“It’s no trouble at all. I’m staying there too.”
“Oh, are you? But I didn’t see you at breakfast. It was so nice seeing all the people, and trying to guess who they were.”
“I am with my uncle and aunt, and they prefer to have their meals upstairs.”
“So do papa and mamma. How droll! But it is my birthday to-day, and mamma allowed me to breakfast on the terrace, for a treat. You are English, aren’t you? When those horrid men all came round me, I thought, ‘Oh, if only I could see a German or an Englishman!’”
“You ought to be careful,” said Usk sagely. They were walking through a quiet street by this time, on their way back to the hotel. “There are a good many shady characters about.”
“Shady? I don’t know that word. But it means dark, dangerous—is it not so? But I could see you were not like that, of course.”
“I’m glad I was labelled English and harmless to the foreign eye,” said Usk. “I shouldn’t have thought myself that this get-up would have inspired confidence.”
“What strange words you use. One judges people by their faces, not by their get-ups—is that the word?”
“There isn’t very much of my face visible to judge by.”
“Ah, one can judge a good deal by the general outline,” said the girl confidently. “Oh, is your uncle the poor sick Englishman I met in the gardens this morning?”