"I used to hate hotels," said she to Julius, late in the evening, "but they seem very pleasant after all. There is never any fuss about anything; and I always seem to get just what I want."
"Oh--hotels are very well, if one understands them," he answered. He did not explain to her that her comfort was chiefly due to his forethought. "You would soon find it a great bore, though," he added.
"I am sure I should not," said she. "You are so clever that you make everything seem easy for me."
Julius laughed, out of sheer satisfaction. These were just the little speeches he loved most from women, and, most of all, from Leonora. It would seem a harmless vanity of itself, but it leads to doing acts of forethought and courtesy for the sake of the praise instead of for the sake of the woman.
"It is very good of you to say so, my dear," he answered, modestly. "But we will change all that, by and by. When the heat is over we will go away, and live in the Greek islands. There are places worth going to, there."
"Oh, of all things how delightful!" cried Leonora, carried away by the new idea. "And have a house by the sea, and a boat, and Greek servants,--how lovely!"
"Meanwhile, dear," said Julius, "we will go and be cool in the old Carthusian monastery. It does not take long from here."
And so they left Genoa and reached Turin, where Batiscombe found his box--the one that Marcantonio intended to watch so carefully--and took it away; thence they went to a place called Cuneo, a little southwards by the railway, in the Maritime Alps, which Leonora said were beautiful; and then they drove in an ancient diligence to the Certosa di Pesio, an old Carthusian monastery, as Julius had said, built over a wonderful mountain torrent, and surrounded with ancient chestnut-trees. Through the valley that opens away to northward you can catch a glimpse of Monte Rosa, when the setting sun gilds the snow, and the breeze brings down with it the freshness of the Alps. Leonora was enchanted with the place, with Batiscombe's choice, with him, with everything.
"And to-morrow you will show me where you used to catch fish, and write your articles on Italian politics?" said she, as they came in from a short walk late in the evening.