“Come alone? To church!” Mrs. Erwin addressed her in a sort of whispered shriek. “It would have been perfectly scandalous.”
“To go to church alone?” demanded Lydia, astounded.
“Yes. A young girl mustn't go anywhere alone.”
“Why?”
“I'll explain to you, sometime, Lydia; or rather, you'll learn for yourself. In Italy it's very different from what it is in America.” Mrs. Erwin suddenly started up and bowed with great impressiveness, as a gondola swept towards them. The gondoliers wore shirts of blue silk, and long crimson sashes. On the cushions of the boat, beside a hideous little man who was sucking the top of an ivory-handled stick, reclined a beautiful woman, pale, with purplish rings round the large black eyes with which, faintly smiling, she acknowledged Mrs. Erwin's salutation, and then stared at Lydia.
“Oh, you may look, and you may look, and you may look!” cried Mrs. Erwin, under her breath. “You've met more than your match at last! The Countess Tatocka,” she explained to Lydia. “That was her palace we passed just now,—the one with the iron balconies. Did you notice the gentleman with her? She always takes to those monsters. He's a Neapolitan painter, and ever so talented,—clever, that is. He's dead in love with her, they say.”
“Are they engaged?” asked Lydia.
“Engaged!” exclaimed Mrs. Erwin, with her shriek in dumb show. “Why, child, she's married!”
“To him?” demanded the girl, with a recoil.
“No! To her husband.”