Certainly Grannie had been curiously indulgent, curiously heedless of conventionalities, and curiously forgetful of the ways of the world in which she had lived from youth upward, when she thought that because San Marco was a quiet little place that had never basked in the sunlight of fashion, there would be no ill-natured talk about her granddaughter's tête-à-tête rambles with the Roman millionaire.
To say that people had talked—the season visitors at the "Anglais," the spinsters and widows, the invalid parsons and their wives, who were mostly languishing for something to talk about—to say that these had talked about Vera and her millionaire would not have described the situation. They had talked of nothing else; and the talk had grown more and more animated and exciting with every day that witnessed another audacious sauntering to the cemetery, or ascent of a mule-path through the wood. Spinsters, whose thin legs had seldom carried them beyond the parade, adipose widows, whose scantness of breath made the gentlest ascent labour and trouble, took a sudden interest in the little white chapels and shrines among the olives, and happened to meet Provana and Vera returning from the hill, which made something to whisper about with one's next neighbour at dinner, and was at least an agreeable change from the daily grumbling about the bill of fare.
"Veal again! and as stringy as ever.—Yes, I came face to face with them. He stalked past me in his gloomy way; and she did not even blush, but just said, good afternoon, as bold as brass."
"How Lady Felicia can be so utterly regardless of etiquette!"
"Oh, it's just like the rest of the smart set. They think they can defy the universe; and it's a surprise to them when they find themselves in the divorce court!"
"I don't believe Lady Felicia was ever in the smart set. You have to be rich for that. I put her down as poor and proud, and those sort are generally ultra-particular."
"I believe she's playing a deep game," said the spinster, and then the two friends looked down the long, narrow table to the corner where Vera sat, silent and thoughtful, pale in her black evening frock.
"Do you think her so remarkably pretty?" asked the spinster, following on a discussion in the drawing-room after luncheon, when the parsons had expressed their admiration of Vera's delicate beauty.
"Far from it," answered the plethoric widow. "You may call her ethereal," which one of the parsons had done; "I call her half-starved. She has no complexion and no figure, and looks as if she had never had enough to eat."