"And what did she say," asked Mother Denise, "when you argued with her?"
"Say? Smiled, and showed all her white teeth at once. I never saw such teeth in my young days, nor such eyes, nor such hair, nor such hands--enough to drive a young man crazy."
"Or an old one either," interrupted Mother Denise. "She smiled as sweet as honey--you silly old man--and wheedled you, and wheedled you, till she got what she wanted."
"Pretty well, pretty well. You see, Dionetta, there are two ways of getting a thing done, a soft way and a hard way."
"There, there, there!" cried Mother Denise impatiently. "Do your work with a still tongue, and let us do ours. Get back to the garden, and repair the mischief my lady has caused you to do. What does a man want with a room full of roses?" she muttered, when Martin, quick to obey his domestic tyrant, had gone.
"It is a welcome home," said Dionetta. "If I were absent from my place a long, long while, it would make me feel glad when I returned, to see my rooms as bright as this. It is as though the very roses remembered you."
"You are young," said Mother Denise, "and your thoughts go the way of roses. I can't blame you, Dionetta."
"It was ten years since the master was here, you have told me, grandmother."
"Yes, Dionetta, yes, ten years ago this summer, and even then he did not sleep in the house. Christian Almer hates the place, and of all the rooms in the villa, this is the room he would be most anxious to avoid."
"But why, grandmother?" asked Dionetta, her eyes growing larger and rounder with wonder; "and does my lady know it?"