“Good gracious!” said Patty, secure in the knowledge that the stranger couldn’t understand her, “I don’t want to look at him. But I just want to know if he’s a count. Do ask him, Snippy dear. Flo thinks he is—and I think he isn’t.”
“Well, he isn’t, Miss Patty. He’s a soldier.”
“A soldier! How interesting. Can’t we talk to him a little, Snippy, with you to translate, you know.”
Snippy hesitated. The young man was exceedingly polite and well-bred, and had already asked if the young ladies spoke Italian. Even her careful instincts could suggest no reason why they should not converse, with herself as interpreter.
So, in very conventional language she introduced Signor Grimaldi to her two young charges, and he bowed with the ease and grace of a distinguished cavalier.
“Ask him where he’s going,” said Patty, who knew that Snippy would frame the question less curtly.
A few words of Italian passed between them, and then Snippy informed the waiting ears that the Signor was going to Florence.
“What hotel?” asked Flo, and the information was soon gained that he was going to the same hotel that they were themselves.
“Heavenly!” said Patty, rolling her eyes, dramatically. “Tell him we’re enchanted, and that we think he’s a lovely man, and that he looks as if he had just stepped out of a comic opera, and that——”
“There, there, Miss Patty, how you do run on. I shall tell him none of those things. He’s a very chivalrous gentleman, and I don’t want him to think you a forward young person.”