"It is quite possible, my boy." And Hillard did not smile.
"Come, Jack, have you really got it? If you have, why, we'll pack up and leave by the next steamer. I don't care to wander about Italy with a sick man on my hands."
"Don't be hard on me, Dan," pleaded Hillard, smiling now. "Think of all the Kitty Killigrews you've poured into my uncomplaining ears!"
"I got over it each time." But Merrihew felt a warmth in his cheeks.
"Happy man! And, once you see the face of this adventuress, as you call her, Kitty Killigrew will pass with all the other lasses."
"I?" indignantly. "Rot! She won't hold a candle to Kitty."
"No, not a candle, but the most powerful light known to the human eye—perfect beauty." Hillard sighed unconsciously.
"There you go again!" laughed Merrihew. "You tack that sigh to everything you say; and that's what I've been complaining about."
Hillard was human; he might be deeply in love, but this had not destroyed his healthy sense of humor. So he laughed at himself.
Then they mused silently for a while. On either side, from their window-balcony, the lights of Lungarno spread out in a brilliant half-circle, repeating themselves, after the fashion of women, in the mirror of the Arno. On the hill across the river the statue of David was visible above the Piazza Michelangelo.