I smiled down at her reassuringly. Angry! Why should I be? Instead, I must confess that I felt a decided glow of pleasure at her eager words.
"Tell me something about yourself now," I begged, "and some English news, if there is any."
"English news! Well, old Sir Francis is moping worse than ever since you left; Mr. Rupert Devereux has written the novel of the season; Mr. Francis, from all I can hear of him, is going to the bad; and Maud—they say Maud is engaged to that little fop, Lord Annerley. Is that enough news?"
Yes, it was quite enough! Something told me that she was watching for the effect of her words, and a sort of stubborn pride held my features rigid, and enabled me to answer lightly, and to put the words which I had heard away from me.
We talked for a long time in low tones, exchanging reminiscences and speeches, my share of which I have often since repented. But to meet unexpectedly a countrywoman, especially so charming a one as Lady Olive, in a strange country, when you have seen nothing but strange faces for many months, is sufficient excuse for a little more than cordiality creeping into the conversation. And then there was the influence of the scene and of the night, an influence which no one can properly appreciate who does not know what the long summer nights of Southern Europe are like. Everything seemed steeped in a sort of languid, evanescent beauty. The dark mountains stretching out like giant sentinels into the silvery, glistening bay, the twinkling lights from the low, white houses, the softened strains of the band, the musky air heavily laden with the mingled perfume of the orange grove, the hyacinths, and the more distant vineyards, and Lady Olive's beautiful dark eyes so close to mine, and flashing with such a dangerously sweet light—all these seemed leagued together to stir my senses and my heart. If Lady Olive spoke in a lower tone and with a tenderer accent than she need have done, was I to blame, knowing her to be a flirt, if I followed suit? The wonder is that I forbore to answer the mute invitation of her eyes, and press my lips against the archly tender, oval face, which more than once almost touched mine.
But for the thought that, gone from me for ever though she might be, Maud's kiss was the last upon my lips, assuredly I should have yielded to the fascination of that moment.
Fewer and fewer became our words, until at last we ceased talking altogether, and remained silent, drinking in the exquisite enjoyment of our surroundings.
At last Lady Olive rose reluctantly.
"Mr. Arbuthnot, we must really go. They'll be coming to look for us directly, and, really, if it hadn't been too ridiculous, people might almost imagine that we'd been spooning, mightn't they?"
She blushed as she smoothed down the folds of her white dress, and waited whilst I lit a cigarette. Certainly, if people had entertained that very ridiculous notion there would have been some excuse for them, for our hands had been very close together—very close indeed—and there was a soft light in Lady Olive's lustrous eyes which, to any one who had not known that she was a flirt, and could command them at will, might have suggested love-making. Our tête-à-tête, such as it was, was over for the present, at any rate, for we had scarcely gone a dozen yards when we came upon Lord Parkhurst, with Miss Cissy, who, I found out afterwards, was Lady Olive's youngest sister, and Master Frank, and a tall, sandy-haired man, with bushy eyebrows and an intelligent forehead, whom Lord Parkhurst introduced to me as Mr. Burton Leigh.