“Does not your brother know the place?” Arran interposed. Some vague uneasiness, perhaps, was making itself felt in the shallow brain of the nincompoop. “No, by my thoul, your Highneth,” he said, “nor underthtand if she told me.” Kate hurried to the door. As she did so, a feminine form outside whisked into the near shelter of some hangings. Then, foreseeing certain detection if she remained where she was, waited until the issuing figure had vanished down a passage, when she herself slipped away incontinent in another direction. The Duke in the meanwhile sat frowning and silent, half suspecting a ruse on the lady’s part to escape him. But in that he did the Countess too much or too little justice. For whatever reason--of honour or perversity; you may take your choice--Kate acquitted herself faithfully of her errand, and came back with the guitar; whereat the royal brow cleared wonderfully. And Arran played the saraband--this time to perfection, exclaimed his Highness. Sweet melody, sweet touch, and sweetest atmosphere--it had been all a banquet of delight, served, as it were, amidst the tenderest surroundings, in a self-contained corner of Eden, by the most paradisical of chefs. The Duke was transported; he was really transported, though it is true some ecstasies stop short of heaven. There are sirens in Campania to see to that. And Kate was also moved; she could not well help but be. Her heart was in too emotional a state to be safe proof against such soft besieging. When the Duke leaned towards her, she did not stir, but sat with eyes downcast, her bosom plainly turbulent. “Was I not right,” he said, “and could any gain in resonance have improved on this faultless unison of parts? Perfection must know bounds, even like a framed picture, or the soul cannot compass it. To have enlarged these but in one direction would have been to sacrifice the proportions of the whole--the harmonious concord of place, and sound, and tenderest feeling. Give me this bower, lady, for your rounded madrigal, wherein sweetest music lends itself with love and beauty to weave a finished pattern of delight. My lord, grant me the instrument a moment.” He took the guitar, somewhat peremptorily, from the Earl’s hesitating hands; but he was in no mood, at this pass, to temporize or finesse. And, having received it, he went plucking softly among the strings, gathering up sweet chords and sobbing accidentals, as it were flowers, to present in a nosegay to the heart of his moved hearer. There was a knowledge, a sure emotionalism, in his touch which went far to discount his earlier pretence of inadequacy; and Arran in his weak brain may have felt somehow conscious of the fact, and of a suspicion that he had been subtly beguiled into lending his own vanity for a catspaw to the other’s schemes. But he had no wit to mend the situation he had encouraged; and so he only stood silent, with his mouth open--sowing gape-seed, as they say in Sussex.