out three green and gold dessert plates, with Venetian glass finger-bowls on them, 31and two graceful, delicately-painted dessert dishes were placed ready for fruit.

31

Lily was rather surprised to see that there were no fewer than six cut-glass and coloured decanters filled with various wines and liqueurs, standing in a row behind the fruit plates.

Cristina stood by, looking at her expectantly.

“What beautiful tapestries, and—and what a lovely tablecloth,” said Lily at last.

She felt bewildered. She had never seen anything quite like this before. It was the sort of dining-table that she would have expected to see laid out in a palace. “The glasses must be very valuable,” she said admiringly. “I once saw a much less nice set, very like these, in a famous collection of cut glass.”

“I suppose I must now lay a fourth place,” said Cristina slowly. And then she added: “Mademoiselle was not expected till the day after to-morrow. Perhaps the Count will put off the visitor.”

“Who is coming to dinner—a lady or a gentleman?” asked Lily pleasantly.

Cristina hesitated a moment—and then, “A gentleman,” she answered.

The old woman led the English girl back into the corridor. A short, ladder-like staircase led to the upper floor of the villa. The storey above was divided like that below, by a corridor which ran right down the middle of the house.

Cristina took up the bunch of keys which hung at her girdle. “I sleep there,” she said, pointing to the first door to the right, “and Mademoiselle here.”

She unlocked the first door to their left, and ushered Lily into a room which impressed the girl as curiously dark and gloomy. But she soon saw the reason for that. The one window gave on to a stretch of deep, barren, heath-covered hill. Only by craning her head right out of the window could she see the sky. Below was a small, oblong yard, bounded by an outhouse.

Within the room, an old-fashioned mahogany bed of the 32low, curved Empire shape stood against the left wall. By the tiny fireplace was a shabby armchair upholstered in some kind of discoloured green material. There was no hanging cupboard; only a row of wooden pegs on the door. A pair of splendid brocaded silk and velvet curtains, looped up by the window, gave a touch of incongruous 

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