“In short, you like him. You like so many people, Mrs. Hawthorne, and of such various kinds, that though one is bound to be glad to be among your friends, one needn’t–need one?–feel exactly flattered.”
She seemed to consider this, but instead of taking it up, went on with the subject of Italo.
“He entertains me. He knows all about everybody in Florence and tells me.”
“He gossips, you mean.”
Again she considered a moment before going on.
“Funny, when I don’t know the people, or just know them by sight, and they and the life are all so foreign and apart from me, gossip about them doesn’t seem the same as gossip at home. It’s more like Antonia’s novels, condensed and told in the queerest English! It was some time before I could make out what he meant when he said two gentlemen had fought a duel because one of them had found the other nasconding in his garden-house. The one thus found obstinated himself, says Italo, to maintain that 151he had come to make a copy of the architectural design over the door. But as he didn’t seem to have any pencil–”
“Mrs. Hawthorne, how can you be amused by such disgusting stuff?”
She gazed at him inquiringly, with very blue eyes and a look of innocence, real or put on, then laughed.
“I am, just. I can’t tell you the how of it. Do you know Italo’s sister Clotilde?”
“I have not that advantage, no.”