“Hum—ah!” said the major, addressing his party, “shall we move on?”
Kyrle watched them with a smile as they moved away across the sunshiny square. He was saying to himself that it would go hard with him if he did not see again the beautiful eyes he had been looking into, and hear the sweet voice which had just bidden him such a kindly adieu.
III.
It was no later than the evening of the same day before he met the party again. He was idly sauntering around the arcades of the Piazza, brilliant with lights and filled with the sound of many tongues, when he heard a voice say, “Oh, there is Mr. Kyrle!” and turning, he encountered Fanny Meredith’s bright glance. She was sitting at one of the tables near the door of a café, with Aimée, Mr. Meredith, and young Joscelyn, taking coffee and ices, and as Lennox paused she went on, gayly:
“Come and join us. You look lonely, and we are stupid. We know each other so well that each knows exactly what the other will say; so, like Punch’s married lovers during the honeymoon, we are ready to welcome a friend, or even an enemy, so he prove entertaining.”
“But how if one should not prove entertaining?” asked Kyrle, who needed no second bidding to take a vacant chair by her side.
“Then you must have made very poor use of your opportunities,” said she, “and changed very much besides—must he not, Aimée?”
This was audacious, Kyrle thought; but glancing at Aimée, he was reassured by her smile.