Part 4 (2/2)
”Rib!” Blythe suggested, audaciously.
”Excellent, excellent! Rib! Now, how does it go?
There once was a fortress named Gib, Whose manners were haughty and glib!
If you tried to get in, She replied, with a grin, 'I'm Great Britain's impregnable rib!'
Rather neat! Don't you think?”
”O Mr. Grey!” Blythe cried. ”You've got to write that in my voyage-book! It's the----”
At that moment, a gesture from her companion caused her to turn and look behind her. There, only a few feet from where they were standing, but with his back to them, was the Count, sitting on one of the long, stationary benches fastened against the hatchway, while just at his knees stood little Cecilia. She was balancing herself with some difficulty on the gently swaying deck, holding out for his acceptance a small bunch of violets, which one of the market-women at Gibraltar had bestowed upon her.
As he appeared to hesitate: ”_Prendili!_” she cried, with pretty wilfulness. Upon which he took the little offering, and lifted it to his face.
The child stood her ground resolutely, and presently, ”Put me up!” she commanded, still in her own sweet tongue.
Obediently he lifted her, and placed her beside him on the seat, where she sat clinging with one little hand to the sleeve of his coat to keep from slipping down, with the gentle dip of the vessel.
The two sat, for a few minutes, quite silent, gazing off toward the African coast, and Blythe and her companion drew nearer, filled with curiosity as to the outcome of the interview.
Presently the child looked up into the Count's face and inquired, with the pretty Tuscan accent which sounded like an echo of his own question on the evening of the dance:
”What is thy name?”
”Giovanni Battista Allamiraviglia.”
Cecilia repeated after him the long, musical name, without missing a syllable, and with a certain approving inflection which evidently had an ingratiating effect upon the many-syllabled aristocrat; for he lifted his carefully gloved hand and pa.s.sed it gently over the little head.
The child took the caress very naturally, and when, presently, the hand returned to the knee, she got possession of it, and began crossing the kid fingers one over the other, quite undisturbed by the fact that they invariably fell apart again as soon as she loosed her hold.
At this juncture the two eavesdroppers moved discreetly away, and Blythe, leaving her fellow-conspirator far behind, flew to her mother's side, crying:
”O Mumsey! She's simply winding him round her finger, and there's nothing he won't be ready to do for us now!”
”Yes, dear; I'm delighted to hear it,” Mrs. Halliday replied, with what Blythe was wont to call her ”benignant and amused” expression.
”And after a while you will tell me what you are talking about!”
But Blythe, nothing daunted, only appealed to Mr. Grey, who had just caught up with her.
”You agree with me, Mr. Grey; don't you?” she insisted.
”Perfectly, and in every particular. Mrs. Halliday, your daughter and I have been eavesdropping, and we have come to confess.”
Whereupon Blythe dropped upon the foot of her mother's chair, Mr. Grey established himself in the chair adjoining, and they gave their somewhat bewildered auditor the benefit of a few facts.
”I really believe,” the Englishman remarked, in conclusion,--”I really believe that haughty old dago can help us if anybody can. And when your engaging young protegee has completed her conquest,--to-morrow, it may be, or the day after, for she's making quick work of it,--we'll see what can be done with him.”
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