"Don't let's discuss it."
"That is just like an American. Do you wonder women care for Europeans? A man over here would sit down sensibly and tell you every sort of reason."
"Yes, and one sort of reason as well as another. For, or against, whichever way the wind might happen to be blowing!"
In spite of herself, Nina was disagreeably conscious of the truth of his judgment. But she shut her mind to it, as she exclaimed, "And you say you don't dislike Italian men!"
"No, I don't! You are altogether wrong. I have been over here often enough to admire them tremendously, in a great many ways. But I don't like to see the girl I—the girl I have known all her life, marry a man that I feel sure will break her heart."
"Aunt Eleanor's heart is not broken!"
Derby walked up and down the floor, then stood still, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and looked down at his shoes as though their varnish were the only thing in life that interested him.
"Well? Is Aunt Eleanor's heart broken?"
"Perhaps not; but, even so, you and she are very different women. From her girlhood she was more or less trained for the life she leads. She went from a convent school to the house of a brother-in-law—in other words, from one dependence to another. She is the type of woman who weathers change and storm by bending to the wind."
"Aunt Eleanor! Hers is the strongest character I know!"