He well
remembered Mr. Mallory at Portofino; a pleasant courteous man, evidently
by nature a man of the world, interested in affairs and in literature,
with all the signs on him of the English governing class. It was
certainly curious that he should have spent all those years in exile
with his child, in a remote villa on the Italian coast. Health, Marsham
supposed, or finance--the two chief motives of life. For himself, the
thought of Diana's childhood between the pine woods and the sea gave him
pleasure; it added another to the poetical and romantic ideas which she
suggested. There came back on him the plash of the waves beneath the
Portofino headland, the murmur of the pines, the fragrance of the
underwood. He felt the kindred between all these, and her maidenly
energy, her unspoiled beauty.
"One moment!" he said, as they began to cross the lawn. "Has my sister
attacked you yet?"
The smile with which the words were spoken could be heard though not
seen. Diana laughed, a little awkwardly.
"I am afraid Mrs. Fotheringham thinks me a child of blood and thunder! I
am so sorry!"
"If she presses you too hard, call me in. Isabel and I understand each
other.
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