"_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." "Is it possible?" "Owen, what _is_ there so wrong about it all? He's clearly fascinated with her; and as the matter stood, he had no hope of seeing her or speaking with her except on the street. Perhaps he didn't know it was wrong,--or didn't realize it." "I dare say." "What else could the poor fellow have done? There he was! He had stayed over a day, and laid himself open to arrest, on the bare chance--one in a hundred--of seeing Lily; and when he did see her, what was he to do?" "Obviously, to join her and walk home with her." "You are too bad, Owen! Suppose it had been one of our own poor boys? He _looked_ like an American." "He didn't behave like one. One of 'our own poor boys,' as you call them, would have been as far as possible from thrusting himself upon you. He would have had too much reverence for you, too much self-respect, too much pride." "What has pride to do with such things, my dear? I think he acted very naturally. He acted upon impulse. I'm sure you're always crying out against the restraints and conventionalities between young people, over here; and now, when a European _does_ do a simple, unaffected thing--" Elmore made a gesture of impatience. "This fellow has presumed upon your being Americans--on your ignorance of the customs here--to take a liberty that he would not have dreamed of taking with Italian or German ladies. He has shown himself no gentleman." "Now there you are very much mistaken, Owen. That's what I thought when Lily first told me about his speaking to her in the cars, and I was very much prejudiced against him; but when I saw him to-day, I must say that I felt that I had been wrong. He is a gentleman; but--he is desperate." "Oh, indeed!" "Yes," said Mrs. Elmore, shrinking a little under her husband's sarcastic tone. "Why, Owen," she pleaded, "can't you see anything romantic in it?"