“I—I beg your pardon,” she said. “I am afraid I was not listening——”
Lady Despard laughed.
“What a dreamer you are, dear,” she said, banteringly. “I often wish you would sell me your thoughts for the proverbial penny; they should be worth it, judging by your face. Does she sell them—or give them to you, Mr. Levant?”
He shrugged his shoulders, and pushed a loose pebble from the coping of the bridge into the water.
“‘My thoughts are all I have, but they’re my own,’” he quoted. “Will you tell me what you were thinking of, Doris?” he added, in a low voice.
A dash of color came into the pale face.
“They were not worth telling,” she said, with a little twinge in her voice. “I—I scarcely know what I was thinking about!”
“Just dreaming, dreaming,” said her ladyship.
“Well, you couldn’t have come to a more suitable place than sleepy, old Pescia, where nothing happens, or has happened since the Ghibellines and the Florentines used to squabble and fight,” said Percy Levant. “By the way, though, something has happened; there has been a new arrival lately. I met a handsome carriage in the Via Grandia, and was told that it belonged to some great English milord, who had come for the benefit of his health.”
Lady Despard yawned.