‘I had vaguely thought about staying longer. But I’m a vagrant--I got tired of cloudless blue skies and endless unabashed sunshine, and all at once began to long for some English damp and greenness.’ ‘In London?’ ‘I see you have not lost your old trick of taking a fellow up pretty sharply. No, not in London--at least, only at first. I’m hoping soon to be in the country. I shall spend the whole summer, at least, in England, and I hope you will let me come and see you before it is over.’ ‘Surely. I should think it very strange if you went away without coming to see me. You don’t know our part of the country, either. Yes, you must come. Come when you like. You must take us as you find us--Signor Oriole and Rhoda and me.’ ‘He is still with you, then?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is it true that Mrs. Marchmont has an idea of going with you to look at this place near yours?’ ‘Yes. We go together the day after to-morrow. She says it is to be only for one night.’ ‘H’m. She knows Oriole is with you?’ ‘Of course she knows. Hans, I must congratulate you on your picture. It is odd that you and I should be hand-in-hand here, after Rome, isn’t it? Those old days, I see, remained in your heart as well as in mine. I felt quite a thrill when I saw it. I pointed it out to Mrs. Marchmont.’ ‘Did you? What did she say?’ ‘You are so popular now that I can afford to tell you exactly what she said. “Very pretty, and very sentimental,” were her words. “He can do better than that, and intends to.”’ Hans smiled slightly with eyes a little downcast, and pulled out the fingers of the glove which he had removed from his right hand. ‘She has not grown sentimental, at any rate,’ he said, with the faintest possible shrug of the shoulders. ‘No,’ said Minna slowly. ‘You go there often, I suppose?’ she added, almost abruptly. ‘Oh no!’ replied Hans, lifting his eye at once, and looking straight at her. ‘Very little. She is frightfully particular. Of course there can be no sympathy between him and me, fiend that he is; and she simply doesn’t encourage men about the place. Of course I call now and then, so do a few others; but none of us go as often as we should like to.’ He spoke with a grave simplicity which had something almost boyish in it, and which stirred Minna’s heart to a warm feeling for him. Her expression at once became more cordial. ‘You see,’ he went on, ‘there’s no chaperon, no lady-companion, no nothing. She’s all alone; Marchmont said he would have no one of the sort about the house, so----’ He shrugged his shoulders again. Minna thought to herself: ‘That is, she does not choose to have a chaperon. Of course she could have one if she liked. But she has no need of any such appendage. She is strong.’ All she said was: ‘Well, I dare say she is quite right. Then, Hans, you will let me know when you want to come and stay with me. It is a simple place, you know. Don’t expect the luxuries of your father’s palace down at Brighton.’