The Senator merely smiled, and played with his watch chain. "I should hate to brag," he said, but anyone could see from the absence of a diamond ring on his little finger that he was a person of weight in his community.
"Oh!" said momma, "my daughter is awake at last! Mamie, let me introduce Count Filgiatti. Count, my daughter. What a pity you went to sleep, love. The Count has been giving us such a delightful afternoon."
The carriage swayed a good deal as the Count stood up to bow, but that had no effect either upon the dignity or the gratification he expressed. His pleasure was quite ingratiating, or would have been if he had been a little taller. As it was, it was amusing, and I recognised an opportunity for the study of Italian character. I don't mean that I made up my mind to avail myself of it, but I saw that the opportunity was there.
"So you've been reading the New York World," I said kindly.
"I have read, yes, two avertissimi. Not more, I fear. But they are also amusing, the avertissimi." His voice was certainly agreeably deferential, with a note of gratitude.
"Now, if you wouldn't mind taking the corner opposite my daughter, Count Filgiatti," put in poppa, "you and she could talk more comfortably, and Mrs. Wick could put her feet up and get a little nap."
"I am too happy if I shall not be a trouble to Mees," the Count responded, beaming. And I said, "Dear me, no; how could he?" at which he very obligingly changed his seat.
I hardly know how we drifted into abstract topics. The Count's English was so bad that my sense of humour should have confined him to the weather and the scenery; but it is nevertheless true that about an hour later, while the landscape turned itself into a soft, warm chromo in the fading sunset, and both my parents soundly slept, we were discussing the barrier of religion to marriage between Protestants and Roman Catholics. I did not hesitate to express the most liberal sentiments.
"Since there are to be no marriages in heaven," I said, "what difference can it make, in married life, how people get there?"
"The signor and signora think also so?"