I stepped across the sill of my window into the garden. They were near enough now for me to catch an occasional word of their conversation. I approached across the lawn towards them. She glanced in my direction casually; then she steadied her gaze. I saw that her eyes were green, specked with gold about the iris. She stooped her head, still gazing at me, and asked a question of the doe-priest in a lowered voice. I heard him speak my name. A bubbling laugh sprang from her lips. She came tripping towards me with her hand extended. “You’re not going to pretend you don’t know me?” “I do know you, and yet I can’t recall where we have met or what is your name.” “Were you ever in Sneard’s garden at the Red House?” “You’re------” “Fiesole Cortona, and you’re Dante.” We stood there holding one another’s hands, searching one another’s faces and laughing gladly. “Well I never!” I kept repeating. “Fancy meeting you after all these years!” “Am I much changed?” she questioned. “You’re more beautiful,” I said boldly. She nodded her head roguishly. “I can see you’re no longer afraid of girls. You were once, you remember.” The doe-priest had stood by watching us nervously. It was plain that Fiesole had scared him--he was glad to be relieved of her. The bell in the tower began to toll for dinner. Brookins jangled his keys, edging towards the gate. “Poor Mr. Brookins, are you hungry? Must you be going?” “I don’t like to be late at high table, Miss Cortona,” he replied stiffly. “The Warden is very particular about punctuality.” “Never mind, Brookins,” I said, “I’ll look after Miss Cortona. You cut along.” Brookins made his farewells with more alacrity than politeness. Fiesole gazed after his departing figure with mischievous merriment in her eyes. “He thinks me a dangerous person,” she pouted. “He thinks I was luring him on to be naughty. He’ll go and preach a sermon about me. He’s bristling with righteousness. And now that he’s managed to escape, he’s locking poor innocent you, Dante, all alone in the garden with the wicked temptress.” “I rather like it. Besides, I know a way out--over there, through my window.” As we strolled across the lawn I asked her, “Where, under the sun, did you pick up Brookins? He doesn’t seem just your sort.” “I picked him up at Aix-les-Bains. He was sowing his wild oats imaginatively and eyeing the ladies in _La Villa des Fleurs_. He was trying to find out what it felt like to be truly devilish.” “That doesn’t sound like Brookins. I suppose he was gathering experience, so that he might be able to deal understanding with erring undergrads.” “You’re charitable. At any rate, when I met him he was playing the truant from morality. I was in the Casino.” “What doing? Gambling?”