“Yes, a little. The Ambassador is staying a few weeks for the sea-bathing at Ardenza, close to Leghorn, and I had important despatches.”
“She’s exceedingly good-looking,” the Major said in English, with a smiling glance at the cab. “I envy you your travelling companion. You must have had quite an enjoyable time.”
“Forty hours in a sleeping-car is scarcely to be envied this weather,” he answered, as a porter, recognising him in passing, wished him a polite “Good journey, I hope, sir?”
Continuing, Tristram said, “But we must be off. I’m going to see her safe through to her friends before going to the office, and I’m already nearly three hours late in London. So good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” the other said. “Shall I see you at the club to-night?”
“Perhaps. I’m a bit done up by the heat, but I want my letters, so probably I’ll look in.”
“Buona sera, signorina,” Maitland exclaimed, bending towards the cab, shaking her hand and raising his hat politely.
She smiled, returning his salute in her own sweet, musical Tuscan, and then her companion, shouting an address in Hammersmith, sprang in beside her, and they drove off.
“You must be very tired,” he said, turning to her as they emerged from the station-yard into the busy Strand.
“No, not so fatigued as I was when we arrived in Paris this morning,” she answered, gazing wonderingly at the long line of omnibuses and cabs slowly filing down the brightly lit thoroughfare. “But what confusion! I thought the Via Calzaiuoli in Florence noisy, but this—!” and she waved her small hand with a gesture far more expressive than any words.