"This!" Here Peronella looked up at Norman with a glance of admiration and put her arm round his waist. Proud of her new lover, she thought also that it would be more prudent to display her colours at once. Cesano staggered to the wall, doubtless moved by real emotion, but with such theatrical gestures that he appeared a mere buffoon.
"What has happened? Can I believe my eyes? Am I moon-mad? Have all the devils possessed me? Are you Peronella? Am I Cesano? Is he your lover?"
He buried his face in his hands. Peronella would not answer the poor fellow.
"What has happened? Has that pink foreigner bewitched your heart? Are you tormenting me or are you tired of me?" he cried.
"Not tired of you," said the girl, growing a little white but not relaxing her grip of Norman, "but very fond of him."
"Fond of that person? Who or what is he? I have not the honour...."
"He is an English lord who came here this afternoon to live here."
"An English lord in this mud-house?"
"It is good enough for him where I am."
Meanwhile Norman was feeling awkward enough. The girl, it seemed, had taken possession of him almost without asking him, though doubtless it was his own fault, for kissing lonely nymphs all in the morning of the world. There she was publicly avowing him, and making him feel very mean and foolish before her honest, if extravagant, lover, who now went on with a sort of portentous dignity: