I saw at once that the Count was annoyed. He was standing in the middle of the salon, fingering his sword-hilt in a manner which expressed the most absurd irritation. So I said immediately that I was awfully sorry, but it seemed so difficult to get anything to eat in Rome at that time of year, that the head-waiter was really responsible, and wouldn't he sit down?

"I don't know what you will think of us," I went on as we shook hands.

"How long have you been kind enough to wait, anyway?"

"Since a quarter of an hour--only," replied the Count, with a difficult smile, "but now that I see you it is forgotten all."

"That's very nice of you," I said. "I a.s.sure you momma was quite worked up about keeping you waiting. It's rather trying to the American temperament to be obliged to order a hurried luncheon from the market-gardener."

"So! In America you have him not--the market garden? You are each his own vegetable. Yes? Ah, how much better than the poor Italian! But Mistra and Madame Wick, they have not, I hope, the indisposition?"

"Well, I'm afraid they have, Count--something like that. They said I was to ask you to excuse them. You see they've been sight-seeing the whole morning, and that's something that can't be done by halves in your city.

The stranger has to put his whole soul into it, hasn't he?"

"Ah, the whole soul! It is too fatiguing," Count Filgiatti a.s.sented. He glanced at me uncertainly, and rose. "Kindly may I ask that you give my deepest afflictions to Mistra and Madame Wick for their health?"

"Oh," I said, "if you _must_! But I'm here, you know." I put no hauteur into my tone, because I saw that it was a misunderstanding.

He still hesitated and I remembered that the Filgiatti intelligence probably dated from the Middle Ages, and had undergone very little alteration since. "You have made such a short visit," I said. "I must be a very bad subst.i.tute for momma and poppa."

A flash of comprehension illuminated my visitor's countenance. "I pray that you do not think such a wrong thing," he said impulsively. "If it is permitted, I again sit down."

"Do," said I, and he did. Anything else would have seemed perfectly unreasonable, and yet for the moment he twisted his moustache, apparently in the most foolish embarra.s.sment. To put him at his ease, I told him how lovely I thought the fountains. "That's one of your most ideal connections with ancient history, don't you think?" I said. "The fact that those old aqueducts of yours have been bringing down the water to sparkle and ripple in Roman streets ever since."

"Idealissimo! And the Trevi of Bernini--I hope you threw the soldi, so that you must come back to Rome!"

"We weren't quite sure which it was," I responded, "so poppa threw soldi into all of them, to make certain. Sometimes he had to make two or three shots," and I could not help smiling at the recollection.

"Ah, the profusion!"

"I don't suppose they came to a quarter of a dollar, Count. It is the cheapest of your amus.e.m.e.nts."

The Count reflected for a moment.

"Then you wish to return to Rome," he said softly; "you take interest here?"

"Why yes," I said, "I'm not a barbarian. I'm from Illinois."

"Then why do you go away?"

"Our time is so limited."

"Ah, Mees Wick, you have all of your life." The Italians certainly have exquisite voices.

"That is true," I said thoughtfully.

"Many young American ladies now live always in Italy," pursued Count Filgiatti.

"Is that so?" I replied pleasantly. "They are domiciled here with their parents?"

"Y--yes. Sometimes it is like that. And sometimes----"

"Sometimes they are working in the studios. I know. A delightful life it must be."

The Count looked at the carpet. "Ah, signorina, you misunderstand my poor English," he said; "she means quite different."

It was not coquetry which induced me to cast down my eyes.

"The American young lady will sometimes contract alliance."

"Oh!" I exclaimed.

"Yes. And if it is a good arrangimento it is always quite _quite_ happy."

"We are said," I observed thoughtfully, "to be able, as a people, to accommodate ourselves to circ.u.mstances."

"You approve this idea! Signorina, you are so amiable, it is heavenly."

"I see no objection to it," I said. "It is entirely a matter of taste."

"And the American ladies have much taste," observed Count Filgiatti blandly.

"I'm afraid it isn't infallible," I said, "but it is charming to hear it approved."

"The American lady comes in Italy. She is young, beautiful, with a grace--ah! And perhaps there is a little income--a few dollar--but we do not speak of that--it is a trifle, only to make possible the arrangimento."

"I see," I said.

"The American lady is so perceiving--it is also a charm. The Italian gentleman has a dignity of his. He is perhaps from a family a little old. It is nothing--the matter is of the heart--but it makes possible the arrangimento."

"I have read of such things before," I said, "in the newspapers. It is most amusing to hear them corroborated on the spot. But that is one of the charms of travel, Count Filgiatti."

The Count hesitated and a shade of indecision crossed his swarthy little features. Then he added simply, "For me she has always been a vision, that American lady. It is for this that I study the English. I have thought, 'When I meet one of those so charming Americans, I will do my possible.'"

I could not help thinking of that family of eleven and the father with the saints. It was pathetic to feel one's self a realised vision without any capacity for beneficence--worse in some respects than being obliged to be unkind to hopes with no financial basis. It made one feel somehow so mercenary. But before I could think of anything to say--it was such a difficult juncture--the Count went on.

"But in the Italian idea it is better first one thing to know--the agreement of the American signorina. If she will not, the Italian n.o.bleman is too much disgrace. It is not good to offer the name and the t.i.tle if the lady say no, I do not want--take that poor thing away."

How artless it was! Yet my sympathy ebbed immediately. Not my curiosity, however. Perhaps at this or an earlier point I should have gone blushing away and forever pondered in secret the problem of Count Filgiatti's intentions. I confess that it didn't even occur to me--it was such a little Count and so far beyond the range of my emotions. Instead, I smiled in a non-committal way and said that Count Filgiatti's prudence was most unique.

"With a friend to previously discover then it is easy. But perhaps the lady will have no friends in Italy."

"You would have to be prepared for that," I said. "Certainly."

"Also she perhaps quickly go away. The Americans are so instantaneous.

Maybe my vision fade like--like anything."

"In a perspective of tourists' coupons," I suggested.

For a moment there was silence, through which we could hear the scrubbing-brush of the chambermaid on the marble hall of the first floor. It seemed a final note of desolation.