is it allowed?” the Boy questioned eagerly.

“But certainly.  Shall I drive up to the house?  It will be only an all little ten minutes.”

Without waiting for my answer, the Boy took my consent for granted, and said yes.

Instantly we left the broad white road, and began winding up a narrow, steep, and stony way, among vineyards.  The cocher’s all little ten minutes lengthened into half an hour, but at last we halted before a garden gate—­a high, uncompromising, reserved-looking gate.