This might, of course, have been meant in all friendliness; but there was a coldness about the tone, something like giving alms, Bertram thought.
"Have been," he made answer; "but quite well again--quite well."
"I understand you are going to Italy for the winter--for the sake of your health."
"I am going to Italy because I hope I shall be rather less bored in Rome than in Berlin--that is all."
"And suppose you are bored in Rome too?"
"You mean, bores are bored everywhere?"
"No, I do not mean that; indeed, it would have been most disagreeable on my part had I meant anything of the kind. I only wanted to know where people go to from Rome, if they desire still to travel on. To Naples, I should say?"
"To be sure. To Naples, to Capri! In Capri there stands amidst orange groves, with sublimest view of the blue infinity of the ocean, a fair white hostelry, embowered in roses, Quisisana. Years ago I was there, and I have longed ever since to be back again. Qui si sana! What a sound of comfort, of promise! Qui si sana! Here one gets well! Even those who ate fairly well, physically, have something to recover from. Why, life itself--what is it but a long disease, and death its only cure?"
Another pause. He had intended that there should be no new break in their conversation and yet the very words he had just uttered, still under the impulse of the invalid's peevish humour, were little likely to induce the beautiful and taciturn girl by his side to talk. He wanted to make heir talk. It never occurred to him that her silence was due to a lack of ideas, or even to shyness. Quite the reverse. She interested him more and more every moment, and he was strongly impressed that he was dealing with a girl of marked individuality, reposing securely in her own strength. Of her whom he had known and loved as a child, and whose image he had cherished in fondest, truest memory, never a trace!
"You know, Uncle Bertram, that you are going to see Fräulein von Aschhof--Aunt Lydia--to-night?" she resumed abruptly.