Pasquale had told him that they were foreigners from America who were climbing the mountain for diversion and who had lost their way. He was going down to the village himself and would be pleased to guide them.
He fell into step beside Constance and commenced asking questions, while Tony, as the path was narrow, perforce fell behind. Occasionally Constance translated, but usually she laughed without translating, and Tony, for the twentieth time, found himself hating the Italian language.
The young man’s questions were refreshingly ingenuous. He was curious about America, since he was thinking, he said, of becoming an American himself some day. He knew a man once who had gone to America to live and had made a fortune there—but yes a large fortune—ten thousand lire in four years. Perhaps the signorina knew him—Giuseppe Motta; he lived in Buenos Aires. And what did it look like—America? How was it different from Italy?
Constance described the skyscrapers in New York.
His wonder was intense. A building twenty stories high! Dio mio! He should hate to mount himself up all those stairs. Were the buildings like that in the country too? Did the shepherds live in houses twenty stories high?
“Oh no,” she laughed. “In the country the houses are just like these only they are made of wood instead of stone.”
“Of wood?” He opened his eyes. “But signorina, do they never burn?”
He had another question to ask. He had been told—though of course he did not believe it—that the Indians in America had red skins.
Constance nodded yes. His eyes opened wider.
“Truly red like your coat?” with a glance at her scarlet golf jacket.