How's the book getting on?'

'I don't know,' she said, opening her eyes wide in a smile that would not
be repressed, a smile that broke like light in her grave face.

Her companion looked at her with approval.

'My word! she's dowdy'--he thought--'like a Sunday-school teacher. But
she's handsome.'

The real point was, however, that Mrs. Burgoyne had told him to go out and
make himself agreeable, and he was accustomed to obey orders from that
quarter.

'Doesn't he read it to you all day and all night?' he asked. 'That's his
way.'

'I have heard some of it. It's very interesting.'

The young man shrugged his shoulders.

'It's a queer business that book. My chief here is awfully sick about it.
So are a good many other English. Why should an Englishman come out here
and write a book to run down Italy?--And an Englishman that's been in the
Government, too--so of course what he says'll have authority. Why, we're
friends with Italy--we've always stuck up for Italy! When I think what he's
writing--and what a row it'll make--I declare I'm ashamed to look one's
Italian friends in the face!--And just now, too, when they're so down on
their luck.'