She waved her hand, leaving the two younger people together.
“The Marchesa was afraid that one of my parents was ill,” explained Beppo awkwardly. “She has a very warm heart. I am so glad you are coming back to déjeuner.”
He kept fingering the parcel. “Mamma did not want an answer?”
“No, I’m sure not.”
“In any case, I will write my mother a note explaining that you are with us, and telling her that I will escort you back to La Solitude myself this afternoon.”
They were out on the road by now. “How I wish I could come with you, Lily, and assist you in the shopping. But, alas! I must leave you here.”
She walked off, feeling that foreigners were indeed inexplicable beings.
Without the softening effect of her toque and veil, the Marchesa Pescobaldi had looked a good deal older this morning than she had done the other day, and there had been an unbecoming flush all over her face.
Lily walked on, half glad, half sorry, that she was going to the Hôtel Hidalgo to lunch. Glad she was not going back to La Solitude—sorry that she was to be the guest of the lady with the Evil Eye. In spite of herself Aunt Cosy’s words about the Marchesa had impressed her.
Monte Carlo is a very small place—though a place of large, clear spaces; so it was not perhaps as wonderful as Lily thought it was that she should run straight into Captain Stuart.