"My husband telegraphs that he will be away some time," said Leonora after a minute. "He has business that keeps him, and his sister is in Rome."
"You must be very lonely here," remarked Batiscombe in answer.
"Do you know Madame de Charleroi?" asked Leonora, taking no notice of the observation.
"Yes," said Batiscombe, "I know her. Somebody told me she was in Pegli."
"So she was. But she had to come to Rome on business, and now my husband is going to bring her here."
"Indeed?" exclaimed Batiscombe. "To pass the summer?"
"Oh no; only for a week, I suppose. Do you know? I am rather glad; I hardly know her at all, and she seems so hard to know."
"Hard to know?" repeated Julius. "Perhaps she is. It is always hard to know very charming women."
"Is it?" asked Leonora, smiling at the frankness of the remark; it seemed to her that he had found it easy enough to swear friendship with her half an hour ago. "Is it? Is she such a very charming woman?"
"Both," said Julius. "Madame de Charleroi is charming, and it is very hard to know women of her sort well. Think how long it is since I first met you, Marchesa, and we are just beginning to know each other."
"Do you think we are?" asked Leonora. She was full of questions.
"I think so--yes. At least, I hope so," he said with a pleasant smile.
"If you were writing a book about us, Mr. Batiscombe, would you say that we were beginning to know each other? no one would believe that we stopped in the road and shook hands and swore to be friends. It would be very amusing, would it not? I do not know why we did it; I wish you would explain." She laughed a little, and stuck the point of her parasol into the earth. Batiscombe laughed too.
"When people have known each other in society for a long time," he said, "and then begin to be friends, there is always some ice to break, and it always seems odd for a little while after it is broken."
"I suppose that is the reason that such things always seem improbable in books, until you know about them yourself."
"Amusing books, and interesting ones, are made up of improbabilities," answered Julius. "And the people who write them are even more improbable. It is always improbable that a man who has lived a great deal should have the talent, or the patience if you like, to make stories out of his own experience,--or that a man who has not seen a great deal of the world should be able to evolve a good novel out of his inner consciousness. The probabilities for most men are that they will eat and drink and wear out their clothes and be buried. All those things are a great bore to do, a greater bore to describe, and an intolerable bore to read about. The most amusing books are either true stories of a very exceptional kind, or else they are rank, glaring, stupendous improbabilities, invented to illustrate a great theory, or a great play of passions,--like Bulwer's 'Coming Race,' or Goethe's 'Faust.' I am sure I am boring you dreadfully."