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On his return to the Plaza Mr Saet some conversation with Manella, but found it difficult She did not wait on the visitors in the dining-rooined he knew the reason why Her beauty was of too brilliant and riante a type to escape the notice and admiration ofto her, and annoying to her employers She was therefore kept veryon the upper floors, and was only seen flitting up and down the staircase or passing through the various corridors and balconies However, when evening fell and its dark, still heat e, cooled as it was by a fountain in full play, alarden, found her there standing near a thick hedge ofcrushed between invisible fingers She looked up as she saw hi and smiled
"You found your friend well?" she said
"Very well, indeed!" replied Gwent, proave her peculiar little uplift of the head which was one of her estures
"He is not ill"--she said--"He only pretends! That is all! He has sohed
"Not a bit of it! He's the last lanced him over with quite a superior air
"Ah, perhaps you do not know!" And she waved her hands expressively "There was a wonderful lady cao--she stole up the hill at night, like a spirit--a little, little fairy woolden hair--"
Gwent pricked up his ears and stood at attention
"Yes? Really? You don't say so! 'A little fairy woman'? Sounds like a story!"
"She wore theher hands in ecstasy--"She stayed at the Plaza one night--I waited upon her I saw her in her bed--she had skin like satin, and eyes like blue stars--her hair fell nearly to her ankles--she was like a dreaht all by herself, to find HIM!"
Gwent listened with close interest
"And I presuh escaped her
"Oh, yes, she found hi tells ainst her heart--"by the way he spoke--that he loves her!"