"Ten days," Kitty murmured. She was more than pretty to-day, and there was malice aforethought in all the little ribbons and trinkets and furbelows. She had dressed expressly for this moment, but Merrihew was not going to be told so. "Ten days," she repeated; and mentally she recounted the pleasant little journeys into the hills and the cherry-pickings.
"And dangling, dangling. I've been hanging in mid-air for nearly a year now. When are you going to put me out of my misery?" His tone was chiding and moody.
"But am I to be blamed if, after having refused twice to marry you, you still persist?" Kitty assumed a judicial air.
"All you have to do," sadly, "is to tell me to clear out."
"That's just it," cried Kitty wrathfully. "If I tell you to go it will be for good; and I don't want you to go that way. I like you; you are cheerful and amusing, and I find pleasure in your company. But every day in the year, breakfast and dinner!" She appealed to the god in the fountain. What unreasonable beings men were!
"But you haven't refused me this time."
"Because I wish to make it as easy as possible for you." Which of the two meanings she offered him was lost upon Merrihew; he saw but one, nor the covert glance, roguish and mischievous withal. "Come, let us be sensible for ten minutes."
Merrihew laid his watch on the bench beside him. Kitty dimpled.
"Don't you love it in Florence?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," scraping the gravel with his crop. "Hillard says I'm finishing my bally education at a canter. I can tell a saint from a gentleman in a night-gown, a halo from a barrel-hoop, and I can drink Chianti without making a face."