And we went down to dinner.
One of our more popular, less erudite poets, has remarked that "There's nothing half so sweet in life as love's young dream." Or perhaps it was a classic poet. I am not certain which, and must for once confess to ignorance as to the origin of a quotation. But it is one—the sentence, I mean—for which I have long cherished a liking. It is ill-expressed perhaps, but profoundly true. Love's dream is always young: that is one of the finest things about it. The tenderer emotions have a curious faculty of restoring youth, or at least temporarily renewing it. Even love at secondhand, by observation or by inference as it were, is capable of producing a reformation of the spirit which in its new-found vitality at once questions the body as to its actual age and state of decrepitude. Is one ever really old? Does one pass the period when romantic love can obsess one without one's justifying ridicule? Is there, indeed, any such period? Does not true love always dignify its victim? These are the questions which such a contact must invariably engender. And I confess to being no exception to the rule as I watched Alicia and the duke.
What a romance! How pleasing in every way! Two such handsome young people might have been, as it were, taken bodily from the drawings in Godey's Ladies' Book, so incredibly beautiful were they; or from the decorative cover of a more modern magazine, so athletic was their appearance.
One of the very first items to catch and hold my admiring attention in the progress of their affair was the bouquet which he sent her the morning after his arrival. Here in a land where flowers were cheap and plentiful, instead of sending a bushel of blossoms, as the average admirer would have done, a small box appeared containing an exquisite corsage bouquet. She was almost bound to wear it. And she did. So far so good, but what was in even better taste and a further sign of breeding, there was a handful of roses for me!
"My dear," said I as Peaches gave them to me, "that young man is a thoroughbred, take my word for it, even if he is a foreigner!"
"Well, he's only half Italian, you see!" replied my lovely giantess in cheerful explanation. "His mother was a Miss Winton, from Cambridge, the daughter of the American consul at Nice. She married a title, that's all."
"A Winton of Cambridge!" I exclaimed, a great light dawning upon me. "That explains it, of course. The Wintons were very decent people, my dear; very decent, though not very old. I am sure I remember that correctly. I will write and ask some one at home for further particulars. Meanwhile I know no reason why you should not see something of him if you wish."
"Thanks!" said Peaches. "I believe I might. In fact we had thought of taking a ride this afternoon. He's got a friend here in the Besseleri and can borrow two horses. Would that be quite all right, as the English say?"
"Certainly, if you take a groom along," said I, recalling what little I knew on this particular point of etiquette.