Again she gave me her sidelong gaze. "And do you know the foreign languages?"
"After a fashion."
"Is it hard to speak them?"
"I don't believe you would find it hard," I gallantly responded.
"Oh, I shouldn't want to speak; I should only want to listen," she said. Then, after a pause, she added, "They say the French theatre is so beautiful."
"It is the best in the world."
"Did you go there very often?"
"When I was first in Paris I went every night."
"Every night!" And she opened her clear eyes very wide. "That to me is—" and she hesitated a moment—"is very wonderful." A few minutes later she asked, "Which country do you prefer?"
"There is one country I prefer to all others. I think you would do the same."
She looked at me a moment, and then she said softly, "Italy?"
"Italy," I answered softly, too; and for a moment we looked at each other. She looked as pretty as if, instead of showing her photographs, I had been making love to her. To increase the analogy, she glanced away, blushing. There was a silence, which she broke at last by saying,—
"That is the place which, in particular, I thought of going to."
"Oh, that's the place, that's the place!" I said.
She looked at two or three photographs in silence. "They say it is not so dear."
