"Why don't you understand Italian, little Lilian? You are wrong: you should understand."
"I am going to learn this Italian," she declared promptly.
"When?" he asked, fascinated.
"In a little while, in the autumn, when I am in England," she said decisively, in a low voice. Her little gloved hand lay upon the rug: he took it and interlaced her fingers softly in his own.
"The days are so long in autumn and winter in my country," she said dreamily.
He was silent beneath her enchantment, as he pressed her hand.
"I want to write to you for Christmas," she added, her large blue eyes full of visions, "a nice little letter all in Italian, dear."
"But first," he asked, enamoured and impatient, "you will write me nice long letters in French or English?"
"Why, of course, always," she replied, with that certainty which now and then smote him and disturbed him, afterwards to conquer him.
In her certainty Lilian did not ask him if he would always reply; as if it were unnecessary to ask anything so certain and evident, as if words served not to declare and promise a certainty.