'Suppose we sit down and look at the view,' he suggested.
Marcia seated herself on a projecting block of masonry, while Sybert lounged on the grass at her side.
'Mr. Melville told me the other day,' he remarked presently, 'that he remembers having seen your mother when she was a little girl.'
Marcia nodded and laughed. 'He told me about it--he says she was the worst tom-boy he ever saw.'
'It was a very pretty picture he drew--I wonder if you ever rode the colts bareback?'
'My mother was brought up on a Southern plantation; I, in a New York house and a Paris convent--there weren't any colts to ride.'
'And your mother died when you were a little girl?'
'Ah, that was hard,' he said, with quick sympathy.
She glanced up in half surprise. It was the first time she had ever heard him say anything so kindly.
'And the convent in Paris?' he asked. 'How did that happen?'
'Some one suggested it to my father, and I suppose it struck him as an excellent way to dispose of me. Not that he isn't an appreciative parent,' she added quickly, in response to an expression on his face; 'but the education of a daughter is a problem to a business man.'
'I should think it might be,' he agreed. 'And how did the convent go?'
'Not very well. I didn't learn anything but prayers and French, and I was dreadfully homesick.'
'Oh, one or two governesses and a boarding-school, and after that college.' Marcia laughed. 'You should have seen my father when I suggested the college. He clutched at the idea like a drowning man; it was another four years' reprieve.'
'It's a pity,' he remarked, 'that the French method of marrying one's daughter offhand as soon as she gets out of school doesn't prevail in America.'
'I really did feel guilty when I graduated, the poor man looked so dazed through it all. He asked me if I would like to take a little trip into Venezuela with him to look into some mines. It would have been fun, wouldn't it?' she asked. 'I should have liked to go.'
'Yes, and having another plan in my head. It had been years since I had seen Uncle Howard, and I thought it would be nice to come over and live with him for a while.'
'Here I am,' she agreed. 'But as soon as papa is ready to settle down respectably like other people, I am going back to keep house for him, and I shall take with me some fourteenth-century Italian furniture, and some nice Italian servants, and give nice little Italian dinners.'