Part 12 (1/2)
”I believe you, and I understand,” she answered. ”But how it sounds! If you had known that you were to sit next to me, nothing would have induced you to come!”
From her place next the master of the house, the Countess Fortiguerra looked at them, and was pleased to see that they were already on good terms.
”Thank you,” Cecilia added in a quiet voice, and gravely. ”Besides,” she continued, ”there is no reason, in the world why we should not be good friends, is there?”
She looked full at him now, without a smile, and he realised for the first time how very young she was. A married woman with an instinct for flirtation might have made the speech, but a girl older than Cecilia would have known that it might be misunderstood. Guido answered her look with one in which doubt did not keep the upper hand more than a single second.
”There is no reason whatever why we should not be the best of friends,”
he answered, in a tone as low as her own. ”Perhaps I may be of service to you. I hope so. Besides, I am made for friends.h.i.+p!”
He laughed rather carelessly as he spoke the last words, and glanced round the table to see whether anybody was watching him. He met the Countess Fortiguerra's approving glance.
”Why do you laugh at friends.h.i.+p?” asked Cecilia, not quite pleased.
”I do not laugh at friends.h.i.+p at all,” Guido answered. ”I laugh in order that people may see me and hear me. This is the first service I can render you, to be natural and unconcerned, as I generally am. If I behaved in any unusual way--if I were too grave, or too much interested--you understand!”
”Yes. You are thoughtful. Thank you.”
There was a little pause, during which a luxuriant lady in green, who sat on Guido's other side, determined to attract his attention, and spoke to him; but before he could answer, some one opposite asked her a question about dress, which was intensely interesting to her, because she dressed abominably. She promptly fell into the snare which had been set for her with the evil intention of leading her on to talk foolishly.
She followed at once, and Guido was free again.
”Now that we are friends,” he said to Cecilia, ”may I ask you a friendly question?”
”Ask me anything you like,” she answered, and her innocent eyes promised him the truth.
”Were you told anything, before we met at my aunt's the other day?”
”Not a word! And you?”
”Nothing,” he replied. ”I remember that on that very afternoon----” he stopped short.
”What?”
”You may not like what I was going to say.”
”I shall, if it is true, and if you have a good reason for saying it.”
”Lamberti and I were together, talking, and I said that nothing would ever induce me to marry an heiress, unless it were to save my father or mother from ruin. As that can never happen, all heiresses are perfectly safe from me! Do you mind my having said that?”
”No. I am sure you were in earnest.”
A shadow had crossed her face at the mention of Lamberti's name.
”You do not like my friend,” he said, and as he spoke, the shadow came again and deepened.
”How can I like him or dislike him? I hardly know him.”
She felt very uncomfortable, for it would have been quite natural that Lamberti should have spoken to Guido of her strange behaviour in the Forum. Guido answered that one often liked or disliked people at first sight.