‘Was it this part of the world that you visited then?’
He smiled and shook his head.
‘That I cannot say. I cannot remember well enough.’
‘You have seen London, of course?’
‘I spent one night there on my way here. That is all my acquaintance with it.’
‘You were in a desperate hurry to reach these remote parts,’ remarked Miss Marjory, laughing. ‘Most men would not have hastened away quite so fast from the gaieties of a London season.’
‘I—I had an introduction to Mr. Meredith,’ answered the stranger with a very slight embarrassment of manner, which did not escape Miss Marjory.
‘Well, I imagine the introduction would have kept,’ she answered lightly. ‘I suppose the fact of the case is, that you had paid Homburg or Baden, or Paris perhaps, a long visit first, and had seen enough of the delights of life to satiate you for a time. Or perhaps,’ she added slily, ‘you were afraid that your reputation would reach this place before you, and scare simple country people, who do not understand gay doings.’
The young man looked relieved at having his way made so plain for him. He bowed and smiled, and remarked with edifying admiration that the Signora was quite too clever—her eyes saw through everything, like the sun at noonday.
‘I always did say my eyes saw a little farther than other people’s,’ answered Miss Marjory, with a little laugh. ‘What a charming man our host is!’ she continued, after a while. ‘So superior to most young men of the present day—just as his father was before him; they are remarkably alike.’