"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?"