“Yes, I noticed that the host was nowhere to be seen, and that is the reason why I came in here; I had no idea that I should have the honor of meeting you.”

“Good God!  I’m not complaining of him!  He’s asleep in his barn over there.  You can wake him up; he doesn’t mind showing himself; he even makes himself agreeable when he has finished his siesta.”

“I only wish to ask him one question, which perhaps you could answer, Monsieur; then I need not waken him.  Could you tell me the way to the Villa Dannegianti?”

M. Charnot walked up to me, looked me straight in the eyes, shrugged his shoulders, and burst out laughing.

“The Villa Dannegianti!”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Are you going to the Villa Dannegianti?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Then you may as well turn round and go home again.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no admission.”

“But I have a letter of introduction.”

“I had two, Monsieur, without counting the initials after my name, which are worth something and have opened the doors of more than one foreign collection for me; yet they denied me admission!  Think of it!  The porter of that insolent family denied me admission!  Do you expect to succeed after that?”

“I do, Monsieur.”

My words seemed to him the height of presumption.

“Come, Jeanne,” he said, “let us leave this gentleman to his youthful illusions.  They will soon be shattered—­very soon.”

He gave me an ironical smile and made for the door.

At this moment Jeanne dropped her sunshade.  I picked it up for her.

“Thank you, Monsieur,” she said.

Of course these words were no more than ordinarily polite.  She would have said the same to the first comer.  Nothing in her attitude or her look displayed any emotion which might put a value on this common form of speech.  But it was her voice, that music I so often dream of.  Had it spoken insults, I should have found it sweet.  It inspired me with the sudden resolution of detaining this fugitive apparition, of resting, if possible, another hour near her to whose side an unexpected stroke of fortune had brought me.

M. Charnot had already left the room; his rotund shadow rested on the wall of the passage.  He held a travelling-bag in his hand.

“Monsieur,” said I, “I am sorry that you are obliged to return already to Milan.  I am quite certain of admission to the Villa Dannegianti, and it would have given me pleasure to repair a mistake which is clearly due only to the stupidity of the servants.”

He stopped; the stroke had told.

“It is certainly quite possible that they never looked at my card or my letters.  But allow me to ask, since my card did not reach the host, what secret you possess to enable yours to get to him?”

“No secret at all, still less any merit of my own.  I am the bearer of news of great importance to the owners of the villa, news of a purely private nature.  They will be obliged to see me.  My first care, when I had fulfilled my mission, would have been to mention your name.  You would have been able to go over the house, and inspect a collection of medals which, I have heard, is a very fine one.”