a declaration? It made me laugh
afterwards as I thought it over.'

'Made you laugh!'

'Yes, I laughed to myself at the ingenious way in which you conveyed to me
what an imprudence it was in you to fall in love with a girl who had no
fortune, and the shock it would give your friends when they should hear she
was a Greek.'

'How can you say such painful things, Nina? how can you be so pitiless as
this?'

'It was you who had no pity, sir; I felt a deal of pity; I will not deny it
was for myself. I don't pretend to say that I could give a correct version
of the way in which you conveyed to me the pain it gave you that I was not
a princess, a Borromeo, or a Colonna, or an Altieri. That Greek adventurer,
yes--you cannot deny it, I overheard these words myself. You were talking
to an English girl, a tall, rather handsome person she was--I shall
remember her name in a moment if you cannot help me to it sooner--a Lady
Bickerstaffe--'

'Yes, there was a Lady Maude Bickerstaffe; she merely passed through Rome
for Naples.'

'You called her a cousin, I remember.'

'There is some cousinship between us; I forget exactly in what degree.'

'Do try and remember a little more; remember that you forgot you had
engaged me for the cotillon, and drove away with that blonde beauty--and
she was a beauty, or had been a few years before--at all events, you lost
all memory of the daughter of the adventurer.'

'You will drive me distracted, Nina, if you say such things.'

'I know it is wrong and it is cruel, and it is worse than wrong and cruel,
it is what you English call underbred, to be so individually disagreeable,
but this grievance of mine has been weighing very heavily on my heart, and
I have been longing to tell you so.'

'Why are you not singing, Nina?' cried Kate from the terrace. 'You told me
of a duet, and I think you are bent on having it without music.'

'Yes, we are quarrelling fiercely,' said Nina. 'This gentleman has been
rash enough to remind me of an unsettled score between us, and as he is the
defaulter--'

'I dispute the debt.'

'Shall I be the judge between you?' asked Kate.

'On no account; my claim once disputed, I surrender it,' said Nina.

'I must say you are very charming company. You won't sing, and you'll only
talk to say disagreeable things. Shall I make tea, and see if it will
render you more amiable?'

'Do so, dearest, and then show Mr. Walpole the house; he has forgotten what
brought him here,