Nino is a very good boy, but he is mortal, and after the excitement of the evening he thought nothing could be pleasanter than to spend a few hours in that scented boudoir, among the palms and the beautiful objects and the perfumes, talking with a woman who professed herself ready to help him in his love affair. We have no perfumes or cushions or pretty things at number twenty-seven Santa Catarina dei Funari, though everything is very bright and neat and most proper, and the cat is kept in the kitchen, for the most part. So it is no wonder that he should have preferred to spend the morning with the baroness.
She was half lying, half sitting, in a deep arm-chair, when Nino entered; and she was reading a book. When she saw him she dropped the volume on her knee, and looked up at him from under her lids, without speaking. She must have been a bewitching figure. Nino advanced toward her, bowing low, so that his dark curling hair shaded his face.
"Good-day, signora," said he softly, as though fearing to hurt the quiet air. "I trust I do not interrupt you?"
"You never interrupt me, Nino," she said, "except--except when you go away."
"For heaven's sake, no pretty speeches," said she, with a little laugh.
"It seems to me," said Nino, seating himself, "that it was you who made the pretty speech, and I who thanked you for it." There was a pause.
"How do you feel!" asked the baroness at last, turning her head to him.
"Grazie--I am well," he answered, smiling.
"Oh, I do not mean that,--you are always well. But how do you enjoy your first triumph?"
"I think," said Nino, "that a real artist ought to have the capacity to enjoy a success at the moment, and the good sense to blame his vanity for enjoying it after it is passed."
"Did I never tell you?" he asked innocently. "I shall be twenty-one soon."
"You talk as though you were forty, at least."
"But really, are you not immensely flattered at the reception you had?"
"You did not look at all interested in the public at the time," said she, "and that Roman nose of yours very nearly turned up in disdain of the applause, I thought. I wonder what you were thinking of all the while."
"Can you wonder, baronessa?" She knew what he meant, and there was a little look of annoyance in her face when she answered.