“The sparrows got nothing; and the goldfinches, who got ’your all,’ grumble because you gave so little,” said Peter, sadly.  “That is what comes of interfering with the laws of Nature.”  And then, as the two birds flew away, “See the dark, doubtful, reproachful glances with which they cover you.”

“You think they are ungrateful?” she said.  “No—­listen.”

She held up a finger.

For, at that moment, on the branch of an acacia, just over her head, a goldfinch began to sing—­his thin, sweet, crystalline trill of song.

“Do you call that grumbling?” she asked.

“It implies a grumble,” said Peter, “like the ‘thank you’ of a servant dissatisfied with his tip.  It’s the very least he can do.  It’s perfunctory—­I ’m not sure it is n’t even ironical.”

“Perfunctory!  Ironical!” cried the Duchessa.  “Look at him!  He’s warbling his delicious little soul out.”

They both paused to look and listen.

The bird’s gold-red bosom palpitated.  He marked his modulations by sudden emphatic movements of the head.  His eyes were fixed intently before him, as if he could actually see and follow the shining thread of his song, as it wound away through the air.  His performance had all the effect of a spontaneous rhapsody.  When it was terminated, he looked down at his auditors, eager, inquisitive, as who should say, “I hope you liked it?”—­and then, with a nod clearly meant as a farewell, flew out of sight.

The Duchessa smiled again at Peter, with intention.

“You must really try to take a cheerier view of things,” she said.

And next instant she too was off, walking slowly, lightly, up the green lawns, between the trees, towards the castle, her gown fluttering in the breeze, now dazzling white as she came into the sun, now pearly grey as she passed into the shade.

“What a woman it is,” said Peter to himself, looking after her.  “What vigour, what verve, what sex!  What a woman!”

And, indeed, there was nothing of the too-prevalent epicene in the Duchessa’s aspect; she was very certainly a woman.  “Heavens, how she walks!” he cried in a deep whisper.

But then a sudden wave of dejection swept over him.  At first he could not account for it.  By and by, however, a malicious little voice began to repeat and repeat within him, “Oh, the futile impression you must have made upon her!  Oh, the ineptitudes you uttered!  Oh, the precious opportunity you have misemployed!”

“You are a witch,” he said to Marietta.  “You’ve proved it to the hilt.  I ’ve seen the person, and the object is more desperately lost than ever.”

X

That evening, among the letters Peter received from England, there was one from his friend Mrs. Winchfield, which contained certain statistics.

“Your Duchessa di Santangiolo ‘was’ indeed, as your funny old servant told you, English:  the only child and heiress of the last Lord Belfont.  The Belfonts of Lancashire (now, save for your Duchessa, extinct) were the most bigoted sort of Roman Catholics, and always educated their daughters in foreign convents, and as often as not married them to foreigners.  The Belfont men, besides, were ever and anon marrying foreign wives; so there will be a goodish deal of un-English blood in your Duchessa’s own ci-devant English veins.