As Lily still remained silent, the Marchesa went on pleadingly. “Come, be generous! The English are generous. It is one of their finest qualities.”
“Of course I forgive you,” said Lily, trying to smile. “Perhaps I was silly to be so—so put out! I know what you say is true—that foreigners fancy themselves in love very easily.”
“Not foreigners only,” said the Marchesa, rising slowly, gracefully, from her knees. “Would you be surprised to learn, Lily, that an Englishman once travelled with me in a train for three hours, and that before the end of the journey he had asked me—nay, implored me—to marry him? He thought I was a young girl, yet at that time I had already been a wife six years!” She laughed mirthlessly.
Lily exclaimed, “Oh, but you are different! You are so very, very beautiful!” She said the words from her heart, and they touched the older woman.
“You are generous!” she said, “generous and kind, little Lily. And now that we are friends again, I want to ask you one more question. It is an indiscreet and impertinent question, but I ask you to answer me truthfully. You can do so more readily if, as you tell me, you are not really related to the Count and Countess Polda.”
“A question about them?” Lily said hesitatingly. “I don’t expect I shall be able to answer it. I know Aunt Cosy and Uncle Angelo so very little.”
The Marchesa went on as if she had not heard the interruption.
“I want to ask you,” she said impressively, “how the Countess Polda makes her money? I say the Countess Polda, for the Count, as you can see, is a mere cipher.”
“The Countess Polda does not make any money,” replied Lily quickly and confidently. “Little as I know about them, I do know that!”
The Marchesa’s question had shocked the girl. In some ways Aunt Cosy was not a nice woman, but she never pretended to be better off than she was. In fact, she often spoke of her own and the Count’s changed fortunes. It was strange indeed that one who was by way of being an intimate friend did not understand how really poor the Poldas were.