It was all possible, Jack felt, in this land of enchantment. Presently, without any prelude, the two girls began to sing a wild sweet stornello. The voices were not very strong, but they were like one; they went on rising, falling, answering back again, dying away at last into the other sounds. Cartouche came rushing along; Jack got up and shook himself.
“Must you go? We often sit out here until very late,” said Mrs Masters, rousing herself from a nap. “But you will come again?”
“Will you come to-morrow? We are going on a fig-eating expedition with the Moronis. We shall start at about four,” said Bice, “and go to their farm.”
“I will be here without fail,” said the young man eagerly. He went away into the cool dusky shadows in a sort of bewilderment; there had been something so unlooked-for and novel in this little episode, that it impressed him more than a hundred more important things. The questions he had half forgotten came forward again. Who were they? What had brought them there?
“Buona notte, signore.”
It was old Andrea the cook, who was standing smoking a cigar at the entrance gate, and probably on the look-out for a little gossip.
“A fine vintage this year. The signore has without doubt seen our vintage? No? Is it possible? Then he will do so this September. The padrona’s grapes will be brought to be weighed next week; the signorine will take the signore to see them cut. Eh, eh, the signorina Beatrice can tell him everything. See here, she has a head as good as my own, though I say it. It is wonderful, a young girl like that, whom I have nursed on my knee many and many a time. Sometimes, when I hear her giving her orders, I stare, I cannot believe it. But then she is one of us, which explains it,” added the old man with pride.
“Do you mean that she is not English?” asked Jack, interested in this confirmation of the ideas which had been floating about in his head since the first moment of seeing Bice.
Old Andrea shook his head vehemently.
“No, no, no,” he said, “not the signorina. Her father was a Capponi; she is a Capponi, anyone can see that who looks in her eyes, if the signore will excuse me for saying so. She is a Capponi all over.”