"Had you never seen Italy before
that?" She looked at him in a little surprise.
"Do I seem to you so old?" said Sir James, smiling. "I had been a very
busy man, Miss Mallory, and my holidays had been generally spent in
Ireland. But that year"--he paused a moment--"that year I had been ill,
and the doctors sent me abroad--in October," he added, slowly and
precisely. "I went first to Paris, and I was at Genoa in November."
"We must have been there--just about then! Mamma died in October. And I
remember the winter was just beginning at Genoa--it was very cold--and I
got bronchitis--I was only a little thing."
"And Oliver tells me you found a home at Portofino?"
Diana replied. He kept her talking; yet her impression was that he did
not listen very much to what she said. At the same time she felt herself
_studied_, in a way which made her self-conscious, which perhaps she
might have resented in any man less polished and less courteous.
"Pardon me--" he said, abruptly, at a pause in the conversation. "Your
name interests me particularly. It is Welsh, is it not? I knew two or
three persons of that name; and they were Welsh.
Pages:
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94