“Oh, you will see plenty of country-folk,” he said—“a fine race of people, mountaineers, yet husbandmen, which is a rare combination.”
Constance looked up at him with a little moue of mingled despair and disdain.
“With perhaps some romantic young Italian count for you to practise upon,” he said.
Though the humour on his part was grim and derisive rather than sympathetic, her countenance cleared a little. “You know, papa,” she said, with a faintly complaining note, “that my Italian is very limited, and your counts and countesses speak no language but their own.”
“Oh, who can tell? There may be some poor soldier on furlough who has French enough to—— By the way,” he added, sharply, “you must remember that they don’t understand flirtation with girls. If you were a married woman, or a young widow——”
“You might pass me off as a young widow, papa. It would be amusing—or at least it might be amusing. That is not a quality of the life here in general. What an odd thing it is that in England we always believe life to be so much more amusing abroad than at home.”
“It is amusing—at Monte Carlo, perhaps.”
Constance made another moue at the name of Monte Carlo, from the sight of which she had not derived much pleasure. “I suppose,” she said, impartially, “what really amuses one is the kind of diversion one has been accustomed to, and to know everybody: chiefly to know everybody,” she added, after a pause.
“With these views, to know nobody must be bad luck indeed!”
“It is,” she said, with great candour; “that is why I have been so much with the Gaunts. One can’t live absolutely alone, you know, papa.”