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 think all 'foreigners' equally desirable as acquaintances and escorts if they're able to make what seems to you a presentable appearance. What I could never puzzle out"

But she interrupted him again, and this time she laughed. "Oh, now I see what you're talking about and I know what you and Mr. Rennie were discussing—and probably what's worrying the Principessa. You mean the baron and his brother, Giuseppe. You're talking about my distressing Arturo by playing around with the two Bastoni, aren't you?"

"I suppose so; yes."

She nodded, laughed again and went on: "You and the princess and Mr. Rennie—and, incidentally, my mother—can't understand how I could waste my time going places with the Bastoni and letting them hang about me here, when there's such a splendid young man as Arturo available. That's it, isn't it? In the first place, you wonder why I don't accept him, and in the second, why I annoy him by seeing something of two men he despises. Well, since that's my mystery, I'll clear it up for you, Mr. Orbison. You've been such an attentive audience, I think I owe it to you. I haven't accepted Don Arturo because he hasn't proposed to me."