“But that chops things up so!” objected Martin, polemically: “And it makes too much of the chain.”
“O! I beg your pardon,” responded the lady bowing slightly: “I thought it was information you wanted.” She turned a little toward the Ponte di Mezzo.
“I suppose you are right,” admitted Martin precipitately, “in a way. But would you really have people live just for the day?” As he stood there with his back against the baking stone of the parapet, his head uncovered to the sun, he became aware that the point of his interest had somehow shifted from the writing above the gate to its interpreter with the parasol. She was not so young, he observed, but neither—on the other hand—was she so old. He felt that he would gladly suffer a sunstroke if he could succeed in prolonging the interpretation.
The lady laughed outright:
“They do! I’m not responsible for it! But what have you against me? An inoffensive person walks down the street, at peace with all the world, when she is suddenly waylaid by a defiant young man whom she has never seen and is forced into the heat of argument—as if the sun were not bad enough already!”
Martin laughed too, albeit not so lightly, for he perceived that the interpretation was at an end:
“I beg pardon for waylaying you. I can only offer you my word that it is not my habit to go about distressing and destroying all ladies, like Sir Breuse Saunce Pitie. I suppose I fancied myself the sole person cognizant of the English language in this town, which I have never seen and which I already hate.”
To his relief the lady did not take instant departure, but laughed again:
“If it comes to apologies we shall be quits. I can only beg you to believe that it is not my habit to stop and chaffer with strange gentlemen. I suppose it was the novelty of your attack that undid me. If you had begun with so harmless a remark as ‘Good morning’ I would have known you at once for an objectionable character; but since you immediately engaged me in the ultimate problems of existence you surprised me out of my conventions!”
“I will offer you any reparation in my power—even to the point of a card!” eagerly rejoined Martin, who detected signs of unrest in the parasol.