‘Lovely! Lovely!’ the girl cried, and now at last Sir Robert could see her face clearly, and he almost echoed her words aloud.

She was lovely, yes, lovely. He had never seen a more strange, more arresting face. And how young she was! She was as young as the day just beginning before their very eyes, as young as the buds on the mimosa trees, as the spring shoots of pale green amongst the olives, as the blossom in the orange groves.

‘I feel your name ought to be Dawn,’ he said.

As if with an effort she took her eyes from the landscape and looked up at him.

‘Dawn!’ she repeated. ‘Oh no, it is Mistral.’

‘Mistral!’ he repeated. ‘What a strange name for a girl! It is the name of a very unpleasant wind in this part of the world.’

‘Yes, I know that,’ Mistral replied.

There was something in her tone which told him it would not be wise to question her further on this subject. Instead he asked,

‘And what is your other name?’

She was an the point of telling him, for her lips moved to frame the word, but then quickly, as if she suddenly remembered something, a shadow appeared to pass over her face.

‘I – I had best not tell you that,’ she replied. ‘As you know, I have no right to be here. My aunt would be very angry with me. It was wrong, very wrong of me to come without permission, but I was awake and Sister Heloise told me so often how beautiful the dawn was. And she was right –absolutely right.’

‘I think you, too, were right to come and see for yourself,’ Sir Robert said. ‘I have found in my life that it is always wiser to do what one wants and ask permission afterwards.’

Mistral smiled.

‘The Nuns would say that was a prevarication of right and wrong.’

‘And do you always do what the Nuns taught you?’

‘Always up to now. I have never had the opportunity of doing anything else. You see, I only left the Convent a little over a week ago.’

‘You have been there a long time?’

‘Since I was six.’

‘Six!’ Sir Robert repeated. But your home? You live in France?’

‘Please, you must not ask me so many questions,’ Mistral replied.

‘I am sorry.’ Sir Robert spoke seriously. ‘You must think me extremely gauche and ill bred, but it is just that you are so very different from anyone I have ever met before, and there is something very intriguing at having encountered each other at dawn, neither of us knowing who we are or when we may meet again. Will you permit me, Mademoiselle, to introduce myself?’

‘As there is no one else to do it, I suppose you must,’ Mistral replied.

She smiled again and Sir Robert thought that it was like the sun touching the blue of the sea.