"I? Jealous of that gnawer of fish-bones? It is probable," sniffed the Commendatore.
He rose from his chair, and stood before her, very slim and erect, his chin thrust forward, so that the tendons of his long thin neck showed like wires.
"But I am an old ass. I can deny you nothing. I go to your cousin," he consented.
"You are an old dear," said Susanna. "I knew you would go."
Her eyes were brimming with mirth, with triumph, with fondness. She rose too, and gently patted his stiffly-starched white duck sleeve.
After he was gone, she crossed one of the light marble bridges, and walked in the garden on Isola Sorella, where it was shaded by a row of ilexes. Blackcaps (those tireless ubiquitous minstrels) were singing wildly overhead; ring-doves kept up their monotonous coo-cooing. Beyond, in the sun, butterflies flitted among the flowers, cockchafers heavily droned and blundered, a white peacock strutted, and at the water's edge two long-legged, wry-necked flamingoes stood motionless, like sentinels. At the other side of the ilexes stretched a bit of bright green lawn, with a fountain plashing in the middle, from whose spray the sun struck sparks of iridescent fire; and then, terrace upon terrace, the garden rose to a summit, where there was a belvedere.
I don't know how many times Susanna strolled backwards and forwards, I don't know how many times she looked at her watch. Here and there semi-circular marble benches were placed. Sometimes she would sit down and rest for a little; but she was soon up again, walking, walking, looking at her watch. At last she left the shade, crossed the lawn, ascended the terraces, between orange and lemon-trees with their undergrowth of jessamine, and entered the belvedere, having by this progress created a panic indescribable in the community of lizards.
From the belvedere she could command the whole sunlit surface of the bay, here blue, here silver, here deepening to violet, paling to green, here dimly, obscurely rose. A fleet of fishing-boats, their coloured sails decorated with stripes and geometric patterns, or even now and then with a representation of the owner's patron-saint, was putting out to sea in single file, between the Capo del Turco and the Capo del Papa. But Susanna concentrated her attention upon a part of the shore, perhaps half a mile distant, and half a mile to the east of Vallanza, where the grey-green of the prevailing olives was broken by the dark-green of a garden. The garden ran out into the bay a little, forming a point. Susanna waited and watched, watched and waited, till, by-and-by, from behind the point, a boat appeared, a launch, and came swiftly bobbing over the waves towards Isola Nobile. She must have kept very still during this vigil, for now, when she turned to leave the belvedere, she saw that at least a hundred lizards had come forth from their hiding-places, and were staring at her with their twinkling little pin-heads of eyes. But even as she saw them—zrrrp!—a flash, a rustle, and there was not a lizard anywhere in sight.
She went back to the colonnade.
"My dear," said Commendatore Fregi, "your cousin is an extremely fine fellow, and upon my word I am sorry that my mission to him has failed. I could not hope to find you a better husband."