Just beyond the door we met a young man who had come over on the boat with us, and stopped for a word with him. I was telling him that I was going to see the Pantheon that afternoon, when Muggs greeted me.
“It's a wonderful ruin,” he remarked with a smile.
I made no answer, and he entered the studio, probably to meet Mrs. Mullet. He would get his dismissal soon. Then what?
IX.—A MODERN AMERICAN MARRYER ENTERS THE SCENE
I HAVE read that there are no fairies in Italy, but I know better. Italy is full of them, and they are the most light-footed, friendly, impartial, democratic fairies in the world. They are liable to make friends with anybody. Like many Italians, they seem to live mostly on the foreign population. A number of them adopted me for a residence. Sometimes, when they were playful, they made me feel like a winter resort. They used to enjoy tobogganing down the slopes of my shoulders and digging their toes in the snow; they held games here and there on my person, which seemed to be well attended. I got a glimpse of one of them now and then, and we became acquainted with each other; and, while he was very shy, I am sure that he knew and liked me. I called him Oberon. He and his kin did me a great service, for they taught me why people move their arms and shrug their shoulders so much in Italy. Then, too, I always had company wherever I happened to be.
So when Betsey and the Norris ladies implored me to go with them to Mrs. Dorsey's palace and hear a prince lecture, I reported that I was engaged to play with the fairies, whereupon they concluded that I wanted the time for meditation and left me out of their plans. So it happened that I was, fortunately, alone with Norris when Forbes arrived, a full day ahead of his schedule.
The boy and I went out for a walk together. Before sailing he had spent two weeks coaching the ball-team of his college and was in fine form. His kindly blue eyes glowed with vitality and his skin was browned by the sunlight. As I looked at that tall, straight column of bone and muscle, with its broad shoulders and handsome head, I could not help saying: “If you were standing on a pedestal here in Rome there'd be a lot of gals in the gallery.”
“Before you say things like that you should teach me how to answer them with wit and modesty,” he said.