breakfast, and on arriving at Siena
at about noon, first employed themselves in recruiting exhausted
nature. By the time that they had both declared that the hotel at
Siena was the very worst in all Italy, and that a breakfast without
eatable butter was not to be considered a breakfast at all, they
had become so intimate that Mr. Glascock spoke of his own intended
marriage. He must have done this with the conviction on his mind that
Nora Rowley would have told her mother of his former intention, and
that Lady Rowley would have told Sir Marmaduke; but he did not feel
it to be incumbent on himself to say anything on that subject. He had
nothing to excuse. He had behaved fairly and honourably. It was not
to be expected that he should remain unmarried for ever for the sake
of a girl who had twice refused him. "Of course there are very many
in England," he said, "who will think me foolish to marry a girl from
another country."

"It is done every day," said Sir Marmaduke.

"No doubt it is. I admit, however, that I ought to be more careful
than some other persons. There is a title and an estate to be
perpetuated, and I cannot, perhaps, be justified in taking quite so
much liberty as some other men may do; but I think I have chosen a
woman born to have a high position, and who will make her own way in
any society in which she may be placed."

"I have no doubt she will," said Sir Marmaduke, who had still
sounding in his ears the alarming description which his wife had
given him of this infatuated man's proposed bride. But he would have
been bound to say as much had Mr. Glascock intended to marry as lowly
as did King Cophetua.

"She is highly educated, gentle-mannered, as sweetly soft as any
English girl I ever met, and very pretty. You have met her, I think."

"I do not remember that I have observed her."

"She is too young for me, perhaps," said Mr. Glascock; "but that is a
fault on the right side." Sir Marmaduke, as he wiped his beard after
his breakfast, remembered what his wife had told him about the lady's
age. But it was nothing to him. "She is four-and-twenty, I think,"
said Mr. Glascock. If Mr. Glascock chose to believe that his intended
wife was four-and-twenty instead of something over forty, that was
nothing to Sir Marmaduke.

"The very best age in the world," said he.

They had sent for an officer of the police, and before they had been
three hours in Siena they had been told that Trevelyan lived about
se