He did not seem aware of her at once, and even when she spoke to him in Italian of the Renaissance he did not hear. So she spoke again and this time in English: "What is it?" He started, rubbed his eyes, blinked at her and answered: "Hullo, who are you?" "What is it?" she repeated. "Have you lost something?" "Don't--don't!" he pleaded. "Don't even suggest such a thing, little lady." "I won't. I only thought--and you looked so sad." "Be all right directly. It's the waiting. Kind of you to stop and speak to me." His eyes strayed over the gold and blue of her cloak. "Been to a theatre?" he asked. She shook her head and looked up at him with a child's perplexity. "A play?" he amended. "I've no one to play with," she answered simply. "See!" And she held out her empty arms. "What's wrong then?" "I don't know." She seemed to dwell on the last word. "I only thought--perhaps you could tell me." "Tell you what?" "Help me to find it perhaps. It seemed as if you were looking, too; that's why I came." "Looking?" he repeated. "I'm waiting; that's all." "Me too. But it's such a long time, and I get no nearer." "Nearer to what?" "Finding." "Something you lost?" "I think so. Must be. I'll go back now." He put out a hand to stop her. "Listen," he said. "It'll be hours before I shall know. I'm frightened to spend them alone. Be a friend, little lady, and bear me company. 'Tisn't fair to ask, but if you could stay a little." "I'll stay," she said. "And will you talk to me?" "Yes." "Tell me a story then--just as if I were a kid, a child. A man isn't much more these times." At the word "child" her arms went out to him, but dropped to her sides again as he said "a man." "Come under the porch, where the rain won't spoil your pretty silk. That's better. Now tell away." They sat side by side, and she began to talk. He must have been listening for other sounds, or surely he would have been bewildered at the very beginning of what she told. "It's hard to remember when one was alive, but I used to be--yes, hundreds of years ago. I lived--can't remember very well; there was a high wall all around, and a tower and a bell that rang for prayers--and long, long passages where we walked up and down to tell our beads. Outside were mountains with snow caps like the heads of the sisters, and it was cold as snow within, cold and pure as snow. I was sixteen years old and very unhappy. We did not know how to smile; that I learnt later and have forgotten since. There was the skull of a dead man upon the table where we sat to eat, that we might never forget to what favour we must come. There were no pretty rooms in that house." "What would you call a pretty room?" he asked, for the last sentence was the first of which he was aware. "I don't know," she answered. "I think a room with little beds, and wooden bars across the window, and a high fender would be a pretty room."