"You will be here for a week?"
"I—I hope so." She glanced covertly at Milbanke.
"Oh yes, you will! I shall arrange it."
She looked at him quickly.
"You?" she said. "How?"
"Never mind how!" He smiled reassuringly. "You will be here for a week; and my proposal is that, while Milbanke is settling his business, I should be allowed to introduce you to some English friends of mine who are in Venice just now. It may be presumptuous, but I seem to feel"—he hesitated for a moment—"I seem to feel that you want to make some new friends—that you want to have a good time. Forgive my being so very blunt!"
Clodagh sat silent. She felt no resentment at his words, but they vaguely embarrassed her. The new possibility thrilled her; yet insensibly she hesitated before it.
"But ought I to want new friends?" she asked at last in a very low and undecided voice.
Barnard laid down the glass that he was lifting to his lips, and looked at her quickly. Her freshness charmed, while her naïveté puzzled him.
"Well, Mrs. Milbanke," he said suddenly, "suppose we find that out?"