Lisa’s taste had become somewhat chastened since she had lived at Chelsea. A casual word or two from Vansittart, whose lightest speech she remembered, had made her scrupulously plain in her attire—save on such an occasion as Mrs. Hawberk’s party, when her innate love of finery showed itself in scarlet stockings and beaded shoes. This afternoon Sefton found her sitting on the hearthrug in front of the bright little tiled grate, in the black stuff gown she had worn when he first saw her, and with just the same touch of colour at her throat, and in her blue-black hair.
She and the little boy were sitting on the rug together, dividing the caprices of a white kitten, the plaything of mother and son, mother and son laughing gaily, with laughter which harmonized and sounded like music. The boy made no change in his sprawling attitude as Sefton entered; but he looked up at the stranger with large dark eyes, wondering, and slightly resentful.
“His boy,” thought Sefton, and felt a malignant disposition to kick the sprawling imp, hanging on to the mother’s skirts, and preventing her from rising to greet her visitor.
“Let go, Paolo,” said Lisa, laughing. “What with you and the kitten, I can’t stir.”
She shook herself free, transferred the kitten to the boy’s eager arms, rose, and gave Sefton her hand, with a careless grace which was charming from an artistic point of view, but which showed him how faint an impression all his attentions of Sunday night had made upon her. A woman who had thought of him in the interval would have been startled at his coming. Lisa took his visit much too easily. There was neither surprise nor gladness in her greeting.
“I saw you in the stalls,” she said, “last night, and the night before. Aren’t you tired of Fanchonette?”
“Not in the least.”
“You must be monstrously fond of music,” she said, always in Italian.
“I am—monstrously; but I have other reasons for liking Fanchonette. I like to see you act, as well as to hear you sing.”
“So do other people,” she answered, with frank vanity, tossing up her head. “They all applaud me when I first come on, before I have sung a note. I have to stand there in front of the lights for ever so long, while they go on applauding like mad. And yet people say you English have no enthusiasm, that you care very little for anything.”