“No,” she assured me, with a puzzled elevation of the brows.
“Ah, well, then you are a cardinal,” I concluded.
She gave a silvery trill of laughter, and asked, “Why must I be either a republican or a cardinal?”
“You wear a scarlet hat—a bonnet rouge", I explained.
At which she laughed again, crisply, merrily.
“You are French,” she said.
“Oh, am I?”
“Aren’t you?”
“As you wish, Signorina; but I had never thought so.”
And still again she laughed.