Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/191

 circumstances, there was no trace of awkwardness in their meeting. She tried to tell herself that this was the man with whom Mamma had run away, and to harden her heart against him. She looked at him curiously and a little inimicably out of her long, secret eyes. He answered the look gently.

'Don't be angry with me, or her. Do not resent me. I have heard a great deal about you, Lanice, and I hope we may be friends.'

And to her amazement she heard herself answer, 'I hope so, too.'

Their hands met at last.

'You will call me Roger?'

'Yes.'

'Very well, then. Good-night, Lanice.'

'Good-night.'

'Fair Florence, beautiful Florence. Oh, Enchanted City of the Soul, teach me your wisdom. Lily of the Arno. Fragrant...' She put down her pencil and considered. Florence was lovely and romantic, but not exactly fragrant. No city could be that allowed such dreadful things to happen. She found she had developed a tendency of late of starting a lovely description with a flourish and not being able to finish it. Her pen had lost its old unfastidious fluency.

She pushed back the lace curtains of the airy pension room and there below the Arno rustled its watery wings and sped forth to the sea. The drivers cracked their whips about their lean horses, and the