The whimsical note of the answer may have checked her stirring anger. There was a long pause in which she pondered him with eyes that were become unfathomable. Mechanically she loosed the long black cloak that covered her low-cut sheathing gown of sapphire blue. 'Why, then, did you come? Was it to spy ... No, no. You are not that. A spy would have gone differently to work. What are you, then?' 'Just a poor scholar on his travels, studying life at first hand and a trifle more rapidly than he can digest it. As for how I came into your garden, let me tell you.' And he told her with admirable succinctness the sorry tale of that day's events. It drove the last vestige of wrath from her face, and drew the ghost of a smile to the corners of a mouth that could be as tender as imperious. Observing it, he realised that whilst she had given him sanctuary under a misapprehension, yet she was not likely to visit her obvious disappointment too harshly upon him. 'And I thought ...' She broke off and trilled a little laugh, between mirth and bitterness. 'It was a lucky chance for you, master fugitive.' She considered him again, and it may be that his stalwart young male beauty had a hand unconsciously in shaping her resolves concerning him. 'What am I to do with you?' she asked him. He answered simply and directly, speaking not as a poor nameless scholar to a high-born princess, but as equal to equal, as a young man to a young woman. 'If you are what your face tells me, madonna, you will let me profit by an error that entails no less for yourself beyond that of these garments, which, if you wish it ...' She waved the proposal aside before it was uttered. 'Pooh, the garments. What are they?' She frowned thoughtfully. 'But I named names to you.' 'Did you? I have forgotten them.' And in answer to the hard incredulity of her stare, he explained himself. 'A good memory, madonna, lies as much in an ability to forget as in a capacity to remember. And I have an excellent memory. By the time I shall have stepped out of this garden I shall have no recollection that I was ever in it.' Slowly she spoke after a pause. 'If I were sure that I can trust you...' She left it there. Bellarion smiled. 'Unless you are certain that you can, you had better call the guard. But then, how could you be sure that in that case I should not recall the names you named, which are now forgotten?' 'Ah! You threaten!' The sharp tone, the catch in her breath, the sudden movement of her hand to her breast showed him that his inference was right. This lady was engaged in secret practices. And the inference itself displayed the swift activity of his wits; just as his answer displayed them. 'Nay, lady. I show you only that trust me you must, since if you mistrust me you can no more order my arrest than you can set me free.' 'My faith, sir, you are shrewd, for one who's convent-bred.'