"Bastions of virtue that I never ask to lay siege to!" broke out the other, laughing.
"Don't believe it, Carlo. You'd like the campaign well, if you only knew how to conduct it. Why, it's not more than a week ago I quitted a country-house where there were more really pretty women than you could number in the crowd of one of your ball-rooms on either Arno or Tiber."
"And, in the name of Heaven, why didn't you bring over one of them at least, to strike us with wonderment and devotion?"
"Because I would not bring envy, malice, and jealousy to all south of the Alps; because I would not turn all your heads, or torment your hearts; and lastly, because--she would n't come. No, Carlo, she would n't come."
"Yes. At first I made the lamentable blunder of addressing her as I should one of your own dark-skinned damsels, but the repulse I met taught me better. I next tried the serious line, but I failed there also; not hopelessly, however,--at least, not so hopelessly as to deter me from another attempt. Yes, yes; I understand your smile, and I know your theory,--there never was a bunch of grapes yet that was worth going on tiptoe to gather."
"Not that, but there are scores within reach quite as good as one cares for," said Caffarelli, laughing. "What are you thinking of?" asked he, after a pause.
"I was thinking what possible hope there was for a nation of twenty millions of men, with temperament like yours,--fellows so ingrained in indolence that the first element they weigh in every enterprise was, how little trouble it was to cost them."
"I declare," said the Italian, with more show of energy, "I 'd hold life as cheaply as yourself if I had to live in your country,--breathe only fogs, and inhale nothing pleasanter than coal-smoke."
"It is true," said Maitland, gravely, "the English have not got climate,--they have only weather; but who is to say if out of the vicissitudes of our skies we do not derive that rare activity which makes us profit by every favorable emergency?"
"Enjoy yourselves! Oh, _caro amico_, you do with regard to your pleasures what you do with your music,--you steal a little from the Continent, and always spoil it in the adaptation."
Maitland sipped his wine in half-sullen silence for some minutes, and then said, "You think then, really, we ought to be at Naples?"