"Indeed?" said Susanna, looking surprise. "You have been there? It is rarely visited by travellers—except commercial ones."
"No, I have never been there," he answered, so far truthfully enough. "But—but I know—I used to know—a man whose—a man who had," he concluded lamely. For, when he did stop to reflect, "If you care for an amusing situation," he reflected, "you 'll leave her in the dark touching your personal connection with Sampaolo."
Susanna, being quite in the light touching that connection, could not help smiling.
"I must play the game on his conditions, and feign ignorance of all that he does n't tell," she reminded herself. "But fancy his being so secretive!"
"I hope the 'man who had' reported favourably of us?" she threw out.
"H'm—yes," said Anthony, with deliberation. "The truth is, he reported nothing. He was one of those inarticulate fellows who travel everywhere, and can give no better account of their travels than just a catalogue of names. He chanced to let fall that he had visited Sampaolo, and I thus learned that such a place existed. I can't tell why, but the fact struck me, and stuck in my mind, and I have ever since been curious to know something about it."
"You said you knew all about it," Susanna complained, her eyes rebukeful, her tone a tone of disappointment.
"Oh, that was a manner of speaking," Anthony quibbled, plausible and unperturbed. "I meant that I knew of its existence—which, after all, is relatively a good deal, being vastly more than most people know."
"It would be worth your while," said Susanna, "the next time you find yourself in its vicinity, to do Sampaolo the honour of an inspection. It is easily reached. The Austrian-Lloyd coasting steamers from Venice call there once a week, and there is a boat every Monday and Thursday from Ancona. Sampaolo is an extremely interesting spot,—interesting by reason of its natural beauty, its picturesque population, and (to me, at least) by reason of its absurdly romantic, serio-comic, lamentable little history."
"Ah—?" said Anthony, but with a suspension of the voice, with a solicitude of eye and posture, that pressed her to continue.