Again she hesitated. Then she turned towards the quarter indicated and disappeared round the laurel bushes.
He was alone in the house—his people and the servants were in the country; the woman who came to "do for him" had left for the night. He went into the dining-room, dark with mahogany and damask, found wine and cake in the sideboard cupboard, put them on a tray, and took them out through the garden door and round to the corner where, almost sheltered by laburnums and hawthorns from the view of the people next door, the singer and her guitar rested on the iron seat.
"I have brought you some wine—will you have it?"
Again that strange hesitation—then quite suddenly the girl put her hands up to her face and began to cry.
"Here—I say, you know—don't—" he said. "Oh, Lord! This is awful. I hardly know a word of Italian, and apparently she has no English. Here, signorina, ecco, prendi—vino—gatto—No, gatto's a cat. I was thinking of French. Oh, Lord!"
The Contadina had pulled out a very small handkerchief, and was drying her eyes with it. She rose.
"No—don't go," he said eagerly. "I can see you are tired out. Sai fatigueé non è vero? Io non parlate Italiano, sed vino habet, et cake ante vous partez."
She looked at him and spoke for the first time.
"It serves me right," she said in excellent, yet unfamiliar, English. "I don't understand a single word you say! I might have known I couldn't do it, though it's just what girls in books would do. It would have turned out all right with them. Let me go—thank you very much. I am sure you meant to be kind." And then she began to cry again.