“Will you come with me for a stroll in the Villa? Will you come to see the gathering together of the geese?”
“Che Diavolo! What’s that?”
“This summer the Marchesa Pontini has organized a sort of club, which meets in the Villa every day except Sundays. Three days the meeting is in the morning, three days in the afternoon. The silliest people of the aristocracy belong to this club, and the Marchesa is the mother goose. Ecco! Will you come, or—or have you some appointment?” He smiled in his friend’s face.
Artois wondered, but could not divine, what was at the back of his mind.
“No, I had thought of going on the sea.”
“Or to the Toledo, perhaps?”
The Marchesino laughed happily.
“The Toledo? Why should I go there?”
“Non lo so. Put on your chapeau and come. Il fait tres beau cet apres-midi.”
Doro was very proud of his French, which made Artois secretly shiver, and generally spoke it when he was in specially good spirits, or was feeling unusually mischievous. As they walked along the sea-front a moment later, he continued in Italian: