“You love the sea, Signorina?” he asked.
But Vere’s enthusiasm abruptly vanished, as if she feared that he might destroy its completeness by trying to share it.
“Oh yes,” she said. “We all do here; Madre, Gaspare, Monsieur Emile—everybody.”
It was the first time the name of Artois had been mentioned among them that day. The Marchesino’s full red lips tightened over his large white teeth.
“I have not seen Signor Emilio for some days,” he said.
“Nor have we,” said Vere, with a touch of childish discontent.
He looked at her closely.
Emilio—he knew all about Emilio. But the Signorina? What were her feelings towards the “vecchio briccone”? He did not understand the situation, because he did not understand precisely the nature of madness of the English. Had the ladies been Neapolitans, Emilio an Italian, he would have felt on sure ground. But in England, so he had heard, there is a fantastic, cold, sexless something called friendship that can exist between unrelated man and woman.
“Don Emilio writes much,” he said, with less than his usual alacrity. “When one goes to see him he has always a pen in his hand.”
He tried to speak of Emilio with complete detachment, but could not resist adding: