"But you make the siesta, surely?" cried the Marchese, astonished.
"Never," said Aunt Clo austerely.
The stately proclamation of her own immunity from the prevalent custom of an afternoon sleep during the hot weather, appeared somehow to restore to Aunt Clo her usual equanimity.
She bade an agreeable farewell to the two men, by whom an expedition to Frascati was proposed for the following week.
"We'll make a picnic of it," cried Nicholas Aubray joyously. "Take plenty of sandwiches and things, and eat them under the trees."
But even Nicholas Aubray's needless insistence upon the grosser aspects of the day's requirements did not, as Lily half feared, cause Miss Stellenthorpe to flinch.
"I'm glad," said she graciously that evening at Genazzano, "very glad to do all in my power pour égayer un peu les choses for Nicholas Aubray. Tell me, my Lily, how did our friend strike you?"
"I liked him very much."
"Liked!" Aunt Clo shrugged away the conventional phrase in her most characteristic fashion.
"How significant that contrast was, n'est-ce pas? The frankly bourgeois enthusiasm of our friend—his naif admiration for the obvious—and then that affectation of preciseness, that pedantic effrontery of young della Torre! It amused me, Lily—it amused me greatly."