“No, indeed. I wish I did--at least, that is not what I mean. But I wish you did not think it necessary to stay in a place like this. Why should you shut yourself out from the world? You are very clever, papa.” “Who told you so? You cannot have found that out by your own unassisted judgment.” “A great many people have told me. I have always known. You seem to have made a mystery about us, but we never made any mystery about you: for one thing, of course we couldn’t, for everybody knew. But if you chose to go back to England----” “I shall never go back to England.” “Oh,” said Constance, with a laugh, “never is a long day.” “So long a day, that it is a pity you should link your fortunes to mine, my dear. Frances has been brought up to it; but your case is quite different: and you see even she catches at the first opportunity of getting away.” “You are scarcely just to Frances,” said Constance, with her usual calm. “You might have said the same thing of me. I took the first opportunity also. To know that one has a father, whom one never remembers to have seen, is very exciting to the imagination; and just in so much as one has been disappointed in the parent one knows, one expects to find perfection in the parent one has never seen. Anything that you don’t know is better than everything you do know,” she added, with the air of a philosopher. “I am afraid, in that case, acquaintance has been fatal to your ideal.” “Not exactly,” she said. “Of course you are quite different from what I supposed. But I think we might get on well enough, if you please. Do come out. If we keep in the shade, it is not really very hot. It is often hotter in London, where nobody thinks of staying indoors. If we are to live together, don’t you think you must begin by giving in to me a little, papa?” “Not to the extent of getting a sunstroke.” “In March!” she cried, with a tone of mild derision. “Let me come into the bookroom, then. You think if Frances goes that you will never be able to get on with me.” “My thoughts have not gone so far as that. I may have believed that a young lady fresh from all the gaieties of London----” “But so tired of them, and very glad of a little novelty, however it presents itself.” “Yes, so long as it continues novel. But the novelty of making the _spese_ in a village, and looking sharply after every centesimo that is asked for an artichoke----” “The _spese_ means the daily expenses? I should not mind that. And Mariuccia is far more entertaining than an ordinary English cook. And the neighbours--well, the neighbours afford some opportunities for fun. Mrs Gaunt--is it?--expects her youngest boy. And then there is Tasie.”