“Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Severne, you amuse me.”
“You only interest me,” was the soft reply.
Zoe blushed pink, but turned it off. “Then why do you not attend to my interesting narrative, instead of—Well, then, it began with my asking the dear fellow to take me a tour, especially to Rome.”
“You wanted to see the statues of your ancestors, and shame them.”
“Much obliged; I was not quite such a goose. I wanted to see the Tiber, and the Colosseum, and Trajan's Pillar, and the Tarpeian Rock, and the one everlasting city that binds ancient and modern history together.”
She flashed her great eyes on him, and he was dumb. She had risen above the region of his ideas. Having silenced her commentator, she returned to her story, “Well, dear Harrington said 'yes' directly. So then I told Fanny, and she said, 'Oh, do take me with you?' Now, of course I was only too glad to have Fanny; she is my relation, and my friend.”
“Happy girl!”
“Be quiet, please. So I asked Harrington to let me have Fanny with us, and you should have seen his face. What, he travel with a couple of us! He—I don't see why I should tell you what the monster said.”
“Oh, yes, please do.”
“You won't go telling anybody else, then?”