"Ah, Miller! that you? How're you coming on?" said Noel, with a sudden access of cordiality, making a place for the new-comer at his side. "All right, thanks, considering it's the first day out. That's generally the biggest bore, because you know there are six or seven more just like it to follow. Pretty girl that, ain't it?" "Who is she?" asked Noel, refusing to concur in the designation. "Mrs. Dallas, according to her new name." "And that is her husband?" "That is her husband. He's not a bad-looking fellow, either; but you don't look as if you approved him." "I?" said Noel. "Why shouldn't I? He seems a good-looking fellow enough. Do you know her?" "Yes, I know her. Everybody knew her at Baden. It was not very hard to do." "What do you mean?" said Noel, looking at him suddenly very straight and hard. "Oh, I simply mean that her father, who seems a rather bad type of adventurer, gave free access to her acquaintance to any man who might turn out to be marriageable. He introduced me to her as soon as he saw I had been attracted by her looks, and I used to talk to her a good deal. Her mother, it seems, died in her childhood; and she was put to school at a convent, where she remained until she was eighteen. Her father then brought her home, and began assiduously his efforts to marry her off. It was plain that she hampered him a good deal, but he had a sort of sense of duty which he seemed to fulfil to his own satisfaction by rushing her about from one watering-place to another, and facilitating her acquaintance with the young men at each." "And what was the girl thinking of to allow it?" said Noel. "The girl was absolutely blind to it,--as ignorant of the world as a little nun, and apparently quite pleased with her father, who was avowedly a new acquisition. She must have had good teaching at her convent; for she sings splendidly and is a pretty fair linguist, too. I tried her in English, however, and found her so uncertain that my somewhat limited conversation with her was carried on in French. My French is nothing to boast of, but it's better than her English." "What is she?" "An Italian, with a Swedish mother. She seems awfully foot-loose, somehow, poor thing; and I hope the marriage which her father suddenly contrived between her and this young American will turn out well for her. He's an odd sort of fellow to me, somehow." "Where does he come from?" "I don't know,--some misty place in the West somewhere, I believe. I tried to talk with him a dozen times, but I never got so little out of a man in my life." "Was he so deep or merely forbidding?" "Neither. He was good-tempered enough, and would answer questions; but he seemed to have nothing to give out. He is a quiet man and inoffensive, but somehow queer." "Does he play cards?" "Not at all." "Seem to have money?"