Courts of Idleness by Dornford Yates

taking any himself. When he wrote that, he was in Italy. Enthusiasts would style that an accident: I should call it a precaution.”
    Phyllis Fettering laughed. Then:
    “Has he had much to make him cynical?” she said.
    “I protest,” said Robin aggrievedly. “I do hereby protest. Mine is an approving nature. I’m always getting lost in Admiration.”
    “Where’s that?” said Phyllis.
    “Where? Why, in Thought. You must know the great city of Thought, with all her parishes, Memory, Wonderment, Melancholy, Awe, and the rest. Don’t you ever go there?”
    “I think so. Tell me about it.”
    Broke shook his head.
    “If you know it, there’s nothing to tell. Only I’m rather fond of going there and wandering about its broad, silent streets. It has three great quarters, you know – Past, Present, Future and – and lots of parishes. Past I know well. Sometimes I lose my way though,” he added reflectively. “It grows so quickly, you see, and if I’m looking for some special—”
    “Lost again? You said just now you were always getting lost—”
    “In Admiration, my dear. Same thing. Still, most of that parish lies in Present. For instance, I’m lost in present admiration of your throat. I love throats.”
    “From the way you speak anyone would think you collected them.”
    “So I do,” said Robin. “Keep them in the south wing of a little gallery I have in Bond Street, Past, W. Yours will have a room to itself.”
    “Thanks awfully. I suppose you saw ‘The Blue Bird’?”
    “If you accuse me of plagiarism—”
    “I am congratulating you upon your memory.”
    Broke glanced at her. She was looking straight between her horse’s ears, her chin ever so slightly tilted and a faint smile on her lips. After a pause:
    “Your name,” he said, “is Mockery. Upon the hills of Rih you flout—”
    “The dreamer who was kind and shared his dreams with a friend.” She turned a glowing face to him, and for a second a little hand rested on his arm. “You mustn’t take me too seriously.”
    “You darling,” said Robin. As he spoke, her horse broke into a trot.
    Five minutes later they halted before the high painted gates of a garden whose villa seemed to stand far back from the road.
    Miss Fettering turned to Broke.
    “This,” she said, “is the Quinta Viola. No one lives here but an old gardener, who is given a trifle to keep the garden from becoming a wilderness. Would you like to see it?”
    “Please.”
    Then put your hand up under that wisteria and ring the bell. The old man will know it’s me, because no one else rings. You can’t reach the bell unless you’re mounted, because there’s only an inch or two of the chain left.”
    Robin moved to the spot she indicated and felt under the purple tassels. The next moment the jangle of an old bell came faintly from the direction of the house.
    In silence they sat waiting till they heard a shuffle of steps beyond the gates. Then one of these swung open, and an old man stood uncovered while they rode within. Under the shadow of tall trees about the drive, that swept to the villa’s entrance, they dismounted, giving the reins to a bare-legged urchin, who received them with a shy smile. Then:
    “This way,” said Phyllis, stepping towards a broad path that clearly led into the depths of the garden.
    Out of the tall trees’ shadow they passed into the hot sunshine, a glowing riot of colour on either hand, and so to where the path ran between the faded pillars of a long corridor. At the entrance to the latter Phyllis Fettering stopped.
    “Isn’t that beautiful?” she said.
    The corridor might have been hewn through a hill of living blossom. Here, not content to make a gorgeous canopy, a bougainvillea streamed down the sides of the pergola, staining with scarlet the snowy fabric of screens that clustering roses made, while further along the gaudy yellow of bignonias hung down beside a purple arras of wisteria, now in its full beauty. Framed in the