"No, no," said the girl. "That will never do. People are beginning to get up now and would say all sorts of things. You do not know what tongues they have, the old women of the town. I should be shamed and ruined. But I have a beautiful plan. You must walk about thirty yards behind me and follow me home."
Norman shook his head at her, not understanding. It is so much easier to be metaphorical than to be practical in a foreign tongue.
If you do not understand what I mean, consider a moment. You possess, let us say, a little knowledge of Italian, without tears. You are in a restaurant at Rome, and two Counts are discussing at the next table. To your delight you comprehend them perfectly. The Count with the white imperial has just observed, "La vera educazione, il segreto del progresso umano, e ideale." You admire the limpidity of his thought, the purity of his enunciation, and your own knowledge of a tongue so recently acquired. Then comes the infernal waiter with his coarse, plebeian accent. Where are you now? Minestra, cipolle, rombo, sermone—is the old Count going to preach one? Holding back the scalding tears of shame, you feed the brute with English.
Norman's obtuseness dismayed the girl.
"Oh, dear!" said she. "You don't understand a word. You are dreadfully stupid. What shall I do? Ah, I know!"
Laughing merrily, she picked up two pebbles, one longer than the other.
"You," she said, "and me."
Then she thrust Norman's stick into the grass to represent home, she explained. Then, kneeling down and pulling Norman beside her, she made the pebbles walk after her at even distances towards the stick. She made the short pebble trip along lightly with a mincing gait, while the tall one paced behind in gigantic strides, reverent and slow. At the stick she put another great pebble, squat and dumpy, to do duty for Mamma. The lady pebble tapped at the door and was admitted; the tall pebble thumped a few minutes afterwards; it talked inquiringly to the dumpy pebble, bowed to the graceful pebble, and finally (so Norman contrived to the girl's vast delight) kissed that graceful pebble rapturously behind the squat one's back.
"Now," said she, "do you understand, you stupid?"
Norman understood the little pantomime. She started off. He had to call her back for her forgotten pails. Norman filled them and placed them lovingly on her back. She went a full hundred yards ahead, and then waved her hand, nearly spilling her pails as she did so. He followed, rather frightened, very thrilled, and overwhelmingly tired.