howing it; you're just as innocent-looking
as ever, and that's the main thing; you oughtn't to lose that. You
wouldn't dance a skirt dance now before a ship's company, but if you did,
no one would suspect that you knew any better. Have you forgiven me, yet?
Well, I didn't use you very well, Clementina, and I never pretended I
did. I've eaten a lot of humble pie for that, my dear. Did Miss Milray
tell you that I wrote to her about it? Of course you won't say how she
told you; but she ought to have done me the justice to say that I tried
to be a friend at court with her for you. If she didn't, she wasn't
fair."

"She neva said anything against you, Mrs. Milray," Clementina answered.

"Discreet as ever, my dear! I understand! And I hope you understand about
that old affair, too, by this time. It was a complication. I had to get
back at Lioncourt somehow; and I don't honestly think now that his
admiration for a young girl was a very wholesome thing for her. But never
mind. You had that Boston goose in Florence, too, last winter, and I
suppose he gobbled up what little Miss Milray had left of me. But she's
charming. I could go down on my knees to her art when she really tries to
finish any one."

Clementina noticed that Mrs. Milray had got a new way of talking. She had
a chirpiness, and a lift in her inflections, which if it was not exactly
English was no longer Western American. Clementina herself in her
association with Hinkle had worn off her English rhythm, and in her long
confinement to the conversation of Mrs. Lander, she had reverted to her
clipped Yankee accent. Mrs. Milray professed to like it, and said it
brought back so delightfully those pleasant days at Middlemount, when
Clementina really was a child. "I met somebody at Cairo, who seemed very
glad to hear about you, though he tried to seem not. Can you guess who it
was? I see that you never could, in the world! We got quite chummy one
day, when we were going out to the pyramids together, and he gave himself
away, finely. He's a simple soul! But when they're in love they're all
so! It was a little queer, colloguing with the ex-headwaiter on society
terms; but the head-waitership was merely an episode, and the main thing
is that he is very talented, and is going to be a minister. It's a pity
he's so devoted to his crazy missionary scheme. Some one ought to get
hold of him, and point him in the direction of a rich New York
congregation. He'd find heathen enough a