“And there’s a portrait of Madame de Salvi,” continued my friend.
I was silent a moment. “I should like to see that.”
He too was silent. Then he asked, “Why don’t you go and see it? If you knew the mother so well, why don’t you call upon the daughter?”
“From what you tell me I am afraid.”
“What have I told you to make you afraid?”
I looked a little at his ingenuous countenance. “The mother was a very dangerous woman.”
The young Englishman began to blush again. “The daughter is not,” he said.
“Are you very sure?”
He didn’t say he was sure, but he presently inquired in what way the Countess Salvi had been dangerous.
“You must not ask me that,” I answered “for after all, I desire to remember only what was good in her.” And as we walked back I begged him to render me the service of mentioning my name to his friend, and of saying that I had known her mother well, and that I asked permission to come and see her.