“Thank you very much,” cried Hilary. “I have a reputation to safeguard. Do you think I’m going to compromise myself, and set all my underlings a-sniggling, by making inquiries about the identity of a woman?” “But,” persisted Ferdinand, “if I ask you to do so, as your———-” “What?” was Hilary’s brusque interruption. “As your guest,” said Ferdinand. “Mille regrets, impossible, as the French have it,” Hilary returned. “But as your host, I give you carte-blanche to make your own inquiries for yourself—if you think she’s worth the trouble. Being a stranger here, you have, as it were, no character to lose.” “After all, it doesn’t matter,” said Ferdinand Augustus, with resignation. III But the next afternoon, at about the same hour, Ferdinand Augustus found himself alone, strolling in the direction of the little stone bridge over the artificial lakelet; and there again was the woman, leaning upon the parapet, dropping bread-crumbs to the carp. Ferdinand Augustus raised his hat; the woman bowed and smiled. “It’s a fine day,” said Ferdinand Augustus. “It’s a fine day—but a weary one,” the woman responded, with an odd little movement of the head. Ferdinand Augustus was perhaps too shy to pursue the conversation; perhaps he wanted but little here below, nor wanted that little long. At any rate, he passed on. There could be no question about her smile this time, he reflected; it had been bright, spontaneous, friendly. But what did she mean, he wondered, by adding to his general panegyric of the day as fine, that special qualification of it as a weary one? It was astonishing that any man should dispute her claim to beauty. She had really a splendid figure; and her face was more than pretty, it was distinguished. Her eyes and her mouth, her clear-grey sparkling eyes, her softly curved red mouth, suggested many agreeable possibilities—possibilities of wit, and of something else. It was not till four hours later that he noticed the sound of her voice. At dinner, in the midst of a discussion with Hilary about a subject in no obvious way connected with her (about the Orient Express, indeed—its safety, speed, and comfort), it suddenly came back to him, and he checked a remark upon the advantages of the corridor carriage, to exclaim in his soul, “She’s got a delicious voice. If she sang, it would be a mezzo.” The consequence was that the following day he again bent his footsteps in the direction of the bridge. “It’s a lovely afternoon,” he said, lifting his hat. “But a weary one,” said she, smiling, with a little pensive movement of the head. “Not a weary one for the carp,” he hinted, glancing down at the water, which boiled and bubbled with a greedy multitude. “Oh, they have no human feelings,” said she. “Don’t you call hunger a human feeling?” he inquired. “They have no human feelings; but I never said we hadn’t plenty of carp feelings,” she answered him. He laughed. “At all events, I’m pleased to find that we’re of the same way of thinking.”