Now it was Beppo’s turn to frown, and a very angry look came over his good-looking face and brilliant, piercing blue eyes.
“It is very wrong of you to say that to Lily!” he exclaimed. “You must understand”—he turned rather quickly to the girl—“that in Italy any person is said to have the evil eye who even for a moment is disliked by the speaker. It is a malicious thing to say! Let us be frank, as you say in England. Mamma does not like my friend; therefore she attributes to her the evil eye—that is all!”
Poor Lily felt desperately uncomfortable, so she wisely said nothing. As for the Countess, she burst out into some bitter laughter.
“Beppo does right to defend the Marchesa,” she said sarcastically, “for the lady’s husband is his greatest friend.”
“Cosy, Cosy!” interposed Count Polda, “you forget that the Pescobaldis are connections of ours.”
By eleven o’clock they were all three ready, Lily wearing her new coat and skirt and becoming little hat. The Countess called Cristina to see how pretty the girl looked, and Lily could not help feeling grateful and touched. What a queer mixture Aunt Cosy was! A mixture of generosity and meanness, of good humour and frightful temper, of kindliness and spitefulness.
When Beppo arrived they were taken by surprise, for, according to his mother, he was most unpunctual.
“Come quick!”, he called out. “The Pescobaldis are waiting for us in the car. We shall all drive together to Eze, where they are going to lunch with some friends who have a villa there, and then we four will go for a delightful little drive, and end up at the restaurant of the Hôtel de Paris.”
It was a perfect day. The sun was shining, the air was full of an exquisite limpidity, and Lily, as she walked out of the drawing-room and joined Beppo on the lawn, feeling perhaps a little self-conscious in her new coat and skirt and smart hat, told herself that “all this” was great fun!