“News!” scoffed Beatrice. “It's news and nonsense—the product of your irrepressible imagination. Mr. What's-this-his-name-is, as you call him, and I are the barest acquaintances. He's our temporary neighbour—the tenant for the season of Villa Floriano—the house you can catch a glimpse of, below there, through the trees, on the other side of the river.”
“Is he, now, really? And that's very interesting too. But I wasn't denying it.” Mrs. O'Donovan Florence smiled, with derisive sweetness. “The fact of his being the tenant of the house I can catch a glimpse of, through the trees, on the other side of the river, though a valuable acquisition to my stores of knowledge, does n't explain away his famished glance unless, indeed, he's behind with the rent: but even then, it's not famished he'd look, but merely anxious and persuasive. I'm a landlord myself. No, Trixie, dear, you've made roast meat of the poor fellow's heart, as the poetical Persians express it; and if he has n't told you so yet with his tongue, he tells the whole world so with his eyes as often as he allows them to rest on their loadstone, your face. You can see the sparks and the smoke escaping from them, as though they were chimneys. If you've not observed that for yourself, it can only be that excessive modesty has rendered you blind. The man is head over ears in love with you. Nonsense or bonsense, that is the sober truth.”
Beatrice laughed.
“I 'm sorry to destroy a romance, Kate,” she said; “but alas for the pretty one you 've woven, I happen to know that, so far from being in love with me, Mr. Marchdale is quite desperately in love with another woman. He was talking to me about her the moment before you arrived.”
“Was he, indeed?—and you the barest acquaintances!” quizzed Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, pulling a face. “Well, well,” she went on thoughtfully, “if he's in love with another woman, that settles my last remaining doubt. It can only be that the other woman's yourself.”
Beatrice shook her head, and laughed again.
“Is that what they call an Irishism?” she asked, with polite curiosity.
“And an Irishism is a very good thing, too—when employed with intention,” retorted her friend. “Did he just chance, now, in a casual way, to mention the other woman's name, I wonder?”
“Oh, you perverse and stiff-necked generation!” Beatrice laughed. “What can his mentioning or not mentioning her name signify? For since he's in love with her, it's hardly likely that he's in love with you or me at the same time, is it?”
“That's as may be. But I'll wager I could make a shrewd guess at her name myself. And what else did he tell you about her? He's told me nothing; but I'll warrant I could paint her portrait. She's a fine figure of a young Englishwoman, brown-haired, grey-eyed, and she stands about five-feet-eight in her shoes. There's an expression of great malice and humour in her physiognomy, and a kind of devil-may-care haughtiness in the poise of her head. She's a bit of a grande dame, into the bargain—something like an Anglo-Italian duchess, for example; she's monstrously rich; and she adds, you'll be surprised to learn, to her other fascinations that of being a widow. Faith, the men are so fond of widows, it's a marvel to me that we're ever married at all until we reach that condition;—and there, if you like, is another Irishism for you. But what's this? Methinks a rosy blush mantles my lady's brow. Have I touched the heel of Achilles? She IS a widow? He TOLD you she was a widow?... But—bless us and save us!—what's come to you now? You're as white as a sheet. What is it?”