Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/349

 why should she send him away?—il y a des moyens pour tout. They are brouillés somehow, that is certain. Oh, yes—certain! He was here when Hilda came back, and we passed him one day in the street, and he took off his hat and bowed, and looked very cold and pale and went onwards; and he has never called once. Now you know he is gone to the Marshes, and after that they say he is going into Sicily to see after that brigand Pibro. It is not like an Italian to be so soon repulsed."

"It is very like an Italian to be too proud to ask twice," said the Duc, and added with a little smile, "He never said anything to me. Only once lately he said that he was sure that Miladi would be a very different creature if she had home interests and children!"

"Good gracious!" said Madame Mila, "she was quite right to have nothing to do with him if he have that kind of ideas. How little he knows her too! Hilda is quite unnatural about children; quite horrid; she never speaks to them; and when she saw my dear little Lili dressed as Madame l'Archiduc for the babies'