"No! How could I refuse, in so many words? And I was frightened and confused, any way. He asked if we were going to the music in the Giardini Pubblici; and I said No, that Miss Mayhew was not going into society in Venice, but was merely here for her health. That's all there is of it. Now do you blame me, Owen?"
"No."
"Do you blame her?"
"No."
"Well, I don't see how he was to blame."
"The transaction was a little irregular, but it was highly creditable to all parties concerned."
Mrs. Elmore grew still meeker under this irony. Indignation and censure she would have known how to meet; but his quiet perplexed her: she did not know what might not be coming. "Lily scarcely spoke to him," she pursued, "and I was very cold. I spoke to him in German."
"Is German a particularly repellent tongue?"
"No. But I was determined he should get no hold upon us. He was very polite and very respectful, as I said, but I didn't give him an atom of encouragement; I saw that he was dying to be asked to call, but I parted from him very stiffly."