“They talked--about the olives, how they were looking, and if it was going to be a bad or an indifferent year.”
“About the _forestieri_, if many were coming, and whether it would be a good season for the hotels; and about tying up the palms, to make them ready for Easter,” said Frances, resuming, with a smile about her lips. “And about how old Pietro’s son had got such a good appointment in the post-office, and had bought little Nina a pair of earrings as long as your finger; for he was to marry Nina, you know.”
“Oh, was he? Go on. I am very much interested. Didn’t they say Mr Whatever-his-name-is wanted to get out of it, and that there never would have been any engagement, had not Miss Nina’s mother----?”
“Oh Markham,” cried Frances in surprise, “how could you possibly know?”
“I was reasoning from analogy, Fan. Yes, I suppose they do it all the world over. And it is odd--isn’t it?--that, knowing what they are sure to say, we ask them to our houses, and put the keys of all our skeleton cupboards into their hands.”
“Do you think that is true, that dreadful idea about the skeleton? I am sure----”
“I was going to say, oh Markham, that I was sure, _at home_, we had no skeleton; and then I remembered----”
“I understand,” he said kindly. “It was not a skeleton to speak of, Fan. There is nothing particularly bad about it. If you had met it out walking, you would not have known it for a skeleton. Let us say a mystery, which is not such a mouth-filling word.”
“Sir Thomas told me,” said Frances, with some timidity; “but I am not sure that I understood. Markham! what was it really about?”
Her voice was low and diffident, and at first he only shook his head. “About nothing,” he said; “about--me. Yes, more than anything else, about me. That is how---- No, it isn’t,” he added, correcting himself. “I always must have cared for my mother more than for any woman. She has always been my greatest friend, ever since I can remember anything. We seem to have been children together, and to have grown up together. I was everything to her for a dozen years, and then--your father came between us. He hated me--and I tormented him.”
“He could not hate you, Markham. Oh no, no!”
“My little Fan, how can a child like you understand? Neither did I understand, when I was doing all the mischief. Between twelve and eighteen I was an imp of mischief, a little demon. It was fun to me to bait that thin-skinned man, that jumped at everything. The explosion was fun to me too. I was a little beast. And then I got the mother to myself again. Don’t kill me, my dear. I am scarcely sorry now. We have had very good times since, I with my parent, you with yours--till that day,” he added, flinging away the end of his cigarette, “when mischief again prompted me to let Con know where he was, which started us all again.”