“You’re more beautiful,” I said boldly.
She nodded her head roguishly. “I can see you’re no longer afraid of girls. You were once, you remember.” The doe-priest had stood by watching us nervously. It was plain that Fiesole had scared him—he was glad to be relieved of her. The bell in the tower began to toll for dinner. Brookins jangled his keys, edging towards the gate.
“Poor Mr. Brookins, are you hungry? Must you be going?”
“I don’t like to be late at high table, Miss Cortona,” he replied stiffly. “The Warden is very particular about punctuality.”
“Never mind, Brookins,” I said, “I’ll look after Miss Cortona. You cut along.”
Brookins made his farewells with more alacrity than politeness. Fiesole gazed after his departing figure with mischievous merriment in her eyes.
“He thinks me a dangerous person,” she pouted. “He thinks I was luring him on to be naughty. He’ll go and preach a sermon about me. He’s bristling with righteousness. And now that he’s managed to escape, he’s locking poor innocent you, Dante, all alone in the garden with the wicked temptress.”
“I rather like it. Besides, I know a way out—over there, through my window.”
As we strolled across the lawn I asked her, “Where, under the sun, did you pick up Brookins? He doesn’t seem just your sort.”
“I picked him up at Aix-les-Bains. He was sowing his wild oats imaginatively and eyeing the ladies in La Villa des Fleurs. He was trying to find out what it felt like to be truly devilish.”