“I wonder where Mr. Levant is? Has he gone to the hotel? I haven’t seen him all the evening. How one misses him, doesn’t one?”
“Yes,” said Doris. “That is our tribute to his amiability.”
Lady Despard laughed.
“He is quite the bright particular star of our group,” she said. “Some of our fair Florentine friends are almost mad about him. I shouldn’t wonder if he were caught and chained before we leave.”
“Yes?” said Doris.
Lady Despard leaned over the hammock and regarded her with a lazy smile.
“What a cold little ‘yes,’” she said. “I really believe you are the only woman here who doesn’t admire him.”
“But I do admire him,” said Doris, smiling in return. “I think he is the handsomest man I ever saw——” She stopped and picked up the book, for unnoticed by Lady Despard he had come up and stood beside the hammock.
“May one inquire the subject of Miss Marlowe’s encomium?” he asked, and he looked from one to the other with his usual smile, but Doris, glancing up at him, saw, or fancied she saw, the shadow of the darkness which she, and she alone, had discovered his face could wear.
“Oh, no one you know,” said Lady Despard. “May one ask where you have been all this long while?”