I was not prepared to receive my dismissal so soon.
"With your kind permission, señorita, I will see you to your door," I ventured, astonished at my own audacity.
Whatever her own feeling, she turned without so much as a lift of her black eyebrows, and signed the woman to drop behind again. We descended the marble steps together, and passed down a side street. She walked as she spoke, flowingly, her step the perfect poetry of motion as her voice was the poetry of sound. Her mere presence at my side should have been enough to content me. But my thoughts returned to the dismal news of her intended departure.
"You go within the week?" I questioned.
"Without regret," she replied.
I passed over the thrust. "You have been nowhere. It must have been dull."
"Less so than may be thought. I have spent much of my time in the company of Mrs. Merry."
"Lord have mercy upon us!" I mocked. "If you have been imbibing the opinions of the Lady of the British Legation—!"
"I have heard some sharp truths regarding the ridiculousness of your republican regime."
"And could tell of as many, from your own observation, regarding the Court of St. James."