Lunch was over: the rump-steak, the pudding, the dried figs. Cornélie rose:
"May I give you a glass out of my bottle?" asked the stout gentleman. "Do taste my wine and tell me if you like it. If so, I'll order a fiasco for you in the Via della Croce."
Cornélie did not like to refuse. She sipped the wine. It was deliciously pure. She reflected that it would be a good thing to drink a pure wine in Rome; and, as she did so, the stout gentleman seemed to read her quick thought:
"It is a good thing," he said, "to drink a strengthening wine while you are in Rome, where life is so tiring."
Cornélie agreed.
"This is Genzano, at two lire seventy-five the fiasco. It will last you a long time: the wine keeps. So I'll order you a fiasco."
He bowed to the ladies around and left the room.
The German ladies bowed to Cornélie:
"Such an amiable man, that Mr. Rudyard!"
"What can he be?" Cornélie wondered. "French, German, English, American?"