He lighted a cigarette, and stood there till he had consumed it.
“Heigh-ho!” he sighed at last, and turned back towards the villa. And “Yes,” he concluded, “I must certainly keep an eye on our friend Peter Marchdale.”
“But I 'm doubting it's a bit too late—troppo tardo,” he said to Marietta, whom he found bringing hot water to his dressing-room.
“It is not very late,” said Marietta. “Only half-past ten.”
“She is a woman—therefore to be loved; she is a duchess—therefore to be lost,” he explained, in his native tongue.
“Cosa.” questioned Marietta, in hers.
XI
Beatrice and Emilia, strolling together in one of the flowery lanes up the hillside, between ranks of the omnipresent poplar, and rose-bush hedges, or crumbling pink-stuccoed walls that dripped with cyclamen and snapdragon, met old Marietta descending, with a basket on her arm.
Marietta courtesied to the ground.