ria 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."

"_Absit omen_," cried she. "And you intend to stay?"

"Oh, I'm at least wise enough not to fetter myself with intentions,"
answered John.

She looked about, calculating, estimating.

"I suppose it costs you the very eyes of your head?" she asked.

John giggled.

"Guess what it costs--I give it to you in a thousand."

She continued her survey, brought it to a period.

"A billion a week," she said, with finality. John exulted.

"It costs me," he told her, "six francs fifty a day--wine included."

"What!" cried she, mistrusting her ears.

"Yes," said he.

"Fudge!" said she, not to be caught with chaff.

"It sounds like a traveller's tale, I know; but that's so often the
bother with the truth," said he. "Truth is under no obligation to be
_vraisemblable_. I'm here _en pension_."

Lady Blanchemain sniffed.

"Does the Prince of Zelt-Neuminster take in boarders?" she inquired,
her nose in the air.

"Not exactly," said John. "But the Parroco of Sant' Alessina does. I
board at the presbytery."

"Oh," said Lady Blanchemain, beginning to see light, while her eyebrows
went up, went down. "You board at the presbytery?"

"For six francs fifty a day--wine included," chuckled John.

"Wine, and apparently the unhindered enjoyment of--the whole blessed
thing," supplemented she, with a reminder of his comprehensive gesture.

"Yes--the run of the house and garden, the freedom of the hills and
valley."

"I understand," she said, and was mute for a space, readjusting her
impressions. "I had supposed," she went on at last, "from the handsome
way in which you snubbed that creature in shoulder-knots, and proceeded
to do the honours of the place, that you were little less than its
proprietor."

"Well, and so I could almost feel I am," laughed John. "I'm alone
here--there's none my sway to dispute. And as for the creature in
shoulder-knots, what becomes of the rights o