‘And I sang a little French song, “Si vous n’avez rien à me dire,” which you were vain enough to imagine was a question addressed to yourself; and you made me a sort of declaration; do you remember all that?’
‘Every word of it.’
‘Why don’t you go and speak to my cousin; she has opened the window and gone out upon the terrace, and I trust you understand that she expects you to follow her.’ There was a studied calm in the way she spoke that showed she was exerting considerable self-control.
‘No, no, Nina, it is with you I desire to speak; to see you that I have come here.’
‘And so you do remember that you made me a declaration? It made me laugh afterwards as I thought it over.’
‘Made you laugh!’
‘Yes, I laughed to myself at the ingenious way in which you conveyed to me what an imprudence it was in you to fall in love with a girl who had no fortune, and the shock it would give your friends when they should hear she was a Greek.’
‘How can you say such painful things, Nina? how can you be so pitiless as this?’
‘It was you who had no pity, sir; I felt a deal of pity; I will not deny it was for myself. I don’t pretend to say that I could give a correct version of the way in which you conveyed to me the pain it gave you that I was not a princess, a Borromeo, or a Colonna, or an Altieri. That Greek adventurer, yes—you cannot deny it, I overheard these words myself. You were talking to an English girl, a tall, rather handsome person she was—I shall remember her name in a moment if you cannot help me to it sooner—a Lady Bickerstaffe—’
‘Yes, there was a Lady Maude Bickerstaffe; she merely passed through Rome for Naples.’