"I trust," continued the lady, "that I may be allowed to congratulate you, signor, in the harmonious words of our great poet, upon your 'linked sweetness, long drawn out'—not, I'm sure, that any one present considered for a moment that you were drawing it out at all too long!" And with a sweeping curtsey, in the performance of which she overwhelmed Mr. Sweeting's legs in a flood of pink silk skirt, and backed heavily on to Mr. Cleveland Turner's toes, Amelia withdrew, beaming.
At supper Valli was in high good humour. He had been presented to Mrs. Bransby, and was gratified to find himself placed beside her at the supper-table, she being incontestably the most beautiful woman in the room. Major Mitton sat near them, and pleased Valli by praises of his singing—a pleasure not at all diminished by his quick perception that the good major had no knowledge whatever of the subject.
"It's a real treat, I assure you," said Major Mitton, "to hear a toon. I don't pretend to be a great connoisseur, but I can enjoy a toon. Ah, they may say what they please, but there's no music like Italian music, and nobody can sing it like Italians."
This led to some reminiscences of the major's garrison life in Malta; and to the mention of the prima donna Bianca Moretti. Mrs. Bransby recognized this name as that of the heroine of Miss Piper's story, told at her dinner-party several months ago.
"Oh, you have heard the Moretti?" said Valli. "Yes; she could sing. By the way, I hear she is a kind of marâtre—how do you call it?—to that pretty Miss Cheffington."
"Miss Cheffington? Oh, impossible!"
"Pardon! Not at all impossible! I mean the young lady opposite, at the other end of the table, sitting between those two young men. I know one of them—the one with the blonde smooth head. I meet him in society. He is tremendously annoying—nojoso—what you call a bore."
"That is Miss Cheffington, certainly. But you don't mean to say that Signora Moretti has married her father?"
"Oh, married!" answered Valli, with a shrug. "She has been living with him for years; that is what I mean. I hear la Bianca has grown steady now. But she had a jeunesse pas mal orageuse."
Major Mitton tried to change the subject, glancing uneasily at Mrs. Bransby. But Valli was impervious to the hint. Not that he had any intention of outraging the proprieties, or any suspicion that he was doing so. Mrs. Bransby was not a jeune meess. He had heard of English cant and hypocrisy long before he came to England. But he had been agreeably surprised to find them conspicuous by their absence in the section of London fashionable society which he chiefly frequented. So he went on narrating anecdotes of la Bianca and her adventures, until Mrs. Bransby rose, and quietly left the table. Upon this, Major Mitton and several other men drew closer to Valli. And the consequence was that, not only the mess-table, but other circles in Oldchester, were regaled the next day with some choice morsels of scandal, in which the name of Gus Cheffington figured conspicuously.