“It is a pity,” sighed Carmela as she moved towards the door. “But after all they are all alike in the end. I must go now to help Maria lace. I pull a little, and then wait a few minutes. È un martirio!”
“Why does she do it?”
“Why does an ostrich bury its head in the sand? Why does a camel try to get through the eye of a needle? (But perhaps he does not.) I often tell her fat cannot be hidden, but she will not believe.”
When Olive went into the salotto a few minutes before seven she found the family assembled. Signor Lucis rose from his place at Gemma’s side as the aunt uttered the introductory formula. He brought his heels together and bowed stiffly from the waist, and when Olive gave him her hand in English fashion he took it limply and held it for a moment before he dropped it. His string-coloured moustache was brushed up from a loose-lipped mouth, and he showed bad teeth when he smiled.
“The signorina speaks Italian?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Ah, does she come from London?”
“I had no settled home in England.”
“Ah! The sun never shines there?”
She laughed. “Not as it does here,” she admitted. “Where is my shoe?”