"You might put in a claim to kindness anywhere," returned the lady. "Don't you get it, now, if you tell the truth?"
"I have no reason to complain—in general," said the young man, smiling.
"You are a little like your father. He was another. We were great cronies when I was a girl. In fact, he was an old beau of mine. We used to see a vast deal of each other;—flirting, I suppose you would call it; but how are young people to get along without flirting? I liked him very much, for I always had a fancy for handsome men; and if you ask him, he will tell you that I was handsome too at that time. Oh, I was! you may look at me and be incredulous; but I was a belle in those days; and I had a great many handsome men around me, and some not handsome. ....Was I English? No. You don't understand how I could have seen so much of your father. Well, never doubt a story till you have heard the whole of it. I was an American girl; but my father and mother were both dead, and I was sent to England, to be brought up by an aunt, who was the nearest relation I had in the world. She had married an Englishman and settled in England."
"Then we may claim you," said Lawrence. "To all intents and purposes you are English."
"Might have been," returned Mrs. Thayer. "The flirtation ran very high, I can tell you, between your father and me. He was a poor man then. I understand he has nobly recovered from that fault. Is it true? People say he is made of gold."
"There is no lack of the material article," Lawrence admitted.
"No. Well, the other sort we know he had, or this would never be true of him now. I did not look so far ahead then. There is no telling what would have happened, but for a little thing. Just see how things go. I might have married in England, and all my life would have been different; and then came along Mr. Thayer. And the way I came to know him was this. A cousin of mine in America was going to be married, and her friend was a friend of Mr. Thayer. Mr. Thayer was coming over to England, and my cousin charged him with a little piece of wedding cake in white paper to bring to me. Just that little white packet! and Mr. Thayer brought it, and we saw one another, and the end was, I have lived my life on the other side instead of on this side."
"It's our loss, I am sure," said St. Leger civilly.
"You are too polite to say it is mine, but I know you think so. Perhaps it is. At any rate, I was determined, and am determined, that my daughter shall see and choose for herself which hemisphere she will live in. What are you doing in Italy?"
"What everybody does in Italy, looking at the old and enjoying the new."