He held out his hand and fixed on her a pair of brilliant penetrating eyes.
As he came close up to her, Lily felt a most curious sensation creep over her, a mingling—if it be not a contradiction in terms—of attraction and repulsion. Of attraction, because, though she was not the kind of girl to set much store by looks, Count Beppo was so extraordinarily handsome: of repulsion, because he was so very like his mother! Lily, though hardly conscious that it was so, was beginning strongly to dislike, as well as fear, the woman whom she called “Aunt Cosy,” and that, though she often tried to feel grateful for the Countess’s undoubted, if often fussy, kindness to her.
Count Beppo had all his mother’s good points; her tall, upright figure, her clear-cut features, and her one-time thick, curling hair. From his plain, short father, he had inherited that indefinable look of race which generally, though not always by any means, implies in its possessor a long pedigree. He also possessed what is, in most countries a rare gift—that is, a most beautiful speaking voice. Just now he was in the pink of physical condition, very unlike the still war-weary young Frenchmen Lily sometimes saw walking about Monte Carlo, or playing on the wind-swept golf course.
Taking the hand the girl held out to him, the young man respectfully lifted it to his lips. Now this was the first time Lily’s hand had ever been kissed by a man, and she thought it a pretty, if rather a singular, custom.
They stood talking together for a few moments while Count Beppo explained in his full, caressing voice how he had always longed to meet Miss Fairfield, ever since his mother had told him of her many delightful qualities, when he was still a boy, years ago, after the Countess had paid her memorable visit to England!
Lily felt just a little embarrassed, as well as rather thrilled. She had never met anyone in the least like this young man before! Then she bethought herself of the Count and Countess. And how about Count Beppo’s luggage? He had nothing in his hand but a Malacca cane set with one large, pale-green turquoise. Held by a young Englishman, the cane would have looked foppish, and a trifle absurd: but, somehow, it seemed in perfect harmony with the rest of Count Beppo’s smart, rather dandified appearance.
“And now,” he said at last, “I suppose I must go in and greet my papa and mamma—or are they having a siesta? If yes, perhaps I may linger in Capua yet a little longer,” and he smiled down, very delightfully, into Lily’s pretty face.
“Didn’t they meet you?” she exclaimed. “They were expecting you by the two o’clock train!”
Her companion laughed. “I gave them what you in England call ‘the slip’! I arrived at Monte yesterday!”
“Yesterday?” Lily was much surprised.