Part 20 (1/2)
”I protestante della simpatia.”
Caesar made much of this phrase, because it was apt, and he took it that Carminatti considered the ladies protestants against friendliness, because they had paid no attention to the charms that he displayed in their honour.
_CONSEQUENCES OF THE RAIN_
Two or three days later Mme. Dawson bowed to Caesar on pa.s.sing him in the hall, and asked him:
”Aren't you Spanish?”
”Yes, madam.”
”But don't you speak French?”
”Very little.”
”My daughter is Spanish too.”
”She is a perfect Spanish type.”
”Really?” asked the daughter referred to.
”Thoroughly.”
”Then I am happy.”
In the evening, after dinner, Caesar again joined Mme. Dawson and began to talk with her. The Frenchwoman had a tendency to philosophize, to criticize, and to find out everything. She had no great capacity for admiration, and nothing she saw succeeded in dragging warm eulogies from her lips. There was none of the ”_bello! bellissimo!_” of the Italian ladies in her talk, but a series of exact epithets.
Mme. Dawson had left all her capacity for admiration in France, and was visiting Italy for the purpose of arriving as soon as possible at the conclusion that there is no town like Paris, no nation like the French, and it didn't matter much to Caesar whether he agreed or denied it.
Mlle. de Sandoval had a great curiosity about things in Spain and an absurd idea about everything Spanish.
”It seems impossible,” thought Caesar, ”how stupid French people are about whatsoever is not French.”
Mlle. de Sandoval asked Caesar a lot of questions, and finally, with an ironic gesture, said to him:
”You mustn't let us keep you from going to talk with the Countess Brenda. She is looking over at you a great deal.”
Caesar became a trifle dubious; indeed, the Countess was looking at him in a fixed and disdainful way.
”The Countess is a very intelligent woman,” said Caesar; ”I think you would all like her very much.”
Mme. Dawson said nothing; Caesar rose, took his leave of the family, and went over to speak to the Countess and her daughter. She received him coldly. Caesar thought he would stay long enough to be polite and then get away, when Carminatti, speaking to him in a very friendly way and calling him ”_mio caro_,” asked him to introduce him to Mme. Dawson.
He did so, and when he had left the handsome Neapolitan leaning back in a chair beside the French ladies, he made the excuse that he had a letter to write, and said good-night.
”I see that you are an ogre,” said Mlle. de Sandoval.
”Do you want me for anything?”
”No, no; you may go when you choose.”