Enid Charteris, his only daughter and heiress, a girl about eighteen, must be taken for granted. Imagine in all your dreams of fair women what a golden-bronzed-haired girl should be, and you have Enid, with all her charms of manner and person, with that perfect expression without which the most classic features are cold. She smiled brightly as the new-comers entered. It is not given to every one to be able to disguise their likings and antipathies, and it did not need a practised eye to see her cold greeting for Le Gautier, and the instantaneous glance for Maxwell. ‘I really began to think you were going to fail me,’ she said; ‘and this is the last of our receptions too. I shall always have pleasant recollections of my visit to Rome.’ ‘We have been dining with Maxwell, Miss Charteris,’ Visci explained. ‘Could we forget you, if we tried! And now, before you are so engaged that you can have no word for poor me, I want to ask you a favour. We are going to my country retreat on Friday, and my sister Genevieve is dying to see you. Do persuade Sir Geoffrey to come.’ ‘Here he is to answer for himself,’ she replied, as the baronet sauntered up to the group.—‘Papa, you must promise to take me to see Signor Visci’s country-house on Friday.—Do you hear?’ ‘Anything you say is law, my dear,’ Sir Geoffrey answered with comic resignation. ‘Anything you desire.—Le Gautier, I wish to speak to you,’ he whispered quietly; ‘come to me presently.—Salvarini, you here? I thought you had forsworn gaieties of all descriptions. Glad to see you are thinking better of your misanthropy.’ Le Gautier turned off with the baronet somewhat impatiently, leaving the rest together. Salvarini, looking on somewhat thoughtfully, almost fancied there was a look of relief in Enid’s face as the Frenchman left; certainly, she was less constrained. ‘We shall look forward to Friday with great pleasure, then, Signor Visci,’ she said. ‘I have heard you speak so much of the Villa Mattio, that I am expecting to see a perfect paradise.’ ‘With two Eves,’ Maxwell whispered in English. Visci was not a man to misunderstand the meaning of true company, so, with a bow and a little complimentary speech, he turned aside, taking Salvarini by the arm, and plunged into the glittering crowd. ‘I do not understand the meaning there,’ Salvarini remarked as they walked through the rooms. ‘If Maxwell means’—— ‘Orange blossoms,’ Visci interrupted laconically; ‘and right, too.—Let us get into the music-room. Le Fanu is going to play.’ Maxwell remained by Enid’s side, toying with her fan and discoursing in their native language in a low voice. From the expression in his face and the earnest ring in his voice, there was no doubting the power of the attraction that chained him there. ‘When do you leave Rome, Miss Charteris?’ he asked, abruptly changing the conversation. ‘This is your last reception, I know.’