“I don't know that,” said Maitland, half languidly; “perhaps I have grown more tolerant, or more indifferent,—what may be another name for the same thing; but I rather liked the young women. Have we any more stairs to mount?”
“No; here you are;” and Mark reddened a little at the impertinent question. “I have put you here because this was an old garçon apartment I had arranged for myself; and you have your bath-room yonder, and your servant, on the other side of the terrace.”
“It's all very nice, and seems very quiet,” said Maitland.
“As to that, you'll not have to complain; except the plash of the sea at the foot of those cliffs, you 'll never hear a sound here.”
“It's a bold thing of you to make me so comfortable, Lyle. When I wrote to you to say I was coming, my head was full of what we call country-house life, with all its bustle and racket,—noisy breakfasts and noisier luncheons, with dinners as numerous as tables d'hôte. I never dreamed of such a paradise as this. May I dine here all alone when in the humor?”
“You are to be all your own master, and to do exactly as you please. I need not say, though, that I will scarce forgive you if you grudge us your company.”
“I'm not always up to society. I'm growing a little footsore with the world, Lyle, and like to lie down in the shade.”
“Lewis told me you were writing a book,—a novel, I think he said,” said Mark.
“I write a book! I never thought of such a thing. Why, my dear Lyle, the fellows who—like myself—know the whole thing, never write! Have n't you often remarked that a man who has passed years of life in a foreign city loses all power of depicting its traits of peculiarity, just because, from habit, they have ceased to strike him as strange? So it is. Your thorough man of the world knows life too well to describe it. No, no; it is the creature that stands furtively in the flats that can depict what goes on in the comedy. Who are your guests?”
Mark ran over the names carelessly.