"I understand," said John. "I wonder that the sister of the man who owns this Castle never comes here to see how fine it is."
"She has been here quite recently," said Maria Dolores. "She has been here visiting her foster-mother, who lives in the pavilion beyond the clock. She came to make a sort of retreat--to think something over."
"Her brother is very anxious to marry her off. He is anxious that she should marry her second cousin, the Prince of Zelt-Zelt. She came here to make up her mind."
"Yet you seem to be deep in her confidence," said he.
"Yes--but she is not quite sure herself."
"She is one of those foolish women who dream of marriage as a high romance."
"Wise men," said John, "dream of it as the highest."
"A marriage with her cousin would be an end to all romance for ever. She was thinking a little while ago, I believe, of marrying a plain commoner, the nephew of a farmer. That would have been indeed romantic. Now, I hear, she is considering, a future member of your English House of Lords."
"Wouldn't even that be rather romantic--if a step down constitutes romance?" John suggested.
"Oh, a British peer is scarcely a step down," she returned. "Besides, there are people who don't care--what is the expression?--twopence about rank."
"When I said that," John explained, "I had no inkling that her rank was so exalted."
"Did you think she was the daughter of a cobbler?" Maria Dolores quickly, with some haughtiness, inquired.
"I thought she was a daughter of the stars," John answered.
"And you feared her name was Smitti," she said, haughtiness dissolving in mirth. "I will never tell you what she feared that yours was."
"See," said John, "how they are hanging the heavens with banners. It must be in honour of some great impending event."
Yesterday the west had been a sea. To-day it was a city, a vast grey and violet city, with palaces and battlemented towers, and countless airy spires and pinnacles; and here, there, everywhere, its walls were gay with gold and crimson, as with drooping banners.
"'Tis a city _en fête_," said John. "'Tis the city where marriages are made. They must have one in hand."
"Hark," said she, putting up a finger. "There are your nightingales beginning."
But the raised finger reminded him of something. "Have you a rooted objection to rings?" he asked.