“I like better to go by way of the roofs, Gervaise.  The streets are badly lit, and although they are busy enough in some quarters, they are so narrow that one gets jostled and pushed.  On the terraces everything is quiet.  You have plenty of light and music, and it is pleasant to see families sitting together and enjoying themselves; and if one is disposed for a cup of wine or of cool sherbet, they are delighted to give it, for they all are pleased when one of us joins a group.  I have quite a number of acquaintances I have made in this way while you have been working away at your Turkish.”

“Very well,” Gervaise said.  “If such is your fancy, Ralph, let us take one of the paths across the roofs.  I might walk there twenty years by myself without making an acquaintance, and I do not pledge myself to join in these intimacies of yours.  However, I shall be quite content to amuse myself by looking on at the scene in general, while you are paying your visits and drinking your sherbet.”

“There are plenty of fair girls among the Rhodians,” Ralph said, with a smile; “and though we are pledged to celibacy we are in no way bound to abstain from admiration.”

Gervaise laughed.

“Admire as much as you like, Ralph, but do not expect me to do so.  I have scarcely as much as spoken to a woman since I entered the House in London, and I should have no idea what to say to a young girl.”

“But it is part of the education of a true knight to be courteous to women.  It is one of the great duties of chivalry.  And you must remember that we are secular knights, as well knights of the Order.”

“The work of the Order is quite sufficient for me at present, Ralph.  In time I may come to like the society of women, to admire their beauty, and possibly even to wear the colour of some one, for that seems to be the fashion; though why we, who are bound to celibacy, should admire one woman more than another I cannot understand.”

They had by this time descended from the castle, and were taking their way along one of the broad paths that led over the flat roofs of the houses by means of the bridges thrown across the streets.

“These are some acquaintances of mine,” Ralph said, stopping at one of the walls, some three feet high, that bordered the path.

Beyond was an enclosure of some fifty feet square.  Clumps of shrubs and flowers, surrounded by stonework some eight or ten inches high enclosing the earth in which they grew, were scattered here and there.  Lamps were hung to cords stretched above it, while others were arranged among the flowers.  In the centre a large carpet was spread, and on this some eight or ten persons were seated on cushions.  A girl was playing a lute, and another singing to her accompaniment.  She stopped abruptly when her eye fell upon the figures of the two young knights.

“There is Sir Ralph Harcourt, father!” she exclaimed in Italian, which was the language most used on the Island, and spoken with more or less fluency by all the knights, among whom it served as a general medium of communication.  “Are you waiting to be invited in, Sir Knight?” she went on saucily.  “I thought that by this time you would know you were welcome.”