“I think I know now—now,” whispered the girl.
Mrs Tremaine considers, herself the only survivor of the people who professed to exorcise the ghosts in whom our grandfathers were foolish enough to believe.
THE BLOOD ORANGES
Ah, my friend,” said the Marchesa, “you Englishmen are like to our mountain which we see smoking over there.” She threw herself into the attitude of the ‘prima donna assoluta in an impassioned moment preceding the singing of the romanza, as she pointed across the blue Bay of Naples to where Vesuvius was sending forth a delicate hazy fume.
“I don’t know anything about Englishmen,” said Sir Percival morosely; “but I know that when you are near me my heart is a volcano—my soul——”
The lady’s laugh interrupted him—one cannot make use of similes with a poetical flavour about them when a violet-eyed lady is leaning back her head in laughter, even though the action displays a beautiful throat and the curves of a superb neck. The Marchesa del Grippo displayed a marvellous throat and neck, and was fully aware of this fact. Her laugh rang out like a soprano dwelling with delight on a high note and producing it tremolo.
“Ah,” she cried, “you are at pains to prove to me that I am right in the way I judge you Englishmen: to-day you are volcanic, to-morrow we find not the blaze and the thunder but only—ecco! a puff of smoke.”