I am afraid that he would even be rude, and I, too, should suffer for having allowed you to talk with me." "Let's hope that he doesn't return just yet, then," Richard observed, smiling easily.

"I am very good-tempered as a rule, but I do not like people to be rude to me." "Fortunately, he cannot return for at least an hour--" she began.
"Then we'll sit down on that terrace, if you please, for just a quarter of that time," he begged.
She opened her lips and closed them again.

He was certainly a very stubborn young man! "Well," she sighed, "perhaps it will be the easiest way of getting rid of you." She motioned him to follow her.

The butler, from a discreet distance, watched her as though he were looking at a strange thing.

Round the corner of the villa remote from the winter-garden, was a long stone terrace upon which many windows opened.