"You here, Princess! Since when? Why have you given me no sign of your existence?" and he took both the slender girlish hands, still outstretched to him, in his.
"We only arrived here yesterday from Naples."
"Ah! and I go there to-day." His long-drawn words betrayed very significantly a certain vexation.
"Yes, to give three concerts there. I know; it was in the newspapers," she nodded earnestly, and sighed.
"Hm!" he began; "then--" he hesitated.
"Then you do not understand why I did not wait for the concerts?" said she, gayly; "it was impossible."
"Impossible?" said he with a short, defiant motion of the head, the motion of a too-tightly checked race-horse who impatiently jerks at the bridle. "How so impossible? What word is that from the mouth of a young lady who has nothing else in the world to do but amuse herself?"
"As if I were independent!" she sighed, with comic despair. "First, mamma could not leave Naples--hm--for family reasons. My sister is married there, you know. Then--then--"
"Do not trouble yourself with polite excuses," he interrupted her. "I see that you are no longer interested in my music;" and, half-jesting, half-vexed, shrugging his shoulders, he added, "What of it? One must put up with one's destiny!"
"I am no longer interested in your music!" said she, angrily; "and you venture to say that to me, even after I have run after you--yes, really run after you, which is not proper--only to----"