Peter, no doubt, sent up a silent prayer that her uncle and her niece might be detained at the village for the rest of the afternoon.  By her niece he took her to mean Emilia:  he liked her for the kindly euphemism.  “What hair she has!” he thought, admiring the loose brown masses, warm upon their background of pink silk.

“Oh, I’m inured to waiting,” he replied, with a retrospective mind for the interminable waits of that interminable day.

The Duchessa had taken a fan from the table, and was playing with it, opening and shutting it slowly, in her lap.  Now she caught Peter’s eyes examining it, and she gave it to him. (My own suspicion is that Peter’s eyes had been occupied rather with the hands that held the fan, than with the fan itself—­but that’s a detail.)

“I picked it up the other day, in Rome,” she said.  “Of course, it’s an imitation of the French fans of the last century, but I thought it pretty.”

It was of white silk, that had been thinly stained a soft yellow, like the yellow of faded yellow rose-leaves.  It was painted with innumerable plump little cupids, flying among pale clouds.  The sticks were of mother-of=pearl.  The end-sticks were elaborately incised, and in the incisions opals were set, big ones and small ones, smouldering with green and scarlet fires.

“Very pretty indeed,” said Peter, “and very curious.  It’s like a great butterfly’s wing is n’t it?  But are n’t you afraid of opals?”

“Afraid of opals?” she wondered.  “Why should one be?”

“Unless your birthday happens to fall in October, they’re reputed to bring bad luck,” he reminded her.

“My birthday happens to fall in June but I ’ll never believe that such pretty things as opals can bring bad luck,” she laughed, taking the fan, which he returned to her, and stroking one of the bigger opals with her finger tip.

“Have you no superstitions?” he asked.

“I hope not—­I don’t think I have,” she answered.  “We’re not allowed to have superstitions, you know—­nous autres Catholiques.”

“Oh?” he said, with surprise.  “No, I did n’t know.”

“Yes, they’re a forbidden luxury.  But you—?  Are you superstitious?  Would you be afraid of opals?”

“I doubt if I should have the courage to wear one.  At all events, I don’t regard superstitions in the light of a luxury.  I should be glad to be rid of those I have.  They’re a horrible inconvenience.  But I can’t get it out of my head that the air is filled with a swarm of malignant little devils, who are always watching their chance to do us an ill turn.  We don’t in the least know the conditions under which they can bring it off; but it’s legendary that if we wear opals, or sit thirteen at table, or start an enterprise on Friday, or what not, we somehow give them their opportunity.  And one naturally wishes to be on the safe side.”

She looked at him with. doubt, considering.