“That? How can you ask? Bring ten! Bring twenty! Bring as many as you’ve got! As for coming yourself, I’m tickled to death that you’ve reconsidered.”
“It’s not quite as simple as it seems, Mrs. Hawthorne. I shall have to tell you more.”
At her indication, he took the other half of the little dumpling sofa which had seemed to her an appropriate piece of furniture for Flirtation Alcove, and which, with a rug on the floor, formed so far its only decoration. In the clear, bare morning light of outdoors, which bathed them, she still looked triumphantly fresh, but he looked tired.
“It is Lieutenant Giglioli for whom I have come to beg an invitation. You perhaps know whom I mean.”
“Let me see. I can’t tell. Quite a few officers have been introduced, but I never can get their names.”
“Hasn’t Mrs. Foss or Leslie ever spoken of him?”
“Not so far as I can remember. In what way do you mean?”
“They evidently have not.” He seemed to be given pause by this and need to gather force from reflection before going on, as he did after a moment, overcoming his repugnance. “He is the reason for poor Brenda being packed off to America.”
“Oh, is that it?”
“He came to see me last evening and spent most of the night talking of her. We were barely acquainted before; but he knew I am a close friend of the Fosses, and in that necessity to ease their hearts with talk which Italians seem to feel he chose me. I felt sorry for him.”