"Indeed?" exclaimed Batiscombe. "To pass the summer?"
"Oh no; only for a week, I suppose. Do you know? I am rather glad; I hardly know her at all, and she seems so hard to know."
"Hard to know?" repeated Julius. "Perhaps she is. It is always hard to know very charming women."
"Is it?" asked Leonora, smiling at the frankness of the remark; it seemed to her that he had found it easy enough to swear friendship with her half an hour ago. "Is it? Is she such a very charming woman?"
"Yes, indeed," he answered.
"Yes to which question?"
"Both," said Julius. "Madame de Charleroi is charming, and it is very hard to know women of her sort well. Think how long it is since I first met you, Marchesa, and we are just beginning to know each other."
"Do you think we are?" asked Leonora. She was full of questions.
"I think so—yes. At least, I hope so," he said with a pleasant smile.
"If you were writing a book about us, Mr. Batiscombe, would you say that we were beginning to know each other? no one would believe that we stopped in the road and shook hands and swore to be friends. It would be very amusing, would it not? I do not know why we did it; I wish you would explain." She laughed a little, and stuck the point of her parasol into the earth. Batiscombe laughed too.