“Yes,” answered Christian, with a polite display of interest: “and, nevertheless, the Carews were all brought up and educated in France.”
“Ah!” observed the old man, stopping to raise the head of a “Souvenir de Malmaison,” of which he inhaled the odour with evident pleasure. The little ejaculation, and its accompanying action, were admirably calculated to leave the hearer in doubt as to whether mere surprise was expressed or polite acquiescence in the statement of a known fact.
“Yes,” added Christian, deliberately. He also stooped and raised a white rose to his face, thus meeting Signor Bruno upon his own ground. The Italian looked up, and the two men smiled at each other across the rose bush; then they turned and walked on.
“You also know France?” hazarded Signor Bruno.
“Yes; if I were not an Englishman I should choose to be a Frenchman.”
“Ah!”
“Yes.”
“Now with me,” said Signor Bruno frankly, “it is different. If I were not an Italian (which God forbid!) I think—I think, yes, I am sure, I would by choice have been born an Englishman.”
“Ah!” observed Christian gravely, and Signor Bruno turned sharply to glance at his face. The young Englishman was gazing straight in front of him earnestly, with no suspicion upon his lips of the incredulous smile which seemed somehow to have lurked there when he last spoke. The Italian turned away dissatisfied, and they walked on a few paces in silence, until he spoke again, reflectively:—
“Yes,” he said, “there is a quality in the English character which to me is very praiseworthy. It is a certain directness of purpose. You know what you wish to do, and you proceed calmly to do it, without stopping to consider what your neighbours may think of it. Now with the Gallic races—for I take this virtue of straightforwardness as Teutonic—and in my own country especially, men seek to gain their ends by less open means.”