While George and Billie Dore wandered to the rose garden tointerview the man in corduroys, Maud had been seated not a hundredyards away--in a very special haunt of her own, a cracked stuccotemple set up in the days of the Regency on the shores of a littlelily-covered pond. She was reading poetry to Albert the page.

　　Albert the page was a recent addition to Maud's inner circle. Shehad interested herself in him some two months back in much the samespirit as the prisoner in his dungeon cell tames and pets theconventional mouse. To educate Albert, to raise him above hisgroove in life and develop his soul, appealed to her romanticnature as a worthy task, and as a good way of filling in the time.

　　It is an exceedingly moot point--and one which his associates ofthe servants' hall would have combated hotly--whether Albertpossessed a soul. The most one could say for certain is that helooked as if he possessed one. To one who saw his deep blue eyesand their sweet, pensive expression as they searched the middledistance he seemed like a young angel. How was the watcher to knowthat the thought behind that far-off gaze was simply a speculationas to whether the bird on the cedar tree was or was not withinrange of his catapult? Certainly Maud had no such suspicion. Sheworked hopefully day by day to rouse Albert to an appreciation ofthe nobler things of life.

　　Not but what it was tough going. Even she admitted that. Albert'ssoul did not soar readily. It refused to leap from the earth. Hisreception of the poem she was reading could scarcely have beencalled encouraging. Maud finished it in a hushed voice, and lookedpensively across the dappled water of the pool. A gentle breezestirred the water-lilies, so that they seemed to sigh.

　　"Isn't that beautiful, Albert?" she said.

　　Albert's blue eyes lit up. His lips parted eagerly,"That's the first hornet I seen this year," he said pointing.

　　Maud felt a little damped.

　　"Haven't you been listening, Albert?""Oh, yes, m'lady! Ain't he a wopper, too?""Never mind the hornet, Albert.""Very good, m'lady.""I wish you wouldn't say 'Very good, m'lady'. It's like--like--"She paused. She had been about to say that it was like a butler,but, she reflected regretfully, it was probably Albert's dearestambition to be like a butler. "It doesn't sound right. Just say'Yes'.""Yes, m'lady."Maud was not enthusiastic about the 'M'lady', but she let it go.

　　After all, she had not quite settled in her own mind what exactlyshe wished Albert's attitude towards herself to be. Broadlyspeaking, she wanted him to be as like as he could to a medievalpage, one of those silk-and-satined little treasures she had readabout in the Ingoldsby Legends. And, of course, they presumablysaid 'my lady'. And yet--she felt--not for the first time--that itis not easy, to revive the Middle Ages in these curious days. Pageslike other things, seem to have changed since then.