His eyes turned again to Anne, and lingered there as though wishing she would speak.
Anne smiled at him. “I am quite old,” she said.
His eyes still lingered upon her though he did not reply. He was thinking that never before had he seen hair so pale, or skin so fair.
“You find here a world—like any other,” he said, turning to the older woman.
“But there I cannot agree with you,” she answered decidedly. “All worlds are different, all worlds and all men. You, Mr. Curatulo— Do I pronounce it correctly?”
“Charmingly, madame.”
“You are different, very different from any one we have ever seen before.”
He laughed, a pleasant laugh that was slightly subdued. Anne remembered the pleasantness after he had gone; she also remembered that it had been subdued, and wondered whether life or courtesy had made it so.
“I shall hope to prove to you and Miss Warren before the end of the season that we are not strangers,” he said.
They spoke again of the waters and ports visited by the absent husband, and Curatulo seemed to know them all.
12
