‘I always did say my eyes saw a little farther than other people’s,’ answered Miss Marjory, with a little laugh. ‘What a charming man our host is!’ she continued, after a while. ‘So superior to most young men of the present day—just as his father was before him; they are remarkably alike.’ ‘You were acquainted, then, with Mr. Debenham, our good friend’s father?’ ‘Oh yes; his father and I were great friends. Like father, like son, you know, Signor. It is quite so in this case—charming men both.’ Signor Pagliadini looked intently at her through his glasses. Miss Marjory returned the glance with the frankest possible ease. ‘Think I’ve puzzled him there,’ she remarked to herself. ‘If the son is so like the father, he can hardly rank as an impostor.’ ‘I did not know Mr.—our friend’s father,’ said the Signor slowly. ‘He is not at all like his sister.’ ‘Do you think not?’ returned Miss Marjory, in her brisk way. ‘Well, now, I should have called them quite as much alike as the average run of brothers and sisters. He is a little fairer, and is bronzed, of course, by sun and wind, but they have the same clear skin and good colouring, the same kind of open foreheads and well-marked brows; and a wonderful similarity in disposition, so frank, and pleasant, and unaffected. Oh yes, no one can doubt that there is a strong affinity between them.’ Signor Pagliadini sat silent and absorbed. ‘Come, Signor,’ recommenced Miss Marjory, after a pause, ‘I must not become wearisome on the subject of my old friend’s children. The topic cannot be very interesting to you, even though you are a friend also;’ and without any effort she shifted the conversation dexterously this way and that, seemingly quite at random, as is natural when two strangers sit down to ‘make talk,’ but with a method in her apparent aimlessness, of which, however, her interlocutor was quite unconscious. They parted on the best of terms, and with the mutual hope of future meetings. ‘I must have a breath of fresh air before I am an hour older,’ said Miss Marjory, drawing a long breath. ‘May I step out a few minutes, Mr. Debenham, and look at the stars?’ ‘We will look at them together,’ said Tor; and he gave her his arm, and walked her off, unheeding Maud’s demure look of congratulation, and gentle pat on the back, as he passed her. ‘Well,’ he said, as they stood together in the warm summer night, ‘have you made out anything?’ ‘That man is a spy!’ she answered with energy and decision. ‘Who and what he is besides, I have not yet made out; but he is a spy!’ ‘I believe it; but what makes you so certain?’