The other two laughed.  He did not strike one as the sort of individual who would haunt the love-sick dreams of a confiding heart.

“I would rather it were the other way,” said Claudius thoughtfully.

“And I,” rejoined the American, “would drink perdition to the unattainable.”

“Either I do not agree with you, Mr. Barker,” said the Countess, “or else I believe nothing is unattainable.”

“I implore you to be kind, and believe the latter,” he answered courteously.

“Come, I will show you my garden,” said Margaret rising.  “It is pleasanter in the open air.”  She led the way out through the glass door, the men walking on her right and left.

“I am very fond of my garden,” she said, “and I take great care of it when I am here.”  She stopped and pulled two or three dead leaves off a rosebush to illustrate her profession of industry.

“And do you generally live here?” asked Claudius, who was as yet in complete ignorance of the Countess’s name, title, nationality, and mode of life, for Mr. Barker had, for some occult reason, left him in the dark.

Perhaps the Countess guessed as much, for she briefly imparted a good deal of information.

“When Count Alexis, my husband, was alive, we lived a great deal in Russia.  But I am an American like Mr. Barker, and I occasionally make a trip to my native country.  However, I love this place in summer, and I always try to be here.  That is my friend, Miss Skeat, who lives with me.”

Miss Skeat was stranded under a tree with a newspaper and several books.  Her polished cheekbones and knuckles glimmered yellow in the shade.  By her side was a long cane chair, in which lay a white silk wrap and a bit of needlework, tumbled together as the Countess had left them when she went in to receive her visitors.  Miss Skeat rose as the party approached.  The Countess introduced the two men, who bowed low, and they all sat down, Mr. Barker on the bench by the ancient virgin, and Claudius on the grass at Margaret’s feet.  It was noonday, but there was a light breeze through, the flowers and grasses.  The conversation soon fell into pairs as they sat.

“I should not have said, at first sight, that you were a very imaginative person, Dr. Claudius,” said the Countess.

“I have been dreaming for years,” he answered.  “I am a mathematician, and of late I have become a philosopher in a small way, as far as that is possible from reading the subject.  There are no two branches of learning that require more imagination than mathematics and philosophy.”

“Philosophy, perhaps,” she replied, “but mathematics—­I thought that was an exact science, where everything was known, and there was no room for dreaming.”

“I suppose that is the general impression.  But do you think it requires no imagination to conceive a new application of knowledge, to invent new methods where old ones are inadequate, to lay out a route through the unknown land beyond the regions of the known?”