Lucie heard the words and smiled.
The song just described my position at that moment. I saw her face but could not see her heart. She was beautiful, but not my love.
And as the voice died away we heard the words:—
Fiume di Lete!
Come la calamita mi tirate,
E mi fate venir dove velete.
Old Marietta, the Tuscan sewing-woman, entered and lit the gas. She looked askance at me, wondering why I remained there so long I expect.
“It is growing late,” I exclaimed in Italian; “I must go. It is your dinner-hour,” and glancing round the room, carpetless, as all Italian rooms are in summer, I saw that it was cheaply furnished with that inartistic taste which told me at once that neither she nor her father had chosen it. It struck me that they had bought the furniture just as it had stood from some Italian, perhaps the previous occupier.
Old Marietta was a pleasant, grey-faced old woman in cheap black who wore large gold rings in her ears and spoke with the pleasant accent of Siena, and who, I saw, was devoted to her young mistress.
“This is Mr Leaf,” she explained in Italian. “He is an English friend of my father’s.” Then turning to me she said, laughing, “Marietta always likes to know who’s who. All Italians are so very inquisitive about the friends of their padrone.”
The old woman smiled, showing her yellow teeth and wished me buona sera, to which I replied in her own tongue, for the position of servants in Italy is far different from their position with us. Your Tuscan house-woman is part of the family, and after a few years of faithful service is taken into the family council, consulted upon everything, controls expenditure, makes bargains, and is, to her padrone, quite indispensable. Old Marietta was a typical donna di casa, one of those faithful patient women with a sharp tongue to all the young men who so continuously ran after the young padrona, and only civil to me because I was a friend of the “signore.”
She was shrewd enough to continue to be present at our leave-taking, though it was doubtful whether she knew English sufficiently to understand what passed between us. I saw that Marietta intended I should go, therefore I wished her young padrona adieu.