He followed the "maestro di casa" to the further wing of the palace and was shown into a small boudoir hung with a striped primrose silk. The room was dainty, filled with flowers and photographs, scattered about on the modern French furniture above the delicate Aubusson carpet. On an easel under a palm, stood a large portrait in pastel of a dapper little gentleman, with a slim waist and padded shoulders. The face, old but still handsome, bore lines of dissipation around the keen dark eyes. He had grizzled hair, grey eyebrows, and a startlingly black moustache. "My uncle, I should imagine." McTaggart was bending down to examine the picture more closely when a door on his right was opened by a smiling maid. "Par ici, Monsieur." She stood aside for him to pass and a musical voice from the room beyond welcomed him. "Entrez donc!--Bonjour, mon neveu..." He stood on the threshold, tall and eager, his blue eyes opening wide, as he looked into a dainty bedroom, dim and warm and heavily scented. Before him was a high bed, draped in black, and against the pillows, vivid, alive, in the sable setting, a young and very lovely woman. Her hair, of a glossy raven hue, was piled loosely on her head under a boudoir cap of lace and she wore a filmy negligee, from which her arms, white and rounded, escaped beneath knots of ribbon and lay on the black satin bedspread with the effect of chiselled marble. Her face, oval and ivory-white, was faintly amused. Her great brown eyes, languorous and insolent, swept McTaggart from head to foot. But what absorbed his attention most was her mouth, like a curved scarlet flower blown on to her still face by a breath of Spring ... He gazed at her. Then his wits returned to him. He walked forward and took the hand lazily extended, stooped, and, with a happy inspiration, raised it gravely to his lips. The Marchesa's dark eyes flashed. The red mouth smiled at him. "Mais vous etes tr ... es bien!" She rolled her r's with Italian emphasis. "Delighted to make your acquaintance, my aunt." And, indeed, he only spoke the truth. In a flash he found a valid excuse for his late uncle's dandyism; that somewhat pathetic defiance of age beside his youthful second wife. "You have well slept?--Had all you needed?" Her French, full of liquid vowel sounds, fell musically on his ears. "And the 'tub'? Ah! I know the English ways. I say to Beppo: See now!--a cold bath--cold ... cold ...! That is what the English love." She gave a clear, rippling laugh. "And then you appear--a true Italian! Ma si!" she nodded her head gaily. "A Maramonte--Mon Dieu, I am glad!--without the teeth. You understand?" "Not quite," McTaggart smiled back, showing a white row as he spoke. "The English teeth--quel horreur!--that stick out like the wild boar." The young man laughed outright. "Oh--we aren't all as bad as that! But Italy is the land of beauty----" he gazed at her--"I am learning that."