'If I were your uncle,' he observed, 'I should prefer a niece readier to take suggestions.'
'I am ready to take his suggestions, but you're not my uncle.'
'I believe we declared an amnesty, did we not? Do you think it is best to reopen hostilities?'
'It strikes me that there has been more or less light skirmishing in spite of the amnesty.'
'At least there has been no serious damage done on either side. I would suggest, if heavy firing is to be recommenced, that we postpone it until the ride home.'
'Very well. Let's talk some more about the weather. It seems to be the only subject on which we can agree.'
'It's been rather rainy for the last week.'
'The villa must have been a little damp.'
'Very!' Marcia laughed and gave the dialogue a new turn. 'I spent the time reading.'
'Meredith? Don't you find him a trifle--er--for rainy weather, you know?'
'I found the _Egoist_,' she returned, 'a most suggestive work. It throws interesting side-lights on the men one knows.'
'Oh, come, Miss Marcia,' he remonstrated. 'That's hardly fair; you slander us.'
'You mustn't blame me--you must blame the author. It's a man who wrote it.'
'He should be regarded as a traitor. In case he is captured and brought into camp, I shall order him shot at sunrise.'
'He doesn't accuse all men of being Sir Willoughbys,' she returned soothingly. 'I hadn't thought of you in exactly that connexion. If you choose to wear the coat, you have put it on yourself.'
'We'll say, then, that it doesn't fit, and I'll resemble the other fellow--the Daniel Deronda one--what's his name, Whitfield, Whitford?' (Whitford, it will be remembered, was the dark horse who came in at the finish and captured the heroine.)
Marcia laughed. 'I really can't say that the other fits any better. I'm afraid you're not in the book, Mr. Sybert.'
They came to a fork in the roads and drew rein again.
She paused and looked about. They were already far up in the mountains, and towering ahead, nearer and clearer now, on the crest of a still higher ridge, rose the old monastery she could see from her window. She pointed with her whip to the gaunt pile of grey stone against the sky.
'Is it too far? I've been wanting to see it closer ever since we came to the villa.'