“Venice?” said Miss Elver. “I’ve not been there.”
“Florence, then. Don’t you like Florence?”
“Nor there, either.”
“Rome? Naples?”
Miss Elver shook her head.
“We’ve only been here,” she said. “All the time.”
Her brother, who had been sitting, bent forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him, looking down at the floor, broke silence. “The fact is,” he said in his harsh high voice, “my sister has to keep quiet; she’s doing a rest cure.”
“Here?” asked Mr. Cardan. “Doesn’t she find it a bit hot? Rather relaxing?”
“Yes, it’s awfully hot, isn’t it?” said Miss Elver. “I’m always telling Philip that.”
“I should have thought you’d have been better at the sea, or in the mountains,” said Mr. Cardan.