Armstrong bowed stiffly. The contessa’s manner was far too affable to warrant him in taking offence, yet he felt distinctly annoyed by what she said. Amélie, however, gave him no opportunity to reply.
“Oh, you don’t know these Italian husbands,” she continued, shrugging her beautiful shoulders. “I have one, so I know all about it. They go into paroxysms of fury even at the thought of having their wives go about without them, receiving the admiration of other men. I have no doubt that at this very moment my dear Morelli is either abusing one of the servants or breaking some of the furniture, just because I happen to be here while he is nursing his gouty foot at home. I am always proud of my countrymen when I see them, as you are, willing to let their wives enjoy themselves without them.”
“I do not think I have observed this trait among American husbands developed to the extent you mention,” Armstrong observed, with little enthusiasm.
“You haven’t?” queried the contessa, innocently. “Perhaps that is because you are such a learned man, with your eyes upon your books instead of upon the world. You must take my word that it is so. But you know enough of the world to recognize admiration when you yourself become the object of it?”
Amélie fastened upon her companion an arch smile so full of meaning that Armstrong was caught entirely off his guard.
“I the object of admiration?” he asked, incredulously. “I wish I might think that you were speaking of your own.”
The contessa laughed merrily. “I certainly laid myself open for that, did I not?” she replied. “Now suppose I had said adoration instead of admiration, then you would not have replied as you did.”
“I should hardly have so presumed,” he said, mystified by the contessa’s conversation.
“Yet I have seen you the object of adoration—nothing less. I have seen eyes resting upon your face filled with a devotion which a woman never gives but once. You ought to feel very proud to be able to inspire all that, Mr. Armstrong. I should if I were a man.”
“You have evidently mistaken me for some one else, contessa. Otherwise I cannot understand what you are saying.”