“It is indeed fortunate that I am not a jealous man,” he repeated.
She saw that he was actually jealous, which diverted her more than the Russian traveler’s idea of God. Never in her own social world could she have found two such picturesque episodes in one evening. Had Gino been an American she would have amused herself with teasing him further; but some instinct warned her not to do so, and here she was right, for jealousy, which often draws and holds the Northern man, is equally likely to repel and ultimately drive away the Latin.
Gino inquired with gloomy punctiliousness what she would have for supper; but when he brought it to her he found so much sweetness and humor in her candid eyes, and so evident a request to be friends again, that his ill-temper vanished.
On this evening, however, fate was unfriendly to his desire to be with her alone, and they were immediately interrupted by an Englishman who had been at a dinner-party with Anne the day before. He was a writer of extravagantly romantic fiction, being himself a stout and middle-aged person, of the kind whom one would imagine to be sitting constantly in armchairs. He asked Anne how she was enjoying the sights of Rome, and she told him tranquilly that she did not enjoy them. She cared more for Florence.
46
