‘She had the same thing in Paris before the war,’ the Squire explained. ‘Renan gave me a card to her. An extraordinary woman. No particular originality; but one of the best persons “to consult about ideas,” like Joubert’s Madame de Beaumont, I ever saw. Receptiveness itself. A beauty, too, or was one, and a bit of a sphinx, which adds to the attraction. Mystery becomes a woman vastly. One suspects her of adventures just enough to find her society doubly piquant,’ Vincent directed him to the upper terrace, whither tea had been taken. This terrace, which was one of the features of Murewell, occupied the top of the yew-clothed hill on which the library looked out. Evelyn himself had planned it. Along its upper side ran one of the most beautiful of old walls, broken by niches and statues, tapestried with roses and honey-suckle, and opening in the centre to reveal Evelyn’s darling conceit of all--a semicircular space, holding a fountain, and leading to a grotto. The grotto had been scooped out of the hill; it was peopled with dim figures of fauns and nymphs who showed white amid its moist greenery; and in front a marble Silence drooped over the fountain, which held gold and silver fish in a singularly clear water. Outside ran the long stretch of level turf, edged with a jewelled rim of flowers; and as the hill fell steeply underneath, the terrace was like a high green platform raised into air, in order that a Wendover might see his domain, which from thence lay for miles spread out before him. Here, beside the fountain, were gathered the Squire, Mrs. Darcy, Madame de Netteville, and two unknown men. One of them was introduced to Elsmere as Mr. Spooner, and recognized by him as a Fellow of the Royal Society, a famous mathematician, sceptic, _bon vivant_, and sayer of good things. The other was a young Liberal Catholic, the author of a remarkable collection of essays on mediaeval subjects in which the Squire, treating the man’s opinions of course as of no account, had instantly recognized the note of the true scholar. A pale, small, hectic creature, possessed of that restless energy, of mind which often goes with the heightened temperature of consumption. Robert took a seat by Madame de Netteville, whose appearance was picturesqueness itself. Her dress, a skilful mixture of black and creamy yellow, laid about her in folds, as soft, as carelessly effective as her manner. Her plumed hat shadowed a face which was no longer young, in such a way as to hide all the lines possible; while the half-light brought admirably out the rich dark smoothness of the tints, the black lustre of the eyes. A delicate blue-veined hand lay, upon her knee, and Robert was conscious after ten minutes or so that all her movements, which seemed at first merely slow and languid, were in reality singularly full of decision and purpose.