The colour flamed up in Lily’s cheeks. “No, I am not engaged, Aunt Cosy.”
There was a curious pause, and then the Countess went on: “When you are writing to your uncle, dear girl, I hope you will tell him that we are doing our best to make you happy”—there was a pleading, almost an anxious, tone in her voice.
“Of course I will!” said Lily affectionately.
She felt, as she expressed it to herself, “rather a pig” for having stood up to the Countess. She was astonished too, at her easy victory. Aunt Emmeline had been so very different! She would never give in if she thought a thing wrong. Lily could not help reflecting that the five pounds a week must mean a great deal to Count and Countess Polda. She could see that they were both painfully anxious that she should stay on at La Solitude, and be happy and comfortable there.
A week can pass like a flash, or it can seem an eternity. The first week of Lily Fairfield’s stay at La Solitude was, truth to tell, more like a month, and a very long month, than a week. She did her best to feel happy and comfortable, though it was a strange kind of life for a girl used to all the cheerful comings and goings of an English country town. After she had helped Cristina with the housework each morning there was absolutely nothing left to do during the rest of the day.
Twice during that long week Lily accompanied the Count into Monte Carlo, or rather into that part of the Principality which lies in a hollow between Monaco and Monte Carlo, and which is called the Condamine. While there, they had spent the whole of their time shopping in the funny little native shops, the Count bargaining as if the question of a few sous was of the utmost moment to him.
The second time they went down the hill, she asked Uncle Angelo to show her where the English service was held each Sunday, and it was then that he offered to show her the English bank. Indeed, the only time she was allowed to go to Monte Carlo by herself was when she suggested that she should pay the Countess four weeks in advance.
It had seemed strange at first to be walking all alone in a foreign town, but she had managed quite well, and the famous bankers had been very courteous to their pretty new client. The gentleman to whom she had given her letter of credit had shaken his head when she had told him about the unfortunate theft of fifty pounds, but he had not been as surprised as she had been that the police had not been told about it.
“It would have been sheer waste of time, my dear young lady,” he said smiling, “and would have only exposed your relations to a great deal of worry. A visit from the police always entails a great deal of fuss and unpleasantness on the Continent.”