‘We can’t come to the villa! Here’s a letter from Jerry wanting us to start immediately for the Dolomites—did you ever know anything so exasperating?’
She passed the letter to Constance, and then as she remembered the first sentence, made a hasty attempt to draw it back. It was too late; Constance’s eyes had already pounced upon it. She read it aloud with gleeful malice.
‘“Who in thunder is Constance Wilder?”—If that’s an example of the famous Jerry Junior’s politeness, I prefer not to meet him, thank you.—It’s worse than his last insult; I shall never forgive this!’ She glanced down the page and handed it back with a laugh; from her point of vantage it was naïvely transparent. From Mr. Wilder’s point, however, the contents were inscrutable; he looked from the letter to his daughter’s serene smile, and relapsed into a puzzled silence.
‘I should say, on the contrary, that he doesn’t want you to start immediately for the Dolomites,’ Constance observed.
‘It’s a girl,’ Nannie groaned. ‘I suspected it from the moment we got the telegram in Lucerne. Oh, why did I ever let that wretched boy get out of my sight?’
‘I dare say she’s horrid,’ Constance put in. ‘One meets such frightful Americans travelling.’
‘We will go up to Riva on the afternoon boat and investigate.’ It was Mrs. Eustace who spoke. There was an undertone in her voice which suggested that she was prepared to do her duty by her brother’s son, however unpleasant that duty might be.
‘American girls are so grasping,’ said Nannie plaintively. ‘It’s scarcely safe for an unattached man to go out alone.’
Mr. Wilder leaned forward and reexamined the letter.
‘By the way, Miss Nannie, how did Jerry learn that you were here? His letter, I see, was mailed in Riva at ten o’clock last night.’