"Was there ever such a creature," I thought; "with your handsome serious face, your gentle dignified air for all the world like Romeo's; with your sweet Italian voice and your ridiculous American accent—and the general suggestion about you of an old bottle with new wine poured in—only in this case by no means to the detriment of the bottle?"
At this point the unconscious object of my meditation broke in upon it.
"Why, yes," said Andrea, calmly, "I had never noticed it before, but I really am uncommonly like the fellow."
As he spoke, he fixed his eyes, frank as a child's, upon my face.
As for me, I could not forbear smiling; whereupon Andrea, struck with the humour of the thing, broke into a radiant and responsive smile. I thought I had never seen any one so funny or so charming.
At this point a bell rang through the house. "That must be my mother," he said, growing suddenly alert. "Miss Meredith, you will excuse me."
I lingered in the gallery after he had left, but my forlorn and pensive mood of ten minutes ago had vanished.
Rather wistfully, but with a certain excitement, I listened to the confused sound of voices which echoed up from below.
Then I heard the whole party pass upstairs behind me, the heels of the ladies clattering in a somewhat frenzied manner on the stones.