"Have you ever been to Athens, Sir Oliver?" he asked. "Have you seen the Parthenon in the sunlight?" His eyes were alight with enthusiasm. "It is pure genius. All the measurements are slightly off the true, to give an optical illusion of perfect grace to the observer... and it succeeds brilliantly." He flung his arms out, almost hitting a middle-aged man with a gray mustache. He apologized absently and continued to Rathbone. "Can you imagine the minds of the men who built that? And here we are two thousand years later struck silent with awe at its beauty."
Unconsciously he was walking more rapidly than before, and Rathbone had to increase his pace to keep up with him.
"And Tuscany!" he went on, his face glowing. "All Italy, really-Venice, Pisa, Sienna; but the Tuscan Renaissance architecture has a sublime simplicity to it. Classical without being grandiose. A superb sense of color and proportion. One could look at it forever. The arcades... the domes! Have you seen the round windows? It all seems part of nature, sprung from it, not vying against... there is a mellowness. Nothing jars. That is the secret. A unity with the land, never alien, never offending the vision or the mind. And they know how to use terraces, and trees, especially cypress. They lead the eye perfectly from one point to the next-"
"The restaurant," Rathbone interrupted.
"What?"
"The restaurant," the barrister repeated. "We must have luncheon before we return."
"Oh. Yes... I suppose so." Obviously it had slipped Melville's mind. It was an irrelevance.
The first witness of the afternoon was Zillah Lambert herself. She took the oath with a grave, trembling voice and looked up to face Sacheverall. She was very pale, but so far composed. She wore cream trimmed with palest green and it complemented her perfectly. Her glorious hair was piled richly on her head rather than tied severely back, and she looked vulnerable and very young. Yet there was a brightness about her like the glancing sunlight of April, as if she brought a breath of the spring countryside with her.
Without realizing, the jurors smiled at her. She was utterly unaware of them, looking only at Sacheverall. Not once did her eyes stray to Melville, as if she could not bear to look at him. No one could have failed to be aware of it.
"I regret the necessity for this, Miss Lambert," Sacheverall began, as Rathbone had known he would. "But it is absolutely unavoidable, otherwise I should not subject you to this embarrassment, and an ordeal which must be terribly distressing to you."
"I understand," she whispered. "Please do what you must."
Sacheverall smiled warmly at her. "Miss Lambert, has Mr. Killian Melville been a constant visitor at your home over the last two years?"
"Yes sir."
"To see only your father, or also your mother and yourself?"
"He spent a great deal of time with us too," she replied. "He often dined with us and would stay afterwards late into the evening. He and I would talk of all manner of things, our hopes and beliefs, our experiences, whatever we found beautiful or interesting, funny or sad." She blinked hard, trying to keep away the tears. She glanced momentarily at Melville, and then away again. "He was the best and gentlest companion I ever had. He was wise and honest and yet he could make me laugh more than anyone else I knew. He told me wonderful tales of some of the places he had visited, what he had seen and how he felt about them... and the things he planned to build. He knows a great deal about history, most particularly the history of art in Italy. I-I find it wonderful to listen to him, because he cares so much."
A certain tightness pulled Sacheverall's mouth and his eyes were sharp.
"Quite so," he said tensely. "In short, Miss Lambert, one might say he courted you." That was a conclusion, not a question. He went straight on. "He spoke of his feelings, he shared his hopes for the future, he showed an extraordinary trust in you that we may assume he did with no one else. Did he make it unmistakable that he cared for you deeply, whatever ways, or words, he chose to use?"
"Yes... I believed so." She was obliged to reach into her reticule for a handkerchief with which to dab her eyes. "Excuse me."
"Of course." Sacheverall was instantly tender. "I imagine every man in this room will understand how you feel-except for Melville,