"You've brought the blue bird," she said. "I felt quite sure you would forget all about him. How can I thank you properly?"
"By saying no more about such a trifle," answered Antonio, placing the bowl in her hand.
Hardly listening, she turned her treasure this way and that, as if it had been a piece of Sèvres. For the first time Antonio was able to look at her critically. She was only a head shorter than himself; which meant that she was taller than six women out of seven. She stood up as straight as her father; but, while Sir Percy looked as though he had swallowed a steel ramrod, Isabel Kaye-Templeman was as graceful and supple as a perfectly-grown young tree. She was slender, yet so exquisitely developed in proportion to her height that Antonio felt he was never likely to see a more perfect figure. Her abundant hair was brown-golden—perhaps more golden than brown—and as fine as threads of silk.
Finding the Portuguese October warmer than an English July, Isabel had put on a high-waisted, full-skirted dress of pink-sprigged muslin. Over the shoulders, which were cut rather low, she wore a gauzy scarf, unprimly fastened at the throat by an unjeweled brooch of old gold. As she fondled the penny bowl Antonio observed the fine whiteness and slenderness of her wrists and fingers and the high-bred grace of every little movement.
"You will excuse Mrs. Baxter?" Isabel asked, suddenly coming back to formality. "She lies down in the afternoon. My father and the others are at the abbey. Shall we go down and join them? They expect you. I think they want you to help them."
"Let us join them," said the monk.
While Isabel was upstairs putting on her gloves and hat Antonio paced up and down the familiar room. A carpet, some easy chairs, two small tables, and very many pictures and ornaments had already been unpacked. Most of these importations were pleasing in themselves; but they were incongruous with a Portuguese interior, especially when it was the interior of a semi-monastic building. Antonio, however, hardly gave all this bric-à-brac a glance. He was revolving in his mind, for the twentieth time, a bold plan.
With a promptitude which contradicted one of the monk's delusions about ladies, Isabel reappeared in a large straw hat and announced that she was ready. They started at once. But, instead of taking the direct road, the monk chose a roundabout path to the abbey.
"This is not the way," said Isabel, halting after they had walked forty or fifty yards.
"It is not the shortest way, but it is the best," Antonio answered. "It takes only five minutes longer and it passes the most beautiful spot in the whole domain."