They seated themselves at the breakfast-table.
'You should have seen our Apennine breakfasts in the autumn, Lord Cadurcis,' said Herbert. 'Every fruit of nature seemed crowded before us. It was indeed a meal for a poet or a painter like Paul Veronese; our grapes, our figs, our peaches, our mountain strawberries, they made a glowing picture. For my part, I have an original prejudice against animal food which I have never quite overcome, and I believe it is only to please Lady Annabel that I have relapsed into the heresy of cutlets.'
'Do you think I have grown fatter, Lady Annabel?' said Lord Cadurcis, starting up; 'I brought myself down at Athens to bread and olives, but I have been committing terrible excesses lately, but only fish.'
'Ah! here is George!' said Lady Annabel.
And Captain Cadurcis appeared, followed by a couple of sailors, bearing a huge case.
'George,' said Venetia, 'I have been defending you against
Plantagenet; he said you would not come.'
'Never mind, George, it was only behind your back,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'and, under those legitimate circumstances, why even our best friends cannot expect us to spare them.'
'I have brought Venetia her toys,' said Captain Cadurcis, 'and she was right to defend me, as I have been working for her.'
The top of the case was knocked off, and all the Turkish buffooneries, as Cadurcis called them, made their appearance: slippers, and shawls, and bottles of perfumes, and little hand mirrors, beautifully embroidered; and fanciful daggers, and rosaries, and a thousand other articles, of which they had plundered the bazaars of Constantinople.
'And here is a Turkish volume of poetry, beautifully illuminated; and that is for you,' said Cadurcis giving it to Herbert. 'Perhaps it is a translation of one of our works. Who knows? We can always say it is.'