Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/114

Rh fashion. She felt inclined to suggest this to him, only she was not quite sure how he might take it. Italians, she had heard, were so absurdly proud and susceptible.

After luncheon, they went into the green old gardens; green with ilex and arbutus and laurel and cypress avenues, although it was mid-winter; and the great minister discoursed on the charms of the country and the beauty of solitude in a way that should almost have awakened the envy of Horace in his grave; and the Duc de St. Louis disagreed with him in witty arguments that might have made the shades of Rochefoucauld and Rivarol jealous.

And they rambled and idled and talked and sauntered in those charming hours which an Italian villa alone can create; and then the Ave Maria chimed from the belfries of a convent up above on the hill, and the winds grew chill, and the carriages were called round to the steps of the southern terrace, and the old steward brought to each lady the parting gift of a great cluster of the sweet Parma violets.

"Well, it's been pleasanter than I thought