“For years I have thought her the most beautiful woman in Europe,” Peter averred.
Marietta opened her eyes wide.
“For years? The Signorino knows her? The Signorino has seen her before?”
A phrase came back to him from a novel he had been reading that afternoon in the train. He adapted it to the occasion.
“I rather think she is my long-lost brother.”
“Brother—?” faltered Marietta.
“Well, certainly not sister,” said Peter, with determination. “You have my permission to take away the coffee things.”
IV
Up at the castle, in her rose-and-white boudoir, Beatrice was writing a letter to a friend in England.