When the first stress of their emotion had in some degree spent itself Lady Blanchemain, returning to her place on the ottoman, bade John sit down beside her.
"Now," she said, genially imperative, whilst all manner of kindly and admiring interest shone in her face, "there are exactly nine million and ninety-nine questions that you'll be obliged to answer before I've done with you. But to begin, you must clear up at once a mystery that's been troubling me ever since you dashed to my rescue at the gate. What in the name of Reason is the cause of your residence in this ultramundane stronghold?"
John—convict me of damnable iteration if you must: Heaven has sent me a laughing hero—John laughed.
"Oh," he said, "there are several causes—there are exactly nine million and ninety-eight."
"Name," commanded Lady Blanchemain, "the first and the last."
"Well," obeyed he, pondering, "I should think the first, the last, and perhaps the chief intermediate, would be—the whole blessed thing." And his arm described a circle which comprehended the castle and all within it, and the countryside without.
"It has a pleasant site, I'll not deny," said Lady Blanchemain. "But don't you find it a trifle far away? And a bit up-hill? I'm staying at the Victoria at Roccadoro, and it took me an hour and a half to drive here."
"But since," said John, with a flattering glance, "since you are here, I have no further reason to deplore its farawayness. So few places are far away, in these times and climes," he added, on a note of melancholy, as one to whom all climes and times were known.
"Hum!" said Lady Blanchemain, matter-of-fact. "Have you been here long?"
"Let me see," John answered. "To-day is the 23rd of April. I arrived here—I offer the fact for what it may be worth—on the Feast of All Fools."