Some time after, a ring at the bell interrupted some similar inane, mock-passionate conversation.
"You were talking about my lovers, dear Normano," said the girl. "If you want to see one, you have only to wait here while I open the door. Now, if that's Cesano, as I suppose it is, there will be fireworks. Be careful, Normano; he's a rival. Alsandrian lovers are not like English. They have hot blood in their veins. Listen, how he rings. He is angry already. Oh, Normano, go into your bedroom. It would be dangerous for you to stay here—"
"Nonsense; I have come to stay. Do you think I am frightened? I am longing to see this very passionate man and to learn how I ought to make love."
She undid the door and Cesano entered. He was a dark individual, a few years older than Norman, with a bulging forehead, and a black moustache. He looked very much like an English maidservant's idea of a typical Spaniard, being, furthermore, dressed in one of those horrible colour-combinations in velvet and silk that we English, perhaps the best-dressed people in the world, find so charmingly picturesque and so essentially artistic.
"Good evening, Cesano; let me introduce you to our new lodger, an Englishman."
The two men bowed to each other without saying a word. Cesano wasted no time.
"Are you coming out?" he said.
"I should like to, Cesano, but I can't possibly leave a stranger quite alone for his first night in Alsander, can I?"
"Oh, he looks as if he could look after himself, that great pink-faced lout of an Englishman. Besides, what does he matter? And he must be tired if he has only just arrived."
"I am not at all tired," said Norman. "I have been asleep all day."