"Good-morning, Leo!"
"Good-morning, Nina! They say that ladies are never punctual; but here you are to the moment!"
"Then you have to thank Mrs. Grey—and your own goodness in sending the carriage for us. Ah, the delightful flowers!" said she, glancing at the table, and her nostrils seemed to dilate a little, as if she would welcome all their odors at once. "But the window, Leo—you will have the window open? London, it is perfectly beautiful this morning!—the air is sweet as of the country—oh, it is the gayest city in the world!"
"I never saw London fuller, anyway," said he, as he rang the bell, and told the waiter to have luncheon produced forthwith.
Nina, seated at table in that cool summer costume, merely toyed with the things put before her (except when they came to the strawberries); she was chattering away, with her little dramatic gestures, about every conceivable subject within her recent experience, until, as she happened to say something about Naples, Lionel cruelly interrupted her by asking her if she had heard lately from her sweetheart.
"Who?" she said, with a stare; and also the little widow in black looked up from her plate and seemed to think it a strange question.
"Don't you pretend to have forgotten, Nina," Lionel said, reprovingly. "Don't you look so innocent. If you have no memory, then I have."
"But who, Leo?" she demanded, with a touch of indignation. "Who?—who?—who? What is it you mean?"
"Nina, don't you pretend you have forgotten poor Nicolo Ciana."
"Oh, Nicolo!" she exclaimed, with supreme contempt (but all the same there was a faint flush on the clear olive complexion). "You laugh at me, Leo! Nicolo! He was all, as they say here, sham—sham jewelry, sham clothes, all pretence, except the oil for his hair—that was plenty and substantial, yes. And a sham voice—he told lies to the maestro about his wonderful compass—"
"Now, now, Nina, don't be unjust," he said. "Mrs. Grey must hear the truth. Mrs. Grey, this was a young Italian who wanted to be better acquainted with Miss Nina here—I believe he used to write imploring letters to her, and that she cruelly wouldn't answer them; and then he wrote to Maestro Pandiani, describing the wonderful tenor voice he had, and saying he wanted to study. I suppose he fancied that if the maestro would only believe in the mysterious qualities of this wonderful organ of his he would try to bring them out; and in the meantime the happy Nicolo would be meeting Nina continually. A lover's stratagem—nothing worse than that! What is the harm of saying that you could take the high C if you were in ordinary health, but that your voice has been ill-used by a recent fever? It was Nina he was thinking of. Don't I remember how I used to hear him coming along the garden-paths in the Villa Reale—if there were few people about you could hear his vile falsetto a mile off—and always it was:
'Antoniella, Antonià,
Antoniella, Antonià;
Votate, Nenna bella, votate ccà,
Vedimmo a pettenessa comme te stà.'"
"Leo," she said, with proud lips, "he never called me 'Nenna mia'—never! He dared not!"
In another instant, he could see, there would have been protesting tears in her eyes; and even Mrs. Grey, who did not know the meaning of the familiar Neapolitan phrase,[1] noticed the tremulous indignation in the girl's voice.
"Of course not, Nina," he said, at once; "I was only joking—but you know he did use to sing that confounded 'Antoniella, Antonià,' and it was always you he was thinking of."
"I did not think of him, then!" said she, almost instantly recovering her self-control. "Him? No! When I go out—when I was going out in the Santa Lucia, I looked at the English gentlemen—all so simple and honest in their dress—perhaps a steel watch-chain to a gold watch—not a sham gold chain to no watch! Then they looked so clean and wholesome—is it right, wholesome?—not their hair dripping with grease, as the peasant-girls love it. And then," she added, with a laugh, for her face had quickly resumed its usual happy brightness of expression, "then I grow sentimental. I say to myself, 'These are English people—they are going away back to England, where Leo is—can they take him a message?—can they tell him they were going over to Capri, and they met on the ship—on the steamer—an Italian girl, who liked to look at the English, and liked to hear the English speak?' And then I say 'No; what is the use; what would any message do; Leo has forgotten me.'"
"Oh, yes," said he, lightly, "you must have been quite certain that I had forgotten my old comrade Nina!"
They got a beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon for their drive down to Hampton Court; nor was it fated to be without incident either. They had passed along Oxford Street and were just turning out of the crowded thoroughfare to enter Hyde Park—and Lionel, as a man will, was watching how his coachman would take the horses through the Marble Arch—when Nina said, in a low voice,
"Leo!"
"Well?" said he, turning to her.
"Did you not see?"
"See what?"
"The carriage that went past." Nina said, looking a little concerned. "Miss Burgoyne was in it—she bowed to you—"
"Did she? I didn't see her—I'll have to apologize to her to-morrow," said he, carelessly. "Perhaps the compliment was meant for you, Nina."
"For me? Ah, no. Miss Burgoyne speaks no more to me."
"She doesn't speak to you? Why?" he asked, in some amazement.
The young Italian lady made a little gesture of indifference.
"How do I know? But I am not sorry. I do not like her—no! she is not—she is not—straightforward, is it right?—she is cunning—and she has a dreadful temper—oh! I have heard;—I have heard such stories! Again, she is not an artist—I said that to you from the beginning, Leo—no, not an artist: why does she talk to you from behind her fan, when she should regard the others on the stage? Why does she talk always and always to you, when she has nothing to say?"
"Oh, but she finds plenty to say!" he observed.
"Yes," said Nina, contemptuously, "she has always plenty to say to you on the stage, if she has not a word the moment the scene is over. Why? You don't understand! You don't reflect! I will tell you, Leo, if you are so simple. You think she does not know that the public can see she talks to you? She knows it well; and that is why she talks. It is to boast of her friendship with you, her alliance with you. She says to the ladies in the stalls, 'See here, I can talk to him when I please—you are away—you are outside.' It is her vanity. She says to them, 'You can buy his portrait out of the shop-window perhaps—you can ask him to your house perhaps—and he goes for an hour, among strangers—but see here—every night I am talking to him'—"
"Yes, and see here, Nina," he said, with a laugh, "how about my vanity?—don't you think of that? Who could have imagined I was so important a person! But the truth is, Nina, they've lengthened out that comic scene inordinately with all that gagging, and Miss Burgoyne has nothing to do in it; if she hides her talking behind her fan—"
"Hides?" said Nina, with just a trace of scorn. "No; she shows! It is display! It is vanity! And you think a true artist would so forget her part—would wish to show the people that she talks privately—"
"Miss Nina is quite right, you know, Mr. Moore," said the little widow in black, and she was entitled to speak with authority. "I didn't think it looked well myself. A ballet-girl would catch it if she went on the same way."
"What would you have her do?" he said—for he was a very tolerant and good-natured person. "Sit and look on at that