“No, Meister, not that. But—precisely what is it you are doing here?”

“What do you suppose?”

“I don’t want to be presumptuous, but this restoration, or revitalizing, or whatever you call it, seems to go a bit farther than is necessary.”

“Oh, Corniche, speak what is in your mind. The word you want to use is faking, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t use that word to you, Meister.”

“Certainly not.”

“But it does look rather fishy.”

“Fishy is just the right word! Now, Corniche, you shall know everything that is proper for you to know in good time. Indeed, you shall know a great deal when Prince Max visits us. He is coming for Christmas, and I shall be back in plenty of time to show him all these greatly improved panels. Prince Max talks a great deal more freely than I do. Of course, it is his right.

“Meanwhile, during the fortnight that I am absent, you shall have a little treat. A treat and a rest. You have seen how I work, and I promised to teach you as much of what I know as you can take in. While I am away, I want you to paint a picture for me. See, here is this little panel. Almost a ruin as a picture, but the panel is sound enough, and so is the leather that covers it. Paint me a picture that is all your own, but would not look out of place among the other panels. Do the best you can.”

“What is the subject to be? One of these bürgerlich turnip-heads?”

“What you think best. Use your invention, my dear fellow. But make it congruous with the others. I want to see what you can do. And when I return we shall have a splendid Christmas, showing these pretty baked cakes to Prince Max.”

Use his invention? Well, if that was what Saraceni wanted, that is what Francis would do, and he would surprise the Meister, who seemed to think his invention would be limited. Saraceni set off for Rome the day after he told Francis how to use his time, and Francis sat down to his table in the chilly shell-grotto to plan his surprise.

Saraceni was not the only one to leave the castle. The Countess and Amalie left on the same day, to go to Munich to enjoy some of its pleasures before Christmas, and Francis and Miss Ruth Nibsmith were left in possession.

Miss Nibsmith was by no means bad company; in the absence of the Countess she expanded considerably, and although Francis never saw her during the day, they met at dinner, which was served at the same stately pace as always. To fill up the time between courses they drank a good deal of the Countess’s excellent wine, and resorted after dinner to the brandy bottle.

“I can never really settle myself in these German rooms,” said Miss Nibsmith, kicking off her substantial shoes and putting her feet on the side of the splendid porcelain stove in the family drawing-room. “They have no focus. You know what I mean? Focus, in the true Latin meaning of the word. No hearth. I long for an open fire. It is as good as a dog in a room to give it life. These German stoves are beautiful, and they are certainly practical. This room is warmer than it would be if it had a fireplace, but where does one look for the centre of the room? Where does one stand when making a pronouncement? Where does one warm one’s bottom?”

“I suppose the focus is wherever the most important person is,” said Francis. “When the Countess is here, she is obviously the focus. Now—you ought to know these things, as an intimate of Düsterstein: I understand that for Christmas we are to entertain a Prince Max—will he be the focus? Or does the Countess always top the heap in her own castle?”

“Prince Max will be the focus,” said Miss Nibsmith, “but not just because of his rank. He is quite the bounciest man I have ever met, and his laugh and his chatter make him the centre wherever he is. The Countess adores him.”

“A relative?” said Francis.

“A cousin—not the nearest sort. A Hohenzollern, but poor. Poor, that is, for a prince. But Maxi is not one to repine and blame Fortune. No, no; he stirs his stumps and deals extensively in wine, and he gets rid of a lot of it in England and especially in the States. Maxi is what our Victorian ancestors would have called a smooth file. He will be the focus, you will see. The hot air from Prince Max will keep us all warm, and perhaps uncomfortably hot.”

What did Miss Nibsmith do with herself all day? Francis made a polite inquiry.

“I write letters for the Countess in French, English, and German. At the moment I keep an eye on the business. I type quite well. I give lessons to Amalie, chiefly in history; she reads a lot and we talk. History is my thing. My Cambridge degree is in history. I’m a Girton girl. If I have any spare time I work on my own notes, which might be a book some day.”

“A book? About what?”

“You’ll laugh. Or no, I think you have too much intelligence to laugh. Anybody who works with Tancred Saraceni must be used to odd ventures. I’m making a study of astrology in Bavaria, particularly during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. What do you make of that?”

“I don’t make anything of it. Tell me about it.”

“Astrology is part of the science of the past, and of course the science of the present has no place for it, because it is rooted in a discredited notion of the universe, and puts forward a lot of Neo-Platonic ideas that don’t make much sense—until you live with them for a while.”

“Does that remark mean that you believe in astrology yourself?”

“Not as hard-boiled science, certainly. But as psychology—that’s quite another thing. Astrology is based on a notion nobody wants to accept in our wonderfully reasonable Western World, which is that the position of the stars at the moment of your birth governs your life. ‘As above, so below’ is the principle in a nutshell. Utterly dotty, obviously. Lots of people must be born under the same arrangement of stars, and they don’t have similar fates. Of course, it’s necessary to take careful heed of precisely where you were born, and that varies greatly, so far as the stars are concerned. But anyhow, if the astrologer has your date, and time, and place of birth he can cast a horoscope, which can sometimes be quite useful—sometimes no good at all.”

“You sound as if you half believe it, Ruth.”

“Half yes: half not. But it’s rather like the I Ching. Your intuition has to work as well as your reason, and in astrology it’s the intuition of the astrologer that does the trick.”

“Are you strongly intuitive?”

“Well, Girton girl though I am, I have to say yes, against what my reason tells me. Anyhow, what I’m studying is how widespread and how influential astrology was in this part of the world at the time of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, when most people here were fierce Catholics and were supposed to leave all spiritual things—and that meant all psychological things as well—to the Church, which of course knew best, and would see you through if you were a good child. But lots of people didn’t want to be good children. They couldn’t fight down the pull of whatever was in the depths of their being; couldn’t fight it down and couldn’t channel it into being a contemplative, or whatever the Church approved. So they sought out astrologers, and the astrologers were usually in hot water with the Church. Very much like our modern world, where we are supposed to leave everything to science, even when science is something as spook-ridden as psychoanalysis. But people don’t. Astrology is very big business in the extraverted, science-ridden U.S.A., for instance. The Yanks are always whooping it up for Free Will, and every man’s fate being his own creation, and all that, but they’re just as superstitious as the Romans ever were.”

“Well! You’re a funny historian, Ruth.”

“Yes I am, aren’t I?”

“But as a wise man I know—or knew, for the poor fellow is dead now—used to say. Life’s a rum start.”