Lucy Foster had noticed her as a new-comer, and believed that her name was Madame Variani.
As for Eleanor Burgoyne, she sat on Manisty's left while he talked--it was curious to notice how a place was always made for her beside him!--her head raised a little towards him, her eyes bright and fixed.

The force that breathed from him passed through her frail being, quickening every pulse of life.

She neither criticised nor accepted what he said.

It was the man's splendid vitality that subdued and mastered her.
Yet she alone knew what no one else suspected.

At the beginning of the conversation Manisty had placed himself behind an old stone table of oblong shape and thick base, of which there were several in the garden.