"I hope you are pleased with San Marco," said Grannie, not soaring above the normal conversation in the hotel.
"We think it quite delightful so far," Provana replied, and Vera noticed that he never expressed an opinion without including his daughter. It was always "We," or "Giulia and I," and there was generally a glance in Giulia's direction which emphasised the reference to her.
"I love—love—love the place already," cried Giulia, who had beckoned Vera to her sofa, and was holding her hand. "Most of all because I have found this sweet friend here. You will let us be friends, won't you, cara Grannie?"
"Carissima mia!" murmured her father reprovingly.
"Please don't let us be ceremonious in this desert island of a place," said Lady Felicia, with a graciousness that was new to Vera. "I like to be called Grannie, and I can be Grannie to the Signorina as well as to this girl of my own flesh and blood. You can hardly doubt, Signor Provana, that it is pleasant for me to find that my poor Vera has now a sweet girl friend in this hotel, where we have lived three months and hardly made an acquaintance, much less a friend."
"But it has been your own fault, Grannie!" interposed Vera, who was essentially truthful. "People really tried to be kind to us when we were strangers."
"If you mean that some of the people were odiously pushing and officious, I cannot contradict you!" replied the descendant of the Disbrowes, with ineffable scorn.
But Grannie was not scornful in her demeanour towards the Roman financier. To him, and to Giulia, she was Grannie in her most urbane and sympathetic mood. She was charmed to find him so much of an Englishman.
"My mother was English to the core of her heart. She was the daughter of a colonial merchant, whose offices were in Mincing Lane, and his home in Lavender Sweep. I am told there is no such thing as Lavender Sweep now," Provana went on regretfully, "but when I was a boy, my grandfather's garden was in the country, and there were gardens all about it."