He played his part to perfection—­reconnoitering as stealthily as when he was stalking big game, until he perceived his quarry at the far end among the lavender, giving orders to a gardener.  He then turned in the opposite direction, with great unconsciousness, to read the paper in peace apparently being his only care!  Here he paced the walk which cut off her retreat from the gate, never glancing up.  Sabine saw him of course, and her heart began to beat—­was it possible for a man to be so good-looking or so utterly casual and devil-may-care!  If she walked toward the arbor turret he would be obliged to see her when she came to the end, and then must come up and say good-morning.  She picked up her flower-basket and went that way, and with due surprise and pleasure, Michael looked up from his paper at exactly the right moment and caught sight of her.

He came toward her with just the proper amount of haste and raised his straw hat in a gay good-morning.

“Isn’t it a divine day,” he said.  “I had to come out and read the papers—­and the courtyard looked so dull and I did not know where else to go—­it is luck finding you here!”

“I always come into the garden in the morning when it is fine—­I know every plant and they are all my friends.”  Then to hide the pleasurable excitement she was feeling, she bent down and picked a bit of lavender.

“I love that smell—­won’t you give me some, too?” he pleaded—­and she handed him a sprig which he fixed in his white coat.  “You have made the most enchanting place of this,” he next told her.  “Can’t we go up and sit in that summer-house while you tell me how you began?  Henry said all this was a ruin when you bought it some years ago—­it is extraordinarily clever of you.”

Not the slightest embarrassment was in his manner, not the smallest look of extra meaning in his eyes; he was simply a guest and she a hostess, out together in the sunlight.  A sense of unreality stole over Sabine.  It could not be all true—­it was just some dream—­a little more vivid, that was all, than those which used to come to her of him sometimes during—­that year.  She almost felt that she would like to put out her hand and touch him to see if he were tangible or a thing of illusion as she led the way to the turret summer-house.

The wall which protected the garden from the sea was very high and this little tower had been in the original fortifications and had been cleverly adapted to its present use.  It was open, with glass which slid back on the southern side, and its great windows looked out over the blue waters and granite rocks on the other.  The little bay curved round so that from there you got a three-quarter view of the chateau.

Sabine put her basket down, and climbing up the wooden step she seated herself upon the high window-seat, her feet dangling while she opened the casement wide.  Michael stood beside her leaning upon the sill—­so that she was slightly above him.