“He is a very perfect type of a complete Neapolitan of his class. He has scarcely travelled at all, except in Italy. Once he has been in Paris, where I met him, and once to Lucerne for a fortnight. Both his father and mother are Neapolitans. He is a charming fellow, utterly unintellectual, but quite clever; shrewd, sharp at reading character, marvellously able to take care of himself, and hold his own with anybody. A cat to fall on his feet! He is apparently born without any sense of fear, and with a profound belief in destiny. He can drive four-in-hand, swim for any number of hours without tiring, ride—well, as an Italian cavalry officer can ride, and that is not badly. His accomplishments? He can speak French—abominably, and pick out all imaginable tunes on the piano, putting instinctively quite tolerable basses. I don’t think he ever reads anything, except the Giorno and the Mattino. He doesn’t care for politics, and likes cards, but apparently not too much. They’re no craze with him. He knows Naples inside out, and is as frank as a child that has never been punished.”
“I should think he must be decidedly attractive?”
“Oh, he is. One great attraction he has—he appears to have no sense at all that difference of age can be a barrier between two men. He is twenty-four, and I am what I am. He is quite unaware that there is any gulf between us. In every way he treats me as if I were twenty-four.”
“Is that refreshing or embarrassing?”
“I find it generally refreshing. His family accepts the situation with perfect naivete. I am welcomed as Doro’s chum with all the good-will in the world.”
Hermione could not help laughing, and Artois echoed her laugh.
“Merely talking about him has made you look years younger,” she declared. “The influence of the day has lifted from you.”
“It would not have fallen upon Isidoro, I think. And yet he is full of sentiment. He is a curious instance of a very common Neapolitan obsession.”
“What is that?”
“He is entirely obsessed by woman. His life centres round woman. You observe I use the singular. I do that because it is so much more plural than the plural in this case. His life is passed in love-affairs, in a sort of chaos of amours.”