Susannah’s head dropped a little to one side.
“Not so long as you might think,” she said. “I reached it at Viareggio, last summer.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the marquis. “And may one ask how, with such a weight upon your mind, you succeeded in deferring your departure so long?”
“Why, yes! And what is more, I will tell you. I was waiting to furnish the villino. It wasn’t quite complete, you know, until the other day. Did I tell you,” she asked, turning to the Younger, “that the marquis had given me the loveliest little gold salt cellars?”
“Your furniture will be much admired in your American home,” remarked the Elder pleasantly.
“O dear no!” cried Susannah. “I wouldn’t have anything in my American home to remind me of Europe. We have left the villino, just as it stands, to the new tenant.”
“Ah! You must have got something very handsome for so completely equipped an establishment—even to gold salt cellars,” exclaimed the Elder, with an amiable smile.
“Perhaps I might have,” replied Susannah; “but the new tenant could scarcely have afforded that.”
“And may I ask who the happy man may be?” inquired the Elder, with perhaps a shade of interest.
“O, it isn’t a man at all,” said Susannah. “It’s our maid, you know—Gilda. She has been so good—the one good person in Europe, I believe. We bought the house for her, and took the trouble to have a complete inventory put in the deed—down to the door-knockers—so that there might be no misunderstanding about it.”