"Oh, my dear Saint, don't put on your long-distance manner, and forget everything that hasn't a direct connection with heaven. But these two quite look as if they'd just been up there by special aeroplane. Don't you remember my telling you, Dick's awfully in love with this girl, and took me to see her again yesterday, though she never returned my first call? But I was glad I went, because she was really sweet and charming, and I hated to think of her living in that deadly villa."
"Yes, I remember distinctly," said Winter, with a twinkle of humour in the eyes which seemed always to see things that no one else could see. "You told me when I was in the midst of writing a sermon, and had got to a particularly knotty point; so I tangled Dick and his love affairs into the knot, while trying to put them out of my mind. I'm afraid they didn't do my sermon much good. And beautiful as Miss Grant may be, I won't dislocate my neck to look at her in a tram. I advise you not to do so, either. Set our German friends a good example."
"Why is it the best of people always advise you not to do all the things you want to do, and vice versa?" observed Rose, pleased with her success in catching Mary's eye. They bowed to each other, smiling warmly. Vanno took off his hat, and Rose thought him exactly what a prince ought to be and generally is not.
"That's the wife of the English chaplain at Monte Carlo," Mary informed Vanno, in a stage whisper, "She's an American. She called on me yesterday; and only think, though she'd never seen me before, she said she would like me to visit her."
"Did you accept?" Vanno asked.
Mary shook her head. "No. It would have hurt Lady Dauntrey's feelings, perhaps. And besides, yesterday I—I thought of going away soon, to Italy—to Florence. I was travelling to Florence when suddenly it occurred to me to get off at Monte Carlo instead. Oh, how thankful I am now! Think, if we had never met?"
"We should have met. I was following you from Marseilles, you know, and watching to see where you got off. What can your people have been made of, letting you run about alone—a girl like you?"
"Oh, but I have no people—who count. Only such a disagreeable aunt and her daughter! I haven't written to them since I came here. I telegraphed, and gave no address. I shall not write—until—until——"
"I know what you mean, though you won't say it. 'Until we are married.' You need not, unless you like, for they must have been brutes of women to have been disagreeable to you. But I wish you would stay with this lady—the chaplain's wife. Or else with my sister-in-law. I shall go to see her and Angelo to-morrow morning, and tell them about you. I'll ask them to call at once, and then—I feel almost sure—Marie will invite you to visit her. Would you accept? For that would be best of all. And in any case we must be married from their house."
"Marie!" Mary echoed the name, her voice dwelling upon it caressingly. "Marie! That was the name of my—not my best, but my second best friend at school. We were three Maries. It will be good of your Marie to call on me; but she is a bride, and it's still her honeymoon. Do you think, if we—that is——"