Among the people there was one gentlerman that attracted Mlle. Cadet’s special attention. He was apart from any group, but he knew everybody that arrived. This gentleman was fat, smiling, smooth-shaven, with a round, chubby, rosy face and the body of a Silenus. When he spoke he arched and lowered his eyebrows alternately, rolled his eyes, gesticulated with his fat, soft hands, and smiled and showed his teeth.
His way of greeting people was splendid.
“Come sta, marchesa?” he would say. “Cavaliere!” “Commendatore!” “La contessina va bene?” “Oh! Egregio!”
And the good gentleman would spread his arms, and close them, and look as if he wanted to embrace the whole of humanity to his abdomen, covered with a white waistcoat.
“Who can that gentleman be?” Mlle. Cadet asked various times.
“That? That is Signor Sileno Macarroni,” said Cæsar, “Commander of the Order of the Mighty Belly, Knight of the Round Buttocks, and of other distinguished Orders.”
“He is a singer,” said the Countess Brenda to Mlle. de Sandoval in a low tone.
“He is a singer,” repeated Mlle. de Sandoval to her governess in a similar tone.
“Sileno Macarroni is a singer,” said Mlle. Cadet, with equal mysteriousness, addressing Cæsar.
“But is our friend Macarroni going to sung?” asked Cæsar.