Leaning out from the window of my room the next morning, I saw Andrea and his father walking slowly along the Lung' Arno in the sunlight.  
In the filial relation, Andrea, I had before observed, particularly shone. His charming manner was never so charming as when he was addressing his father; and the presence of his younger son appeared to have a vitalizing, rejuvenating effect on the old Marchese.
 
And now, as I watched them pacing amicably in the delightful spring morning, the tears rose for a moment to my eyes; I remembered that it was Sunday, that a long way off in unromantic Islington my mother was making ready for the walk to church, while I, an exile, looked from my palace window with nothing better in prospect than a solitary journey to the Chiesa Inglese. Annunziata had not gone to[Pg 90] mass, and when I came downstairs ready dressed she explained that she had a headache, and was in need of a little company to cheer her up.
 
Of course I could not do less than offer to forego my walk and attendance at church, which I did with a wistful recollection of the beauty and sweetness of the day.
 
"Have you heard?" she said. "Costanza goes back to Florence to-night. She prefers not to miss the last two days of Carnival, Monday and Tuesday. So she says," cried the Marchesina, with a frankness that astonished me, even from her; "so she says; but between ourselves, Andrea was very attentive last night to Emilia di Rossa. Costanza ought to understand what he is by now. She has known him all her life; she ought certainly to be aware that his one little weakness—Andrea is as good as gold—is the ladies."
 
I bent my head low over my work, with an indignant, shame-stricken consciousness that I was blushing. "He is evidently engaged to Costanza," I thought, and I wished the earth would open and swallow me.
 
"And a young girl, like Emilia," went on Annunziata; "who knows what construction she might put[Pg 91] upon his behaviour? It is not that he says so much, but he has a way with him which is open to misinterpretation. Poor little thing, she has no money to speak of, and, even if she had, who are the Di Rossas? Andrea, for all he is so free and easy, is as proud as the devil, and the very last man to make a mésalliance. A convent, say I, will be the end of the Di Rossa." And she sighed contentedly.
 
Was it possible that she was insulting me? Was this a warning, a warning to me, Elsie Meredith? Did she think me an adventuress, setting traps for a rich and noble husband, or merely an eager fool liable to put a misconstruction on the simplest acts of kindliness and courtesy?
 
My blazing cheeks, no doubt, confirmed whichever suspicion she had been indulging in, but I was determined to show her that I was not afraid. Lifting my face—with its hateful crimson—boldly to hers, I said: "We in England regard marriage and—and love in another way. I know it is not so in Italy; but with us the reason for getting married is that you are fond of some one, and that some one is fond of you. Other sorts of marriages are not thought nice," with which bold and sweeping statement on behalf of my native land I returned with trembling fingers to my needlework.
 
[Pg 92]
 
To do me justice, I fully believed in my own words. That marriage which had not affection for its basis was shameful had been the simple creed of the little world at home.
 
"Indeed?" said Annunziata, with genuine interest; "but, as you say, it is not so with us."
 
My lips twitched in an irresistible smile. Her round eyes met mine so frankly, her round face was so unruffled in its amiability, that I could not but feel I had made a fool of myself. The guileless lady was prattling on, no doubt as usual, as a relief to her own feelings, and not with any underlying intention.
 
I felt more ashamed than before of my own self-consciousness.
 
"What is the matter with you, Elsie Meredith?" cried a voice within me. "I think your own mother wouldn't know you; your own sisters would pass you by in the street."
 
"Andrea ought to know," went on Annunziata, "that such freedom of manners is not permissible in Italy between a young man and young women. He seems to have forgotten this in America, where, I am told, the licence is something shocking."
 
I wished the good lady would be less confidential—what was all this to me?—and I was almost glad when[Pg 93] the ladies came sailing in from mass, all of them evidently in the worst possible tempers.
 
There was an air of constraint about the whole party at lunch that day. Wedged in between the Marchesa and Romeo I sat silent and glum, having returned Andrea's cordial bow very coldly across the table. Every one deplored Costanza's approaching departure, rather mechanically, I thought, and that young lady herself repeatedly expressed her regret at leaving.
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