With a short, quickly-taken breath of relief, he stepped over the window-sill back into the corridor. The men and the girl who had been leaning tensely out, watching him, stepped back respectfully to give him room.
Before he could turn to the girl, the servant had snatched the cat from under his arm, and with a fine air of virtuous indignation was cuffing her savagely over the head, pouring out on her a loud, highly-articulate flood of vituperation. The boy lifted his hand to join in the game, crying out, "Bestia del diavolo," "animaluzzo dannato!" and the like.
"Oh, good Lord!" thought Neale impatiently. "Isn't that just like them! Hey, stop that!" he cried aloud, and as the man paid no attention to this he seized him somewhat roughly by the shoulder in a grip that paralyzed the arm. He caught the cat as she fell and held her up over his head. He was so tall, so long-armed, that she now dangled high in the air, quite out of reach, yowling at the top of her voice, a ridiculous scene altogether!
He tried sternly to explain his feelings and issue his commands, but as was to be expected his Italian gave way under the strain: "Troppo in ritardo punire il gatto ... it's too late to jump on the cat now, you poor chump; she wouldn't have any idea what it's for. Gatto non capisce ... it's not her fault anyhow. She doesn't know any better. Take her down cellar, dans la cave; she's all right catching rats. That's what she's for! And look here," he stopped his pitiful attempt at Italian and ended fiercely, trusting to a grim eye and a set jaw to make his meaning plain, "Don't you try any funny business on the cat when I'm not around, or I'll knock your heads together till you can't see."
He heard the girl speak to the men in an Italian that was so rapid it made him dizzy and at the end caught the phrase, "do you understand?" The men nodded, by no means pleased at the rebuff, the boy motioned Neale to give him the cat, and carried her off carefully down the corridor.
"That was the very most splendid thing for you to do," the girl said to him, with a soft energy of accent.
He whirled about towards her, the immensity of his relief flooding his face. "Oh, you do speak English! You're not Italian!" he cried, the intonation of his phrase seeming to indicate that she had lifted from his mind an apprehension of infinitely long standing.
"Oh, yes," she said, smiling and looking directly at him, "of course I speak English. I'm an American girl. My name is Marise Allen."
Neale was so affected by the sweetness of her smile on him, by the softness of her shining dark eyes, that he felt himself blushing and stammering like a little boy. "M-mine is Neale Crittenden," he answered.