He nodded pleasantly, with a smile at her English.
“You had the earth under your feet before you were of forty years.”
“Mostly sea, Princess, I can assure you.”
“I ought to have spoken world instead of earth, is it so?”
“Dear Princess, I was but jesting to turn off your flattery. I understood you perfectly.”
“Please not to jest against my English, Eccellenza,” she begged, with a rich rush of colour to her dusky cheeks: “I feel the mauvaise honte at speaking it, but strive to defeat myself.”
“My dear young lady! you make me feel more ashamed of myself than the whole French fleet could. If I were to wrestle with your language, as you do with mine, you would keep in such a fit of laughing that you could not understand a single word.”
Will noted the look of unutterable gratitude on the girl’s face, and put down the whole Sicilian nation as more theatrical than My Lady.
“Will you take it unhappily, if I speak something, Eccellenza?”
“No, I am sure I shall not: you may say anything you like to me,” he replied gallantly.