“I’ll tell you what he is,” replied the coachman: “he’s too good for his work. That’s his complaint. Dodging in and out of narrer streets, and makin’ mornin’ calls upon work’ouse paupers, don’t suit him.”
The time had come when Mildred had to make up her mind where she would go, and having all the world to choose from, and just the same hopeless feeling that Eve may have had on leaving Eden, the choice was a matter of no small difficulty. She sat with a Continental “Bradshaw” in her hand, turning the leaves and looking at the maps, irresolute and miserable. Pamela, who might have decided for her, clearly hankered after no paradise but Brighton. Her idea of Eden was a house in which Castellani was a frequent visitor.
It was too late for most of the summer places, too early for Algiers or the Riviera. Pamela would not hear of the Rhine or any German watering-place. Montreux might do, perhaps, or the Engadine; but Pamela hated Switzerland.
“Would it not do to spend the winter in Bath?” she said. “There is very nice society in Bath, I am told.”
“My dear Pamela, I want to get away from society if I can; and I want to be very far from Enderby.”
“Of course. It was thoughtless of me to suggest a society place. Bath, too, within a stone’s throw. Dearest aunt, I will offer no more suggestions. I will go anywhere you like.”
“Then let us decide at once. We will go to Pallanza, on Lago Maggiore. I have heard that it is a lovely spot, and later we can go on to Milan or Florence.”
“To Italy! That is like the fulfilment of a dream,” said Pamela with a sigh, feeling that Italy without César Castellani would be like a playhouse when the curtain has gone down and all the lights are out.
She was resigned, however, and not without hope. Castellani might propose before they left Brighton, when he found that parting was inevitable. He had said some very tender things, but of that vaguely tender strain which leaves a man uncommitted. His words had been full of poetry, but they might have applied to some absent mistress, or to love in the abstract. Pamela felt that she had no ground for exultation.