‘But we don’t call Lady Granton a friend,’ continued Kate, ‘nor the people who have left cards and sent us invitations since they met us there. And until we came to Florence we had not met you.’
‘But then there are these two young men—Mr. Eldridge and Mr. Hardwick.’
‘Oh! the Berties,’ said Kate; and she laughed. ‘They don’t count, surely; they are old friends. We did not require to come to Italy to make acquaintance with them.’
‘Perhaps you came to Italy to avoid them?’ said Lady Caryisfort, drawing her bow at a venture.
Kate looked her suddenly in the face with a start; but the afternoon had gradually grown darker, and neither could make out what was in the other’s face.
‘Why should we come to Italy to avoid them?’ said Kate, gravely.
Her new seriousness quite changed the tone of her voice. She was thinking of Ombra and all the mysterious things that had happened that Summer day after the yachting. It was more than a year ago, and she had almost forgotten; but somehow, Kate could not tell how, the Berties had been woven in with the family existence ever since.
Lady Caryisfort gave her gravity a totally different meaning, ‘So that is how it is,’ she said to herself.
‘If I were you, Kate,’ she said aloud, ‘I would write and tell my guardian all about it, and who the people are whom you are acquainted with here. I think he has a right to know. Would he be quite pleased that the Berties, as you call them, should be with you so much? Pardon me if I say more than I ought.’
‘The Berties!’ said Kate, now fairly puzzled. ‘What has Uncle Courtenay to do with the Berties? He is not Ombra’s guardian, but only mine: and they have nothing to do with me.’