“But why should they be snobs?”
“I don’t know; perhaps the mountains like it. There, look yonder, our road leads along that ledge till we reach Chiasso, about twelve miles off; do you think you can last that long without breakfast? There, there, don’t make that pitiful face; you shall have your beefsteak, and your chocolate, and your eggs, and all the other claims of your Anglo-Saxon nature, whose birthright it is to growl for every twenty-four hours, and ‘grub’ every two.”
They gained the little inn at Orta by the evening, and learned, as Calvert expected, that nothing had changed in his absence—indeed what was there to change—so long as the family at the villa remained in the cottage. All was to Calvert as he left it.
Apologising to his friend for a brief absence, he took boat and crossed the lake. It was just as they had sat down to tea that he entered the drawing-room.
If there was some constraint in the reception of him, there was that amount of surprise at his appearance that half masked it “You have been away, Mr. Calvert?” asked Miss Grainger.
“Yes,” said he, carelessly, “I got a rambling fit on me, and finding that Loyd had started for England, I grew fidgety at being alone, so I went up to Milan, saw churches and galleries, and the last act of a ballet; but, like a country mouse, got home-sick for the hard peas and the hollow tree, and hurried back again.”
After some careless talk of commonplaces he managed at last to secure the chair beside Florence’s sofa, and affected to take an interest in some work she was engaged at. “I have been anxious to see you and speak to you, Florry,” said he, in a low tone, not audible by the others. “I had a letter from Loyd, written just before he left. He has told me everything.”
She only bent down her head more deeply over her work, but did not speak.
“Yes; he was more candid than you,” continued he. “He said you were engaged—that is—that you had owned to him that you liked him, and that when the consent he hoped for would be obtained, you would be married.”
“How came he to write this to you?” said she, with a slight tremor in her voice.