Assunta had carried a small tray out to the arbor in the garden,
and Daphne was having her afternoon tea there alone. About her,
on the frescoed walls of this little open-air pavilion, were
grouped pink shepherds and shepherdesses, disporting themselves
in airy garments of blue and green in a meadow that ended
abruptly to make room for long windows. The girl leaned back and
sipped her tea luxuriously. She was clad in a gown that any
shepherdess among them might have envied, a pale yellow crepy
thing shot through with gleams of gold. Before her the Countess
Accolanti's silver service was set out on an inlaid Florentine
table, partially protected by an open work oriental scarf. Upon
it lay the letter that had come an hour before, and the Signorina
now and then feasted her eyes upon it. Just outside the door was
a bust of Masaccio, set on a tall pedestal, grass growing on the
rough hair and heavy eyelids. Pavilion and tea-table seemed an
odd bit of convention, set down in the neglected wildness of this
old garden, and Daphne watched it all with entire satisfaction
over her Sevres teacup.

Presently she was startled by seeing Assunta come hurrying back
with a teacup and saucer in one hand, a hot water jug in the
other. The rapid Italian of excited moments Daphne never
pretended to understand, consequently she gathered from Assunta's
incoherent words neither names nor impressions, only the bare
fact that a caller for the Countess Accolanti had rung the bell.

"He inquired, too, for the Signorina," remarked the peasant woman
finally, when her breath had nearly given out.

"Do you know him?" asked Daphne. "Have you seen him before?"