JOURNAL CONTINUED
Rome,
February.
Pittsburgo came to call and stayed forever and ever AMEN. He talked most of the time about a beautiful Italian singer. Then A. D. and the Prince arrived and we had tea, and it made me feel like old times when I used to sit in the parlor at home and have beaux, knowing all the time that Auntie was behind the screen. Those were good old times, but they seem a long way off now. Finally Pittsburgo and A. D. went, and Aunt invited the Prince to stay to dinner. Afterwards Aunt was so tired she went off for a snooze. But if it had been the temperamental Peppi that stayed, I don’t think she would have been so sleepy; or maybe she wished to leave us alone.
Later we went to a charity bazaar at Baronessa Blanc’s, where there were flunkies in beautiful liveries at every landing, and flowers and tapestries. A. D. appeared upon the scene. He and I are getting to be quite good friends, though I know he is terribly devoted to the pretty divorcée with a Mona Lisa smile and a come-hither eye. Probably she is the person he is engaged to, if he really is engaged. He has me guessing.
The Prince is very cross with me. He makes me laugh, and tells me I would flirt even with a pair of tongs. The more I see him, the more mysterious he grows. He talks incessantly, and is as strange as the Oriental cane he carries. He is not officially attached to the Russian Embassy, at least, so A. D. says, and his best friends seem to be the Turks. When he is not speaking broken English he uses French, but that’s the diplomatic language everywhere.
The other night I started out with Louisa to a dinner at the French Embassy. She’s the prettiest, dark-eyed, olive-skinned contadina you ever saw, and while we were driving she chattered to me in the most knowing way about the King and Queen and court, of their family life, even telling me where the King has his washing done. She doesn’t know why, but—strange to say—it is all sent to Milan! It appears she knows intimately the Queen’s hairdresser. Louisa is trying to learn English and delights in showing off. Much to our amusement, she refers to Aunt as “he,” to Checkers as “she,” and to me as “it.”
Don Carlo, who has just recovered from the mumps, was at the affair. I danced afterwards with the extravagant Pittsburgo. A. D. was terribly devoted to Madame Mona Lisa, as we call her, and I don’t care if he was! I walked through the great bare galleries and tapestried rooms with the Princess Pallavicini and the Turkish Ambassador, who seemed to know about my flirtation with the Cossack Prince. Somehow I felt glad to escape and go on with Aunt to Mme. Leghait’s “impair” reception where the very gayest of Roman society gathers on evenings of odd dates.