‘There now!’ cried Kate, as she threw her hat to one side, and stood arranging her hair before the glass. ‘I make this toilet under protest, for we are going in to luncheon, not dinner, and all the world knows, and all the illustrated newspapers show, that people do not dress for lunch. And, by the way, that is something you have not got in Italy. All the women gathering together in their garden-bonnets and their morning-muslins, and the men in their knickerbockers and their coarse tweed coats.’
‘I declare I think you are in better spirits since you see these people are not coming.’
‘It is true. You have guessed it, dearest. The thought of anything grand—as a visitor; anything that would for a moment suggest the unpleasant question, Is this right? or, Is that usual? makes me downright irritable. Come, are you ready? May I offer you my arm?’
And now they were at table, Kate rattling away in unwonted gaiety, and trying to rally Nina out of her disappointment.
‘I declare Nina, everything is so pretty I am ashamed to eat. Those chickens near you are the least ornamental things I see. Cut me off a wing. Oh, I forgot, you never acquired the barbarous art of carving.’
‘I can cut this,’ said Nina, drawing a dish of tongue towards her.
‘What! that marvellous production like a parterre of flowers? It would be downright profanation to destroy it.’
‘Then shall I give you some of this, Kate?’
‘Why, child, that is strawberry-cream. But I cannot eat all alone; do help yourself.’
‘I shall take something by-and-by.’