Mr. Courtenay looked at her very keenly—he saw there was something wrong, but he could not tell what it was—Some girlish quarrel, no doubt, he said to himself. Girls were always quarrelling—about their lovers, or about their dresses, or something. Therefore he went over this ground lightly, and returned to his original attack.
‘You like Florence?’ he said. ‘Tell me what you have been doing, and whom you have met. There must be a great many English here, I suppose?’
However, he had roused Kate’s suspicions, and she was not inclined to answer.
‘We have been doing what everybody else does,’ she said—‘going to see the pictures and all the sights; and we have met Lady Caryisfort. That is about all, I think. She has rather taken a fancy to me, because she belongs to our own country. She takes me to drive sometimes; and I have seen a great deal of her—especially of late.’
‘Why especially of late?’
‘Oh! I don’t know—that is, my aunt and Ombra found some old friends who were not fine enough, they said, to please you, so they left me behind; and I did not like it, I suppose being silly; so I have gone to Lady Caryisfort’s more than usual since.’
‘Oh-h!’ said Mr. Courtenay, feeling that enlightenment was near. ‘It was very honourable of your aunt, I am sure. And this Lady Caryisfort?—is she a match-maker, Kate?’
‘A match-maker! I don’t understand what you mean, uncle.’
‘You have met a certain young Italian, a Count Buoncompagni, whom I have heard of, there?’
Kate reddened, in spite of herself—being on the eve of getting into trouble about him, she began to feel a melting of her heart to Antonio.