She looked towards the castle, while she spoke; and now she rose, with the design, perhaps, of moving in that direction.

Peter felt that the moment had come for actualities.

“It seems improbable,” he began,—­and I ’m afraid you will think there is a tiresome monotony in my purposes; but I am here again to return Cardinal Udeschini’s snuff box.  He left it in my garden.”

“Oh—?” said the Duchessa.  “Yes, he thought he must have left it there.  He is always mislaying it.  Happily, he has another, for emergencies.  It was very good of you to trouble to bring it back.”

She gave a light little laugh..

“I may also improve this occasion,” Peter abruptly continued, “to make my adieux.  I shall be leaving for England in a few days now.”

The Duchessa raised her eyebrows.

“Really?” she said.  “Oh, that is too bad,” she added, by way of comment.  “October, you know, is regarded as the best month of all the twelve, in this lake country.”

“Yes, I know it,” Peter responded regretfully.

“And it is a horrid month in England,” she went on.

“It is an abominable month in England,” he acknowledged.

“Here it is blue, like larkspur, and all fragrant of the vintage, and joyous with the songs of the vintagers,” she said.  “There it is dingy-brown, and songless, and it smells of smoke.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“But you are a sportsman?  You go in for shooting?” she conjectured.

“No,” he answered.  “I gave up shooting years ago.”

“Oh—?  Hunting, then?”

“I hate hunting.  One is always getting rolled on by one’s horse.”

“Ah, I see.  It—­it will be golf, perhaps?”

“No, it is not even golf.”

“Don’t tell me it is football?”

“Do I look as if it were football?”

“It is sheer homesickness, in fine?  You are grieving for the purple of your native heather?”

“There is scarcely any heather in my native county.  No,” said Peter, “no.  To tell you the truth, it is the usual thing.  It is an histoire de femme.”

“I ’might have guessed it,” she exclaimed.  “It is still that everlasting woman.”

“That everlasting woman—?” Peter faltered.

“To be sure,” said she.  “The woman you are always going on about.  The woman of your novel.  This woman, in short.”

And she produced from behind her back a hand that she had kept there, and held up for his inspection a grey-and-gold bound book.

“My novel—?” faltered he. (But the sight of it, in her possession, in these particular circumstances, gave him a thrill that was not a thrill of despair.)

“Your novel,” she repeated, smiling sweetly, and mimicking his tone.  Then she made a little moue.  “Of course, I have known that you were your friend Felix Wildmay, from the outset.”

“Oh,” said Peter, in a feeble sort of gasp, looking bewildered.  “You have known that from the outset?” And his brain seemed to reel.