Paul's face was puzzled, he did not believe in giants. His mind was not accustomed yet to these flights of speech, he felt stupid and irritated with himself, and in some way humiliated. The lady leant over him, her face playfully tender.

"Great blue eyes!" she said. "So pretty, so pretty! What matter whether they can see or no?" And she touched his lids with her slender fingers.

Paul quivered in his chair.

"You know!" he gasped. "You make me mad--I----But won't you teach me to see? No one wants to be blind! Teach me to see with your eyes, lady--my lady."

"Yes, I will teach you!" she said. "Teach you a number of things. Together we will put on the hat of darkness and go down into Hades. We shall taste the apples of the Hesperides--we will rob Mercure of his sandals--and Gyges of his ring. And one day, Paul--when together we have fathomed the meaning of it all--what will happen then, enfant?"

Her last word, "enfant," was a caress, and Paul was too bewildered with joy to answer her for a moment.

"What will happen?" he said at last. "I shall just love you--that's all!"

Then he remembered Isabella Waring, and suddenly covered his face with his hands.

They stopped for tea at the quaint châlet-hotel, and after it they wandered to pick gentians. The lady was sweet and sympathetic and gay; she ceased startling him with wild fancies; indeed, she spoke of simple everyday things, and got him to tell her of his home and Oxford, and his horses and his dogs. And when they arrived at the subject of Pike, her sympathy drew Paul nearer to her than ever. Of course she would love Pike if she only knew him! Who could help loving a dog like Pike? And his master waxed eloquent. Then, when he looked away, the lady's weird chameleon eyes melted upon him in that strange tenderness which might have been a mother's watching the gambols of her babe.