“I love this place,” murmured Cynthia splashing happily in rich blue shadow color, but she frowned a little. Something Serena had said a moment back had started her memory working. She didn’t really want it to work, she wanted to stay here and finish her sketch. “That was it though ... ‘it sort of flashes across his face!’” “This place gives me the shivers,” Serena remarked crossly. “I guess it’s because it’s so full of romance and I ... I feel so empty of it.” Suddenly Cynthia jumped off the wall and began to gather up her painting materials. She had remembered what she wanted to remember, it was just a chance, the wildest chance possible, but she had to know for sure. “I’m going back to the hotel,” she said. “You stay here, Serena ... but I’d like it if you could come along in a couple of hours and have tea with me. French tea is terrible of course but we can order citron pressé. I may have something to show you too.” “Just me, without Auntie?” asked Serena. Cynthia nodded. “Try, for Pete’s sake to get her into a shop for an hour or two, or tell her it’s time she took the tour around the walls. She might enjoy the guide, he was very handsome once,” she added maliciously, “but do come without her.” “I’ll try. I’ve got to stay here and wait for her anyway. She said she’d be along about two o’clock and it’s only half past one.” And her puzzled dark gaze followed Cynthia down the steep steps to the court, across it, through the high pointed arch of the gate, and long afterwards as she appeared again on the dusty stretch of sunlit road to the lower town. Cynthia had suddenly remembered that boy at the Hotel de l’Universe, and how flashing his smile had been, that one time she had seen it. But he hadn’t even appeared on the terrace for the past two days, perhaps he had left Carcassonne entirely, and almost certainly he had no least connection with Serena’s Jack, but he had looked so forlorn and somehow he had looked Southern too. Cynthia’s ardent desire to be again a Little Miss Fixit almost persuaded her she could tell a Yankee from a Louisianian even before he had said a single word. She’d ask at the hotel for the young American with the brown eyes, and if he were still registered there she’d leave a note inviting him to join her for tea this afternoon ... anyway it might be rather fun, even if nothing came of it. Serena was on time, and Cynthia suggested that the Hotel de l’Universe looked more amusing than the terrace of her own hotel. “And I’d like to try a grenadine, it’s such a pretty color,” she announced, once settled at the green painted table. So they each had one of the sickly pink syrups so beloved of the French and sat sipping contentedly while they gazed out across the low hedge of dusty box that separated the terrace from the street. Then Cynthia, who was watching her companion, saw her grab the edge of the table and go almost white. “I was right ... I was right!” thought Cynthia. “Oh Golly!”