“Let us come back to your Prince or Count,” said Mark, “whichever he is. Why not ask him down here?”
“Yes; we have room,” said Lady Lyle; “the M'Clintocks left this morning.”
“By all means, invite him,” broke in Mrs. Trafford; “that is, if he be what we conjecture the dear friend of Mr. Maitland might and should be.”
“I am afraid to speak of him,” said Maitland; “one disserves a friend by any over-praise; but at Naples, and in his own set, he is thought charming.”
“I like Italians myself,” said Colonel Hoyle. “I had a fellow I picked up at Malta,—a certain Geronimo. I 'm not sure he was not a Maltese; but such a salad as he could make! There was everything you could think of in it,—tomato, eggs, sardines, radishes, beetroot, cucumber.”
“Every Italian is a bit of a cook,” said Maitland, relieving adroitly the company from the tiresome detail of the Colonel. “I 'll back my friend Caffarelli for a dish of macaroni against all professional artists.”
While the Colonel and his wife got into a hot dispute whether there was or was not a slight flavor of parmesan in the salad, the others gathered around Maitland to hear more of his friend. Indeed, it was something new to hear of an Italian of class and condition. They only knew the nation as tenors or modellers or language masters. Their compound idea of Italian was a thing of dark skin and dark eyes; very careless in dress, very submissive in aspect, with a sort of subdued fire, however, in look, that seemed to say how much energy was only sleeping there! and when Maitland sketched the domestic ties of a rich magnate of the land, living a life of luxurious indolence, in a sort of childlike simplicity as to what engaged other men in other countries, without a thought for questions of politics, religion, or literature, living for mere life's sake, he interested them much.
“I shall be delighted to ask him here,” said he, at last; “only let me warn you against disappointment. He'll not be witty like a Frenchman, nor profound like a German, nor energetic like an Englishman; he 'll neither want to gain knowledge nor impart it. He'll only ask to be permitted to enjoy the pleasures of a very charming society without any demand being made upon him to contribute anything; to make him fancy, in short, that he knew you all years and years ago, and has just come back out of cloud-land to renew the intimacy. Will you have him after this?”
“By all means,” was the reply. “Go and write your letter to him.”
Maitland went to his room, and soon wrote the following:—