‘I suppose you must say that,’ said Kate; ‘please don’t take the trouble. I know you could not help making me a pretty speech; but what I say is quite true. We were glad, not because it was you, but because we felt in a moment, here are some men we know, they cannot leave us standing here all night; we must be able to get a dance at last.’
‘I have brought the Signora a card,’ said Francesca, interrupting the talk. ‘Ah, such a beautiful young Signor! What a consolation to me to be in my own country; to be called amica mia once again. You are very good, you English Signori, and very kind in your way, but you never speak as if you loved us, though we may serve you for years. When one comes like this handsome young Count Antonio, how different! “Cara mia,” he says, “put me at the feet of their Excellencies. I hope the beautiful young ladies are not too much fatigued!” Ah, my English gentlemen, you do not talk like that! You say, “Are they quite well—Madame Anderson and the young ladies?” And if it is old Francesca, or a new domestic, whom you never saw before, not one word of difference! You are cold; you are insensible; you are not like our Italian. Signorina Katta, do you know the name on the card?’
‘It’s Count Antonio Buoncompagni!’ said Kate, with a bright blush and smile. ‘Why, that was my partner last night! How nice of him to come and call—and what a pretty name! And he dances like an angel, Francesca—I never saw any one dance so well!’
‘That is a matter of course, Signorina. He is young; he is a Buoncompagni; his ancestors have all been noble and had education for a thousand years—what should hinder him to dance? If the Signorina will come to me when these gentlemen leave you, I will tell her hundreds of beautiful stories about the Buoncompagni. We are, as it were, connected—the sister-law of my aunt Filomena was once maid to the old Duchessa—besides other ties,’ Francesca added, raising her head with a certain careless grandeur. ‘Nobody knows better than I do the history of the Buoncompagni; and the Signorina is very fond of stories, as Madame knows.’
‘My good Francesca, so long as you don’t turn her head with your stories,’ said Mrs. Anderson, good-humouredly. And she added, when the old woman had left the room, ‘Often and often I have been glad to hear Francesca’s stories myself. All these Italian families have such curious histories. She will go on from one to another, as if she never would have done. She knows everybody, and whom they all married, and all about them. And there is some truth, you know, in what she says—we are very kind, but we don’t talk to our servants nor show any affection for them. I am very fond of Francesca, and very grateful to her for her faithful service, but even I don’t do it. Kate has a frank way with everybody. But our English reserve is dreadful!’
‘We don’t say everything that comes uppermost,’ said one of the young men. ‘We do not wear our hearts on our sleeves,’ said the other.
‘No,’ said Ombra; ‘perhaps, on the contrary, you keep them so covered up that one never can tell whether you have any hearts at all.’
Ombra’s voice had something in it different from the sound of the others; it had a meaning. Her words were not lightly spoken, but fully intended. This consciousness startled all the little party. Mrs. Anderson flung herself, as it were, into the breach, and began to talk fast on all manner of subjects; and Ombra, probably repenting the seriousness of her speech, exerted herself to dissipate the effect of it. But Kate kept the Count’s card in her hand, pondering over it. A young Italian noble; the sort of figure which appears in books and in pictures; the kind of person who acts as hero in tale and song. He had come to lay himself at the feet of the beautiful young ladies. Well! perhaps the two Berties meant just as much by the clumsy shy visit which they were paying at that moment—but they never laid themselves at anybody’s feet. They were well-dressed Philistines, never allowing any expression of friendship or affectionateness to escape them. Had they no hearts at all, as Ombra insinuated, or would they not be much pleasanter persons if they wore their said hearts on their sleeves, and permitted them to be pecked at? Antonio Buoncompagni! Kate stole out after a while, on pretence of seeking her work, and flew to the other end of the long, straggling suite of rooms to where Francesca sat. ‘Tell me all about them,’ she said, breathlessly. And Francesca clapped her hands mentally, and felt that her work had begun.