“Nothing of the kind, my dear--we were just talking. My friend, Bertha Grand-Marnier--Monsieur le Comte ... there now! I’m so sorry! I’ve forgotten your name.” “It’s of no consequence,” said Julius, rather stiffly, as he pressed the gloved hand which Bertha offered him. “Now, introduce _me_,” said Carola.... “Look here, dearie, we’re an hour late already,” went on the other, after having introduced her friend. “If you want to talk to the gentleman, let him come with us; I’ve got a carriage.” “He hasn’t come to see me.” “Oh, all right! Come along then! Won’t you dine with us to-night?” “I’m exceedingly sorry, but....” Carola blushed. She was anxious now to take her friend off as quickly as possible. “Will you please excuse me, Sir?” she said. “Lafcadio will be back in a moment.” * * * * * The two women as they went out left the door open behind them. Every sound in the uncarpeted passage was audible; a person coming from the stairs would not be seen because of the turning, but he would certainly be heard. “After all,” thought Julius, “I shall find out even more from the room than from the woman.” He set quietly to work to examine it. In these commonplace lodgings there was hardly anything, alas! which could offer a clue to curiosity so unskilled as his. Not a bookshelf! Not a picture on the walls! Standing on the mantelpiece was a vile edition of Defoe’s _Moll Flanders_ in English and only two-thirds cut, and a copy of the _Novelle_ of Anton Francesco Grazzini, styled the Lasca, in Italian. These two books puzzled Julius. Beside them, and behind a bottle of spirits of peppermint, was a photograph which did more than puzzle him. It showed, grouped upon a sandy beach, a woman, who was no longer very young but strangely beautiful, leaning upon the arm of a man of a pronounced English type, slim and elegant and dressed in a sport suit, and at their feet, sitting on an overturned canoe, a well-knit, slender lad of about fifteen, with a mass of fair, tousled hair, with bold laughing eyes and without a stitch of clothes on him. Julius took up the photograph and, holding it to the light, saw written in the right-hand corner a few words in faded ink: _Duino, July, 1889_. He was not much the wiser for this, though he remembered that Duino was a small town on the Austrian coast of the Adriatic. With tightened lips and a disapproving shake of his head, he put the photograph back. In the empty fire-place were stowed a box of oatmeal, a bag of lentils and a bag of rice; a little further off was a chess-board leaning against the wall. There was nothing which could give Julius any hint of the kind of studies or occupations which filled the young man’s days. * * * * *