"Perfectly."
"Then again buenas."
"Adios. But shall I not see you again?"
She laughed quietly. "Whenever you please, sir. I shall probably be staying in this hotel for some time yet."
"Would you," I began, and felt myself to flush as I spoke, though no novice at chatting with most kinds of women—"are you in a hurry, that is? Would you come out into the patio down the passage yonder and sit awhile? We shall find some hammock chairs, and if the glare off those tall white walls hurts you, there is an awning to pull down."
She assented very gracefully, and we sat there for a couple of hours, afterwards strolling out past the great amber-coloured cathedral, and on to the walls, whilst the sun sank into the water beyond the little lateen-sailed fishing-boats that dotted the bay. With clever, unobtrusive tact she made herself my eyes. Into her talk she infused the tale of the quick and the still things we passed in our stroll, never entering into pointed descriptions, but rather mentioning them in her chat as though they were of interest to herself alone.
And afterwards, in the evening, she was kind enough to come to a box I had secured at the opera-house—a building which is almost equal to La Scala—and I had the delight of seeing Balfe's "The Talisman" acted, as well as of listening to the music.
She was a woman of perfect self-reliance. She had seen men and women and places. She knew well how the restrictions of society were ruled, but she was quite capable of mapping out her own line of conduct to suit her own ideas. At least I deduced as much, though we exchanged no single word upon the subject. There had arisen between us a camaraderie that for me was delightful. Sadi was good, but his companionship had its limits. She was all Sadi was, and more. It would be a poor compliment to say she was everything a male comrade could be. She was woman through it all. She was thoughtful, bright, amusing, resourceful.
Yet we never verged beyond the bounds of mere camaraderie, nor do I think that either of us wished to do so.