"Certainly," the Englishman replied courteously. After all, perhaps the fellow did not mean to quarrel.
"I regret exceedingly having to trouble you, Signor, with a little personal history," the Sicilian continued. "I must tell you, at the commencement, that for five years I have been a suitor for the hand of the Signorina Adrienne Cartuccio, my cousin."
"Second cousin, I believe," Lord St. Maurice interposed.
The Sicilian waved his hand. It was of no consequence.
"Certain political differences with the Imperial party at Rome," he continued, "culminated two years ago in my banishment from Italy and Sicily. You, I believe, Lord St. Maurice, are of ancient family, and it is possible that you may understand to some extent the bitterness of exile from a country and a home which has been the seat of my family for nearly a thousand years. Such a sentence is not banishment as the world understands it; it is a living death! But, Signor, it was not all. It was not even the worst. Alas, that I, a Marioni, should live to confess it! But to be parted from the woman I love was even a sorer trial. Yet I endured it. I endured it; hoping against hope for a recall. My sister and I were orphans. She made her home with the Signorina Cartuccio. Thus I had news of her continually. Sometimes my cousin herself wrote to me. It was these letters which preserved my reason, and consciously or unconsciously, they breathed to me ever of hope.
"Not Adrienne's, I'll swear," the Englishman muttered to himself. He was a true Briton, and there was plenty of dormant jealousy not very far from the surface.
The Sicilian heard the words, and his eyes flashed.
"The Signorina Cartuccio, if you please, Signor," he remarked coldly. "We are in a public place."
Lord St. Maurice felt that he could afford to accept the rebuke, and he bowed his head.
"My remark was not intended to be audible!" he declared.