“I am going to go through with it,” she stated through set teeth. “If I die of disease from living in that frightful hole, or from shocked, shattered nerves after a lesson, perhaps Aunt Sheila may have a question or two to ask of herself!”
“He couldn’t have known who you are, dear,” said Viola, who was groping around to find the right key.
Leslie laughed shortly.
“Aunt Sheila said I depended on that,” she confided. “That was during one of her all-too-frequent moments of flattery. Sometimes I think I have been the most misunderstood girl who has ever lived! And oh, how I ache, alone, in my fumbling through the dark!”
She stared ahead like everything after that; I guess she was trying to look dramatic. Viola said, “Poor darling, I understand.” And then Leslie said, “I—” (her voice dropped and broke) “I am close to fainting—I need tea—” and so they went to Doney’s which is the fanciest restaurant in Florence and marked “expensive” in Baedeker. After the remark about Siamese triplets I didn’t intend to have her think I wanted to be asked to her party, so I said, “I must leave you here—” although I had no idea where I was, or where I should be going.
“Must you, really?” Leslie asked so vaguely, that I got mad all over again and answered with, “I generally say what I mean,” which of course was not polite. Then, feeling a little ashamed of myself, I turned and left them and began to wonder which Italian I should ask where I was and where I was going—in English; but I kept passing them, and going farther and farther all the time because the doing it seemed hard.
Then suddenly I saw some one who was ahead of me, and I hurried, for I knew the gray homespun coat and the swing of the gray hat brim.
“Wait!” I called, and he turned, and then he was laughing down at me, and saying, “I just went up all those stairs that lead to the Pension Dante to hunt you, and found you out—and found where you were—now tell me about it!”
“Oh, Mr. Wake!” I said, and I drew a deep breath because I was so glad to see him, and so relieved over finding some one who could talk as I did.
“Pretty bad?” he questioned, with a kind look.