I laughed.
"You are a very observant person," I remarked.
She drew a little closer to me. Somehow or other I found the sense of her near presence a delightful thing. All her garment seemed imbued with a faint perfume, as though of violets.
"I think that I have only become so quite lately," she said. "Perhaps it is because I have lived such a quiet life, and now things are so different. My uncle has been so mysterious, especially during the last few days, and I suppose it has made me suspicious. Wherever we go, I always seem to fancy that some one is watching us. Besides, I am sure that that young man was a South American, and I hate South Americans!"
"I fancy," I said, "that the attention he bestowed upon us was due to a more obvious cause."
"Please do not talk like that," she begged. "I do not wish for compliments from you. I have been told always that Englishmen are so truthful. One has compliments from Frenchmen, from Spaniards, and from South Americans. They fall like froth from their lips, and one knows all the time that it means nothing, and less than nothing. It is such a pity!"
"Why a pity?" I asked, more for the sake of keeping her talking than anything. "Certainly it is a picturesque habit of speech."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I do not like it," she said quietly. "By degrees, one comes to believe nothing that any man says, even when he is in earnest. Remember, Capitaine Rotherby, I hope that I shall never hear a compliment from you."
"I will be careful," I promised her, "but you must remember that there is sometimes a very fine distinction. I may be driven to say something which sounds quite nice, because it is the truth."