“Have you a farm?” Ibbetson asked Kitty.
“Yes,” she said, with a little shy stiffness in her manner. “It is in another direction.”
“And who manages it?”
“Bice is really padrona. But the contadino, who is the tenant, manages it; you know that is the custom here. He pays us half of everything, the live stock and the crops.”
So long a speech was almost too great an effort for Kitty, and she jumped up and took refuge with the children, who were sitting in a heap munching figs, and occasionally trying to thrust one down Cartouche’s throat. A boy in the tree over their heads tossed the cool green fruit into their laps.
“Pippa has only eaten twelve,” said little Gigi, planting his white teeth in the rind. “Only twelve! That is because she is a girl, and so little!”
Pippa plodded on sturdily, paying no attention to the insult. The broad leaves cast broken masses of shade upon the long grass, the clear whiteness of the western sky was changing to amber.
“How well you speak our language!” said the little contessa graciously to Ibbetson. “Believe me, it is a compliment we all appreciate. Now when Bice’s other English friend is here, the Signore—Trent—how do you call him? we are obliged to fall back upon French. Eh, Bice, it is so, is it not?”
“Yes,” said the girl shortly.
She was grave again, as Ibbetson remarked. The changes in her manner and in her face were so rapid that he found himself watching and wondering. He had never met with anyone who showed so openly whatever passed across her mind.