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Lucy it looked like something out of a fairy tale. Dazzlingly white where it was not smothered in the wine purple of bougainvillea, the Villa des Fleurs lived up to its name. It was set in the most perfect garden Lucy had ever seen. Flower beds, breathtakingly vivid, dominated the scene. And as if that were not enough, flowering shrubs grew with a luxuriance that they can never attain in a colder climate. The eye rested almost gratefully on the deep green of trees which provided not only shade but an impressive background for the brilliance of the flowers. Lucy thought she caught the glimpse of blue water among the trees, but by this time the car had stopped and the door was opened for her to get out.
    The villa was a long, low building, roofed in green tiles and having green shutters at the windows. Along its full length was a terrace protected from the heat of the sun by a green and white striped awning. As Lucy got out she saw that Mr. Keane—a very different Mr. Keane from the precise professional man for whom she had worked in London—had been waiting to welcome them and now he came to the car.
    Naturally, the first concern was to help Mrs. Mayberry from the car and indoors, but now, in her pleasure at seeing her brother—and perhaps in relief that the journey was over—she seemed to gain both strength and mobility in an amazing way, and refused all but the minimum amount of assistance. Owen, however, had evidently no intention of allowing her to overtax herself further. After allowing the brother and sister a few minutes to greet one another, he coaxed his aunt into her chair and wheeled her indoors with Bertha trotting beside him. Mr. Keane turned to Lucy, who had been standing rather shyly in the background.
    “Fm extremely glad to see you, my dear,” he said pleasantly. “And I hope you will thoroughly enjoy yourself here.”
    “I’m sure I shall,” Lucy said, grateful not only for his kindly welcome but because there was no hint, either in his manner or in the way he looked at her, that he was in the least bit curious as to how she had weathered the blow he knew she had received. She had been just a little bit afraid that, in all kindness, he might ask questions, but clearly that was not going to be so. “I think it was very, very kind of you to be willing for me to come."
    Stanley Keane smiled. He had always liked this girl who had worked so well for him, believing her to be a particularly nice-natured person—sensitive, too. That was why, as soon as it had been suggested that she should come here, he had made up his mind that she should quickly be assured that the past was, as far as he was concerned, a permanently closed book; That he had been right in thinking that she was the last person who would want to snivel over her broken love story had been made perfectly clear by the gratitude she could not hide. Well, she was right,, of course, and he sincerely hoped that one of these days she would find that the reward for her courage was that she had forgotten the young man who had treated her so scurvily and had fallen genuinely in love with a worthwhile man. But that wasn’t the sort of thing you said to the person concerned. You just waited and hoped on their account.
    “I was delighted when my sister wrote to me suggesting it,” he told her. “And though I know you and she intend working, I'm sure there will be plenty of time for you to get about and see something of the place. I must admit that I’m too old now to enjoy racketing about and I spend most of my time in the garden here.”
    “I don’t wonder,” Lucy said warmly. “It’s so very beautiful."
    “Yes, it is,” Mr. Keane agreed, and laughed softly. “You know, it was left to me by an old friend and client some years ago. When I heard about it, I admit I wasn’t particularly pleased. I had no use for a villa on the Cote d’Azur, and it simply meant that I was faced with the bother of selling it. However, I decided to look at the