Honest to God, she was the image of my adolescent heroines. She had a heart-shaped face, ivory pale, and framed by clouds of dark hair so fine the ends floated out in the still air. Her eyes were big and wide-set, framed by long, curling lashes. Her mouth was a pink-coral masterpiece; her nose was narrow and aristocratic. She was sitting down, but I knew she wasn’t tall. She wouldn’t be tall. She probably had a figure as petite and fine-boned as her face.

I thought things I prefer not to admit, much less write down. I said, “Guten Tag. I have reserved a room.”

“Guten Tag, gnädige Frau. Ihr Name, bitte?”

Her voice was a false note in the picture of perfect grace. It was flat and hoarse, and quite expressionless. Her lovely face was blank, too. The big dark eyes regarded me without favor.

I gave her my name, and she nodded stiffly.

“We have your letter. I am sorry to say we cannot offer the luxury to which you Americans are accustomed. The Schloss is being renovated and the rooms in the chateau are all occupied. You requested a chamber in the older portion of the Schloss, but—”

“No, that’s fine,” I said heartily.

My big friendly grin won no response. If anything, the girl’s expression became slightly more hostile.

“Aber, I forget. Americans like the old, the ruinous, the decayed, do they not? Come, then, and I will show you the room.”

She insisted on carrying both my suitcases. As I had expected, she was a tiny little thing, and her refusal to let me touch my heavy bags made me feel like a boor as well as a big lumbering clod. I suspect that was what she had in mind. She didn’t seem to like me much. But short of wrestling her for the suitcases, I couldn’t do anything but follow meekly.

We went out the back entrance into the central court. The walls forming the other three sides of the court were a marvelous mixture of architectural styles—not surprising in a place that had had nine centuries in which to develop. The wing to my left was of the timber-and-stucco type, like many of the houses in town, but bigger and more elaborate. Scaffolding shielded its face, and there were pieces of lumber and miscellaneous tools scattered around—the renovations of which the girl had spoken, I gathered.

The right wing was a four-story sixteenth-century construction, with richly carved window frames and an ornate Renaissance roofline. But the wall straight ahead was old—old enough to have been standing long before Count Burckhardt’s time. Its great doorway had a massive stone lintel with a crumbling bas-relief in the shape of a shield bearing the Drachenstein device—a dragon crouched on a rock.

The courtyard was beautifully tended, and as pretty as a postcard. The grass was a rich, velvety green, and shrubs and flower beds were scattered about. A thick hedge hid the part of the court to my right. From behind its shelter came a murmur of voices. Other guests, I thought—and I wondered whether I knew any of them.