He started. "Miss Lynde here—in Rome!" he asked. "No, I had not heard it. Why has she come?"
"To see and to be with me," answered Claire, calmly. "You know, perhaps, that we are great friends."
"I have heard Miss Lynde speak of you," he said, regaining self-possession; "and if the friendship struck me as rather a strange one, knowing little of you as I did then, you may be sure that it strikes me now as more than strange. I have never met two people in my life who seemed to me to have less in common."
"Pardon me!" returned Claire. "You think so because you do not know either of us very well. We have really a great deal in common, and I doubt if any one in the world knows Marion as well as I do."
He looked at her with a sudden keen glance from under brows somewhat bent. "Are you not aware that I had at one time reason to fancy that I knew Miss Lynde quite well?" he asked.
"Yes," said Claire, with frankness; "I know. She has told me of that. But in such a relation as the one which existed between you for a time, people sometimes learn very little of each other. And I think that perhaps you did not learn very much of her."
"I learned quite enough," he replied,—"all that was necessary to convince me that I had made a great mistake. And there can be no doubt that Miss Lynde reached the same conclusion. That, I believe, is all that there is to say of the matter." He paused a moment, then added, "If she is here, I hope it will not be unpleasant to her to meet me; since I should be sorry to be banished from this salon, which Mrs. Kerr and yourself make so attractive."
"There is no reason for banishment, unless you desire it," said Claire. "Marion does not object to meeting you. But I think that there are one or two things that you ought to know before you meet her. Are you aware, in the first place, that she has given up your uncle's fortune?"
"No," he answered, very much startled. "Why has she done so?"
"Because Mr. Singleton's son appeared, and she thought that he should in justice possess his father's fortune. Do you not think she was right?"