"Yes, I know Sorrento," said Dolly. But just then, an English bank under English oaks seemed as good to the girl as ever an Italian paradise. That, naturally, she did not show. "I know Sorrento," she said quietly.
"And you know the Thayers' villa. I found Christina and Mr. St. Leger sitting on the green near the house, under an orange tree—symbolical; and the air was sweet with a thousand other things. I felt it with a kind of oppression, for the mental prospect was by no means so delicious."
"No," said Dolly. "And sometimes that feeling of contrast makes one very keen to see all the lovely things outside of one."
"Do you know that?" said Mr. Shubrick.
"Yes. I know it"
"One can only know it by experience. What experience can you have had, my Dolly, to let you feel it?"
Dolly turned her eyes on him without speaking. She was thinking of Venice at midnight under the moon, and a sail, and a wine-shop. Tell him? No, indeed, never!
"You are not ready to let me know?" said he, smiling. "How long first must it be?"
"It isn't anything you need know," said Dolly, looking away. But with that the question flashed upon her, would he not have to know? had he not a right? "Please go on," she said hurriedly.
"I can go on now easier than I could then," he said with a half laugh. "I sat down with them, and purposely brought the conversation upon the theme of my trouble. It came quite naturally, apropos of a case of a broken engagement which was much talked of just then; and I started my question. Suppose one or the other of the parties had discovered that the engagement was a mistake? They gave it dead against me; all of them; Mrs. Thayer had come out by that time. They were unanimous in deciding that pledges made must be kept, at all hazards."