"Everything. I have your permission to smoke?"

Emilia smiled. "I wish I had some Italian cigars to give you. My father
sometimes has plenty given to him."

Wilfrid did not contemplate his havannah with less favour.

"Now," said Emilia, taking a last sniff of the flowers before
surrendering her nostril to the invading smoke. She looked at the scene
fronting her under a blue sky with slow flocks of clouds: "How I like
this!" she exclaimed. "I almost forget that I long for Italy, here."

Beyond a plot of flowers, a gold-green meadow dipped to a ridge of gorse
bordered by dark firs and the tips of greenest larches.

CHAPTER VI

"My father is one of the most wonderful men in the whole world!"

Wilfrid lifted an eyelid.

"He is one of the first-violins at the Italian Opera!"

The gallant cornet's critical appreciation of this impressive
announcement was expressed in a spiral ebullition of smoke from his
mouth.

"He is such a proud man! And I don't wonder at that: he has reason to be
proud."

Again Wilfrid lifted an eyelid, and there is no knowing but that ideas
of a connection with foreign Counts, Cardinals, and Princes passed
hopefully through him.

"Would you believe that he is really the own nephew of Andronizetti!"

"Deuce he is!" said Wilfrid, in a mist. "Which one?"

"The composer!"

Wilfrid emitted more smoke.

"Who composed--how I love him!--that lovely 'la, la, la, la,' and the
'te-de, ta-da, te-dio,' that pleases you, out of 'Il Maladetto.' And I
am descended from him! Let me hope I shall not be unworthy of him. You
will never tell it till people think as much of me, or nearly. My father
says I shall never be so great, because I am half English. It's not my
fault. My mother was English. But I feel that I am much more Italian
than English. How I long for Italy--like a thing underground! My father
did something against the Austrians, when he was a young man. Would not
I have done it? I am sure I would--I don't know what. Whenever I think
of Italy, night or day, pant-pant goes my heart. The name of Italy is my
nightingale: I feel that somebody lives that I love, and is ill-treated
shamefully, crying out to me for help. My father had to run away to save
his life. He was fifteen days lying in the rice-fields to escape from
the soldiers--which makes me hate a white coat. There was my father; and
at night he used to steal out to one of the villages, where was a good,
true woman--so they are, mos