Vedimmo a pettenessa comme te stà.'"
"Leo," she said, with proud lips, "he never called me 'Nenna mia'—never! He dared not!"
In another instant, he could see, there would have been protesting tears in her eyes; and even Mrs. Grey, who did not know the meaning of the familiar Neapolitan phrase,[1] noticed the tremulous indignation in the girl's voice.
"Of course not, Nina," he said, at once; "I was only joking—but you know he did use to sing that confounded 'Antoniella, Antonià,' and it was always you he was thinking of."
"I did not think of him, then!" said she, almost instantly recovering her self-control. "Him? No! When I go out—when I was going out in the Santa Lucia, I looked at the English gentlemen—all so simple and honest in their dress—perhaps a steel watch-chain to a gold watch—not a sham gold chain to no watch! Then they looked so clean and wholesome—is it right, wholesome?—not their hair dripping with grease, as the peasant-girls love it. And then," she added, with a laugh, for her face had quickly resumed its usual happy brightness of expression, "then I grow sentimental. I say to myself, 'These are English people—they are going away back to England, where Leo is—can they take him a message?—can they tell him they were going over to Capri, and they met on the ship—on the steamer—an Italian girl, who liked to look at the English, and liked to hear the English speak?' And then I say 'No; what is the use; what would any message do; Leo has forgotten me.'"
"Oh, yes," said he, lightly, "you must have been quite certain that I had forgotten my old comrade Nina!"
They got a beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon for their drive down to Hampton Court; nor was it fated to be without incident either. They had passed along Oxford Street and were just turning out of the crowded thoroughfare to enter Hyde Park—and Lionel, as a man will, was watching how his coachman would take the horses through the Marble Arch—when Nina said, in a low voice,
"Leo!"
"Well?" said he, turning to her.
"Did you not see?"