“Heyday!” she said: “What is the meaning of all this? Cannot I close my eyes a moment but you must be forgetting yourself and your position, little Infanta of Spain? An endless, insufferable task for one, is it not?” Her thick-lidded eyes travelled from Isabella to the stranger, and back again. “Who is this, and what have you been doing? My God, a fine state you are in! All dumb and confounded, too. Fie, fie, girl--don’t tell me it is an assignation!” She wheeled round on Aquaviva, red with fury. “It is a trick, is it? You have been throwing dust in my eyes, you infamous old scoundrel? You have been lending yourself to this tryst on the pretence of instructing her Excellency in horticulture.” “Dust!” roared the old man. “It is the dust you yourself raise that blinds you. What do you all mean interfering with my work and disturbing the peace of my garden. I want nothing more than to be rid of the lot of you.” “Isabella!” cried the _gouvernante_. “I answer for myself, madam,” said the girl, her face quite pale and set; “and never, you may be sure, but with silence to insult. I am sorry you are displeased with my state, but----” “Your father, the duke, shall hear of it,” cried the old lady. “I will tell him myself,” said Isabella, “and of your interpretation of it.” “It is a natural one, is it not?” said madam, but with a falling face. “To the Marquise de Gonzalès,” said Isabella. “Shall we return to the carriage, madam?” Tiretta, with a fine red on his cheek, came forward. “I, also,” he said, “desire to answer for myself. The Count of Falckenstein----” “Eh!” cried the marquise, with a little whisk and start. “I said the Count of Falckenstein, madam, happening to cross yonder ford a few minutes ago on his road to Milan, encountered the vision of a nymph exploring these waters knee-deep in quest of lilies, and sent me with a compliment to greet the subject of so charming a picture. That, upon my honour, constitutes my share in this ‘assignation.’” The old dame’s face, while Tiretta spoke, was a study. Perplexity struggled there with amazement and relief. She laughed, as he finished, on a little high note of understanding and indulgence. “And it was very natural of his Excellency,” she said. “I, for one, decline to blame him for it. When rank forgets itself in such naughty vagaries as miss’s here, it must look to be accepted by strangers at its own valuation. Luckily, as you will please to inform the count, the like of this is with her Excellency a rare ebullition. She can do justice to her training, as you have heard; and I, though made the victim of the principles I have inculcated, can rejoice, at least, in such vindication of my teaching.” She dropped, or rather heaved, a profound curtsey; and Tiretta bowed as profoundly--an obeisance in which he sought to include, furious as he was at heart, the object of this jobation. But Isabella, standing pale and haughty, was very far from responding.