Part 17 (2/2)
MRS. DALE.--”She is very amiable, Jemima, is she not?”
RICCABOCCA.--”Exceedingly so. Very fine battle-piece!”
MRS. DALE.--”So kind-hearted.”
RICCABOCCA.--”All ladies are. How naturally that warrior makes his desperate cut at the runaway!”
MRS. DALE.--”She is not what is called regularly handsome, but she has something very winning.”
RICCABOCCA (with a smile).--”So winning, that it is strange she is not won. That gray mare in the foreground stands out very boldly!”
MRS. DALE (distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and throwing in a more effective grape-charge).--”Not won yet; and it is strange! she will have a very pretty fortune.”
RICCABOCCA.--”Ah!”
MRS. DALE. ”Six thousand pounds, I dare say,--certainly four.”
RICCABOCCA (suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted address).--”If Mrs.
Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is not Miss Jemima's fault that she is still--Miss Jemima!”
The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sat himself down beside the whist-players.
Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended. ”It would be such a good thing for both,” muttered she, almost inaudibly.
”Giacomo,” said Riccabocca, as he was undressing that night in the large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great English four-posted bed in the recess which seems made to shame folks out of single blessedness, ”Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer of probably L6000, certainly of four thousand.”
”Cosa meravigliosa!”--[”Miraculous thing.”]--exclaimed Jackeymo, and he crossed himself with great fervour. ”Six thousand pounds Englis.h.!.+
why, that must be a hundred thousand--blockhead that I am!--more than L150,000 Milanese!” And Jackeymo, who was considerably enlivened by the squire's ale, commenced a series of gesticulations and capers, in the midst of which he stopped and cried, ”But not for nothing?”
”Nothing! no!”
”These mercenary Englis.h.!.+ the Government wants to bribe you?”
”That's not it.”
”The priests want you to turn heretic?”
”Worse than that!” said the philosopher.
”Worse than that! O Padrone! for shame!”
”Don't be a fool, but pull off my pantaloons--they want me never to wear THESE again!”
”Never to wear what?” exclaimed Jackeymo, staring outright at his master's long legs in their linen drawers,--”never to wear--”
”The breeches,” said Riccabocca, laconically.
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