Marie Belloc Lowndes

“ They were nearing La Solitude when Lily bethought herself of what had happened in the restaurant about the gold snuff-box. “I want to ask you something,” she said suddenly.
Beppo turned his face down on his pretty companion. “Ask me anything you like,” he exclaimed gaily. “And I promise that you shall have a true answer!”
“It's only,” she said, rather nervously, “that I wish you would show me that lovely little cigarette-box again, Beppo. Is it really true that you bought it in Milan? Somehow I don't think it is——”
“Well, no,” Beppo answered smiling. “It is not true. ”

“ His thin, keen face lit up. “D'you really mean that, Miss Fairfield?”
“Of course I do!”
She shook hands with him and with M. Popeau; and a few moments later the car was going at a good pace past the Casino, in the opposite direction to that which would have taken them up to La Solitude.
“Is Captain Stuart an old friend of yours?” asked Beppo abruptly.
Lily hesitated. To her secret relief, he went on at once, without waiting for an answer: “The word friendship may mean so much or so little, my little cousin!”
“That is very true!” said Lily demurely. ”

“ The person who is supposed to have the Evil Eye is a woman. Beppo Polda is staying here with a certain Marchese and Marchesa Pescobaldi. According to my aunt”—Lily had now quite slipped into the way of calling the Countess Polda her aunt—“this Italian lady has the Evil Eye.” ”

“ In some ways this fine, strong-looking young fellow seemed to the English girl more like a woman than a man. He was so interested in the sort of things which are supposed, perhaps erroneously, only to interest women. ”