“Of course!” assented the young girl. “Like the party you came with on the yacht. That kind of people.”
“Oh dear no!” exclaimed Johnstone. “Not at all those kind of people. They wouldn’t like it at all, if you said so.”
“Ah! indeed!” Clare was inclined to laugh again.
“The party I came with belong rather to a gay set. Awfully nice, you know,” he hastened to add, “and quite the people one knows at home. But my father and mother—oh no! they are quite different—the difference between whist and baccarat, you know, if you understand that sort of thing—old port and brandy and soda—both very good in their way, but quite different.”
“I should think so.”
“Then—” Johnstone hesitated again. “Then, Miss Bowring—you don’t think that your mother really dislikes me, after all?”
“Oh dear no! Not in the least. I’ve heard her say all sorts of nice things about you. ”
“Really? Then I think I’ll stay here. I didn’t want to be a nuisance, you know—always in the way.”
“You’re not in the way,” answered Clare.
Mrs. Bowring came back with her shawl, and the rest of the evening passed off as usual. Later, when she was alone, the young girl remembered all the conversation, and she saw that it had been in her power to make Johnstone leave Amalfi. While she was wondering why she had not done so, since she hated him for what she knew of him, she fell asleep, and the question remained unanswered. In the morning she told the substance of it all to her mother, and ended by telling her that Johnstone’s father was a brewer.