We laughed together at the absurdity of it, and then I followed a huge mulatto, whom she called General Washington, upstairs to a room they had prepared for me. The house, as much as I could see of it, appeared to be a bungalow of considerable size, but a bungalow which splayed out at its rear into a more substantial building carrying an upper storey and many bedrooms there. My own room was furnished in excellent taste, but without display. The American fashion of a bathroom adjoining the bedroom had been followed, and not a bathroom alone, but a delightful little sitting-room completed a luxurious suite. Particularly did I admire the dainty painting of the walls (little paper being used at Santa Maria by reason of the damp), the old English chintz curtains, and the provision of books both in the sitting and bedroom. Very welcome also were the many portable electric lamps cunningly placed by the bedside and upon dainty Louis XV. tables; while the fire reminded me of an English country house and of the comfort looked for there. In such a pretty bedroom I made a hasty change, and hearing musical bells below announcing that supper was ready, I returned to the hall where Joan Fordibras awaited me. The dining-room of the Villa San Jorge had the modern characteristics which distinguished the upper chambers. There were well-known pictures here, and old Sheffield plate upon the buffet. The chairs were American, and a little out of harmony with some fine Spanish mahogany and a heavy Persian carpet over the parquet. This jarring note, however, did not detract from the general air of comfort pervading the apartment, nor from its appearance of being the daily living room of a homely family. Indeed, had one chosen to name the straight-backed Miss Aston for its mistress and Joan Fordibras for the daughter of the house, then the delusion was complete and to be welcomed. None the less could I tell myself that it might harbour at that very moment some of the greatest villains that Europe had known, and that the morrow might report my own conversation to them. Never for one instant could I put this thought from me. It went with me from the hall to the table. It embarrassed me while I discussed New York and Paris and Vienna with the “learned woman” basely called the chaperone; it touched the shoulder of my mind when Joan Fordibras’s eyes—those Eastern languorous eyes—were turned upon me, and her child’s voice whispered some nonsense in my ears. A house of criminals and the greatest receiver in the story of crime for one of its masters! So I believed then. So, to-day, I know that the truth stood.