Then I watched him eat and of course that wasn’t nice but, as Leslie said, later, I “lack even a rudimentary knowledge of social graces,” (and I wanted to punch her for saying so) and so I could frankly enjoy a lot of things a really polished person would have to pretend they weren’t watching.
After my artist had had his breakfast he threw a piece of something that was left at a cat, and said—so loudly that it floated across the court to me—“Scat, you green-eyed instrument of Satan!” which led me to think that he had heard the cat concert, too.
“American,” I said half aloud, for two things had told me so; one was his voice, and the other was his dandy throw, for it was a peach. It took the cat right on the nose. It must have been soft, for, after the cat had jumped it came crawling back to the bouquet that had been hurled at it and sniffed at it as cats do, and then it turned around and sat down and washed its ears and whiskers. That made me like him, for I like cats, and a great many men don’t hunt things that are exactly soft to throw at cats who sing all night!
Then he went to work—I saw him slip into his big, long apron, and take his brushes out of a mason jar in which they were standing—and I left the window and opened my steamer trunk, which I had only unlocked the night before, and did my unpacking.
At about ten Beata came in, pointed at my made up bed, and said, “No, no, Signorina!” by which I suppose she meant she would do it, and then she said, “Oh!” in a way that told me she had suddenly remembered something, and fumbled in her pocket.
There was a letter in it for me from Miss Sheila, and I opened it with a great deal of interest, for I imagined that it would have something in it about Leslie and this Miss Harris-Clarke, and it did.
“Dear Child:”
she wrote, in her funny, curly writing which I like so much!
“I am in receipt of rather astounding news, and news that does not entirely please me, however, it is news that must be accepted, and perhaps everything that comes of it will be good; I am afraid I am often a most apprehensive old maiden lady!
“Leslie last night telephoned me that she intends to spend the winter in Florence and study with Signor Paggi, and that with her will go a young friend who is—only temporarily, I am afraid—in Leslie’s complete favor.