"We only came yesterday afternoon," Aurora answered. "We did not know that—that Signor Consalvi was here, or we should not have come at all."
It had stung her to hear Regina speak of him quite naturally by his first name. Regina felt the rebuke.
"I am truly sorry that I should have accidentally found myself in your path," she said, emphasising the rather grand phrase, and holding her handsome head very high.
Aurora almost smiled at this sudden manifestation of the peasant's nature, and wondered whether Regina ever said such things to Marcello, and whether, if she did, they jarred on him very much. The speech had the very curious effect of restoring Aurora's sense of superiority, and she answered more kindly.
"You need not be sorry," she said. "If you had not chanced to be here I should probably be lying amongst the rocks down there with several broken bones."
"If it were not by my fault I should not care," Regina retorted, with elementary frankness.
"But I should!" Aurora laughed, in spite of herself, and liking this phase of Regina's character better than any she had yet seen. "Come," she said, with a sudden generous impulse, and holding out her hand, "let us stop quarrelling. You saved me from a bad accident, and I was too ungenerous to be grateful. I thank you now, with all my heart."
Regina was surprised and stared hard at her for a moment, and then glanced at her outstretched hand.
"You would not take my hand if there were any one here to see."
"Why not?"