Then looking up, she saw the face of the Senator all rosy red, turned toward her, with a strange confusion and embarrassment in his eye, yet it was a kind eye--a soft, kind eye.
"_Egli e forse innamorato di me_," murmured the lady, gathering new courage as she saw the timidity of the other. "_Che grandezza_!" she continued, loud enough for the Senator to hear, yet speaking as if to herself. "_Che bellezza_! _un galantuomo, certamente--e quest' e molto piacevole_."
She glanced at the manly figure of the Senator with a tender admiration in her eye which she could not repress, and which was so intelligible to the Senator that he blushed more violently than ever, and looked helplessly around him.
"_E innamorato di me, senza dubio_," said the Signora, "_vergogna non vuol che si sapesse_."
The Senator at length found voice. Advancing toward the lady he looked at her very earnestly and as she thought very piteously--held out both his hands, then smiled, then spread his hands apart, then nodded and smiled again, and said--
"Me--me--want--ha--hum--ah! You know--me--gentleman--hum--me --Confound the luck," he added, in profound vexation.
"_Signore_," said Mirandolina, "_la di Lei gentelezza me confonde_."
The Senator turned his eyes all around, everywhere, in a desperate half-conscious search for escape from an embarrassing situation.
"_Signore noi ci siamo sole, nessuno ci senti_," remarked the Signora, encouragingly.
"Me want to tell you this!" burst forth the Senator. "Clothes--you know--washy--washy." Whereupon he elevated his eyebrows, smiled, and brought the tips of his fingers together.