“And you have a letter from him to-day?” he asked, after a while.
“I have a letter from him almost every day.”
He looked down at her with an air of genuine astonishment.
“What can a man of seventy say in a letter almost every day?” he asked.
“He can say a great deal. He wants me to marry him!”
He laughed aloud, and then exclaimed gayly:
“What a great lady you will be! and how nice you will look in your mourning!” and then he threw his cigarette away and laughed afresh.
His laughter was so infectious that she laughed also.
“He writes me how happy I would be with him,” she continued merrily; “and he is very positive about it, too. How can he think that I would really wish to marry him?”
“He can think it very well from the newspapers of your land. Is he not a marquis? If I did not love you, I should always have surprise to think that you are an American, and will not let me make you a great lady.”