She laughed gently, standing quite still. Her dress and her gloves were white, but she had on a small black hat, very French, and at the back of her hair there was a broad black ribbon tied in a big bow. This ribbon marked her exact age clearly, he thought.
“This is a new frock, and my very smartest,” she said; “and you dared to abuse Paris!”
“Being a man. I must retract now. You are right, we cannot do without it. But—have you an umbrella?”
“An umbrella?”
She moved and laughed again, much more gayly.
“I am serious. Come here and look at Ischia.”
She went with him quickly to the window.
“That blackness does look wicked. But it’s a long way off.”
“I think it is coming this way.”
“Oh, but”—and she went to the opposite window—“the sky is perfectly clear towards Naples. And look how still the sea is.”