‘I don’t know,’ Marcia smiled vaguely. ‘I think—perhaps I’m changing my mind.’
‘I only know of one thing,’ he said in a low tone, ‘that would make me want to be exiled from Italy.’
Marcia had a quick foreboding that she knew what he was going to say, and for a moment she hesitated; then her eyes asked: ‘What is that?’
Paul looked down at the sun-barred pavement in silence, and then he looked up in her face and smiled steadily. ‘If you lived out of Italy.’
Marcia received this in silence, while she dropped her eyes to the effigy of a dead monk set in the pavement and commenced mechanically following the Latin inscription. There was still time; she was still mistress of the situation. By a laugh, an adroit turn, she could overlook his words; could bring their relations back again to their normal footing. But she was by no means sure that she wished to bring them back to their normal footing; she felt a sudden, quite strong curiosity to know what he would say next.
‘Hang it! Marcia,’ he exclaimed. ‘I suppose you want to marry a prince, or something like that?’
‘A prince?’ she inquired. ‘Why a prince?’
‘Oh, it’s what you women are always after—having a coronet on your carriage door, with all the servants bowing and saying, “Si, si, eccelenza,” every time you turn around.’
‘It would be fun,’ she agreed. ‘Do you happen to know of any desirable unmarried princes?’
‘There aren’t any.’