“You are so strange in England,” sighed Carlotta.
I smiled, for I did not want to make her unhappy, and I spoke to her intelligibly.
“Well, well, when you have quite learned all the English ways, I’ll try and find you a nice husband. Now you had better go to bed.”
She retired, quite consoled. When the door closed behind her, Pasquale shook his head at me.
“Wasted! Criminally wasted!”
“What?”
“That,” he answered, pointing to the door. “That bundle of bewildering fascination.”
“That,” said I, “is an horrible infliction which only my cultivated sense of altruism enables me to tolerate.”
“Her name ought to be Margarita.”
“Why?” I asked.