Francesca burst out laughing all of a sudden. “The signora thought I was your moglie, do you know, and that we were going to live there together. I said I was your cousin, but she did not catch on. Cugina—it is not an accepted relationship anywhere in the world, it seems.”
Both laughed.
“Would you care to go for a walk?” asked Miss Jahrman suddenly. “Shall we go to Ponte Molle? Have you been there? Is it too far? We can come back by tram.”
“Is it not too far for you? You’re not well.”
“It does me good to walk. ‘You must walk more,’ says Gunnar always—Mr. Heggen, you know.”
She chatted all the time, looking at him now and again to see if he was amused. They took the new road along by the Tiber; the yellow-grey river rolled between the green slopes. Small, pearl-tinted clouds sailed over the dark shrubbery of Monte Mario and the blocks of villas between the evergreen trees.
Francesca nodded to a policeman and said laughingly to Gram:
“Do you know, that man has proposed to me. I used to walk here very often alone, and sometimes I spoke to him, and one day he proposed. The son of our tobacconist has also proposed to me. Jenny says it was my own fault, and I suppose it was.”
“Miss Winge seems to scold you very often. She is a strict mamma, I can see.”
“No, she isn’t. She only scolds me when I need scolding: I wish somebody had done it long before.” She sighed. “But nobody ever did.”