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other expeditions: much further down the west coast to the bay of St. Gordis, and along the east coast as far as the pretty fishing village of Benityes. At every turn of the road new enchanting vistas opened for them: groups of nispros trees, their golden fruit looking like clusters of small oranges, pink and white magnolias, patches of black-thorn,laburnum and wild pear, and almost always with a background of rocky mountain against a pale blue sky, or cypress against the deeper blue of the sea.
    Another pleasant afternoon was spent in visiting an historic property named Koukouritsa. The old house was situated in the centre of the island, surrounded by a lovely garden and on the summit of a hill, with splendid views in all directions, and of both the Adriatic and Ionian Seas.
    De Richleau took them there to call upon two noble Corfiote widow sisters who were descended from Corfu’s most famous son, Giovanni Capo d’Istria. As a diplomat in the service of Russia he had exercised great influence at the Congress of Vienna and later the Greek National Assembly had elected him as President of the infant Greek Republic when it was still fighting to gain independence from the Turks.
    Over glasses of iced fresh orange juice, which tasted like nectar, the two ladies talked with admiration and affection of Queen Frederika. They maintained that her enemies took despicable advantage of the impulsive way in which she spoke her mind frankly. They recalled the courage with which, just after the war, their Queen had personally led a force of tanks to rescue two thousand of the many thousand Greek children forcibly deported by the Bulgarians to be brought up as Communists, and of her untiring labours to better the lot of her poorer subjects.
    On the intervening days Fleur and Truss went off alone to bathe, laze in the sun with the sweet smell of the pines in their nostrils, talk interminably about setting the world to rights and, in secluded spots, make love.
    Their delight in one another was so obvious that one evening towards the end of the week, when they had gone off to dance, Richard said to his wife and the Duke, ‘Those two youngsters are bats about one another. I really believe now that it’s going to come off and that they’ll be engaged before we leave here.’
    Marie Lou smiled. ‘I do hope you prove right, darling. Anybody can see that he’s got it terribly badly; but I’m not so certain about her. And, of course, she never tells me anything. Still, it does look now as if there’s a chance.’
    The Duke refrained from comment. Like most old people he required little sleep and, although his sight was still good, reading for more than an hour at a time tired his eyes; so for a good part of each night he lay dozing and toying with old memories. His hearing was still good, too, and three times during the past week he thought he had caught the sound of careful footsteps passing his door well before the servants would be up. He had also noted that on the days when Fleur and Truss were not out on a long excursion they both slept through the afternoons, which was unusual in healthy young people.
    When young there had been many happy occasions when he had gone on tiptoe in the dark to be welcomed by a lovely lady in her bedroom; so he would have been the last man to condemn in others such a delightful way of passing most of the night, but in his day that sort of thing had never led to marriage.
    Then, in the Parisian circle in which he had moved, it had been customary for marriages uniting good families or birth and money to be arranged, and only afterwards, while still maintaining most friendly relations with her husband, did the wife consider herself free to indulge her amorous propensities with lovers. Of course, among the peasantry in many parts of Europe the old institution of the
Probennacht
had been maintained for centuries, and after it, should the couple not enjoy themselves, either was