Again he waited, always with his serene stare. “Do you like it then?”
Charlotte turned to her friend. “Do YOU like it?” He came no nearer; he looked at their companion. “Cos’e?”
“Well, signori miei, if you must know, it’s just a perfect crystal.”
“Of course we must know, per Dio!” said the Prince. But he turned away again—he went back to his glass door.
Charlotte set down the bowl; she was evidently taken. “Do you mean it’s cut out of a single crystal?”
“If it isn’t I think I can promise you that you’ll never find any joint or any piecing.”
She wondered. “Even if I were to scrape off the gold?”
He showed, though with due respect, that she amused him. “You couldn’t scrape it off—it has been too well put on; put on I don’t know when and I don’t know how. But by some very fine old worker and by some beautiful old process.”
Charlotte, frankly charmed with the cup, smiled back at him now. “A lost art?”
“Call it a lost art,”