"Why? Don't you want her to like you? Don't you like her?"
"Yes. And I don't want to like her. If I once begin I shall end by loving her."
"My dear, it would be the best thing you could do."
"No, Eliot, it wouldn't. You don't know…. Here she is."
Maisie came to them along the terrace. She moved with an unresisting grace, a delicate bowing of her head and swaying of her body, and breathless as if she went against a wind. Eliot gave up his chair and limped away from them.
"Has he told you about Taormina?" she said.
"Yes. It's sweet of you to ask me to go with you——"
"You're coming, aren't you?"
"I'm afraid I can't."
"Why ever not?"