To this Frances replied politely that London was full of much more wonderful things, as she had always heard; but felt somewhat disappointed, supposing that his communications to her were to be more interesting than this.
“And the climate is so very different,” he continued. “I am very often sent out of England for the winter, though this year they have let me stay. I have been at Nice two seasons. I suppose you know Nice? It is a very pretty place; but the wind is just as cold sometimes as at home. You have to keep in the sun; and if you always keep in the sun, it is warm even here.”
“But there is not always sun here,” said Frances.
“That is very true; that is a very clever remark. There is not always sun here. San Remo was beginning to be known when I was there; but I never heard of Bordighera as a place where people went to stay. Some Italian wrote a book about it, I have heard—to push it, no doubt. Could you recommend it as a winter-place, Miss Waring? I suppose it is very dull, nothing going on?”
“Oh, nothing at all,” cried Frances eagerly. “All the tourists complain that there is nothing to do.”
“I thought so,” he said; “a regular little Italian dead-alive place.” Then he added after a moment’s pause: “But of course there are inducements which might make one put up with that, if the air happened to suit one. Are there villas to be had, can you tell me? They say, as a matter of fact, that you get more advantage of the air when you are in a dull place.”
“There are hotels,” said Frances more and more disappointed, though the beginning of this speech had given her a little hope.
“Good hotels?” he said with interest. “Sometimes they are really better than a place of one’s own, where the drainage is often bad, and the exposure not all that could be desired. And then you get any amusement that may be going. Perhaps you will tell me the names of one or two? for if this east wind continues, my doctors may send me off even now.”
Frances looked into his limpid eyes and expressive countenance with dismay. He must look, she felt sure, as if he were making the most touching confidences to her. His soft pathetic voice gave a faux air of something sentimental to those questions, which even she could not persuade herself meant nothing. Was it to show that he was bent upon following Constance wherever she might go? That must be the true meaning, she supposed. He must be endeavouring by this mock-anxiety to find out how much she knew of his real motives, and whether he might trust to her or not. But Frances resented a little the unnecessary precaution.
“I don’t know anything about the hotels,” she said. “I have never thought of the air. It is my home—that is all.”