“And you forgive me?”
“I suppose so. It is hardly worth while to be angry with you. I shall be a thousand miles away next week. I could not carry my resentment so far. It would cool on the journey.”
“A thousand miles is not far for the Vendetta, Miss Leland. She would make light of crossing the Pacific—for a worthy motive.”
“I don’t know anything about motives; but I thought you were fairly established at the Mount, and that you had made an end of your wanderings.”
“The Mount is only delightful—I might say endurable—when I have neighbours at the Angler’s Nest.”
“Martin will let this house, perhaps, and you may have pleasant neighbours in the new people.”
“I am not like the domestic cat. It is not houses I care for, but individuals. My affections would not transfer themselves to the new tenants.”
“How can you tell that? You think of them to-night as strangers—and they seem intolerable. You would like them after a week, and be warmly attached to them at the end of a month. Why, you have known us for less than three months, and we fancy ourselves quite old friends.”
“Oh, Miss Leland, is our friendship only fancy? Will a thousand miles make you forget me?”
“No, we could not any of us be so ungrateful as to forget you,” answered Allegra, struggling against growing embarrassment, wondering if this tender tone, these vague nothings, were drifting towards a declaration, or were as simply meaningless as much of the talk between men and women. “We can’t forget how kind you have been, and what delightful excursions we have had on the Vendetta.”