'Well, I think it was conscience,' said the little spinster, plucking up spirit. 'I know it was with me. There had been some Americans calling on us that day--you remember--those charming Harvard people? And somehow it recalled to us both what a fuss they had made with us--and how kind everybody was. At least I suppose that was how Edward felt. I know I did.' Manisty paused in his walk. For the first time his dark whimsical face was crossed by an unwilling smile--slight but agreeable. 'It is the old story,' he said. 'Life would be tolerable but for one's virtues. All this time, I beg to point out, Aunt Pattie, that you have still told us nothing about the young lady--except something about her clothes, which doesn't matter.' Mrs. Burgoyne's amused gesture showed the woman's view of this remark. Miss Manisty looked puzzled. 'Well--I don't know. Yes--I have told you a great deal. The Lewinsons apparently thought her rather strange. Adèle said she couldn't tell what to be at with her--you never knew what she would like or dislike. Tom Lewinson seems to have liked her better than Adèle did. He said "there was no nonsense about her--and she never kept a fellow waiting." Adèle says she is the oddest mixture of knowledge and ignorance. She would ask the most absurd elementary questions--and then one morning Tom found out that she was quite a Latin scholar, and had read Horace and Virgil, and all the rest.' 'Good God!' said Manisty under his breath, resuming his walk. 'And when they asked her to play, she played--quite respectably.' 'Of course:--two hours' practising in the morning,--I foresaw it,' said Manisty, stopping short. 'Eleanor, we have been like children sporting over the abyss!' Mrs. Burgoyne rose with a laugh--a very soft and charming laugh--by no means the least among the various gifts with which nature had endowed her. 'Oh, civilisation has resources,' she said--'Aunt Pattie and I will take care of you. Now we have got a quarter of an hour to dress in. Only first--one must really pay one's respects to this sunset.' And she stepped out through an open door upon a balcony beyond. Then turning, with a face of delight, she beckoned to Manisty, who followed. 'Every night more marvellous than the last'--she said, hanging over the balustrade--'and one seems to be here in the high box of a theatre, with the sun playing pageants for our particular benefit.' Before them, beneath them indeed, stretched a scene, majestic, incomparable. The old villa in which they stood was built high on the ridge of the Alban Hills. Below it, olive-grounds and vineyards, plough-lands and pine plantations sank, slope after slope, fold after fold, to the Campagna. And beyond the Campagna, along the whole shining line of the west, the sea met the sunset; while to the north, a dim and scattered whiteness rising from the plain--was Rome.