“Ealle gesceafta, heofonas and englas, sunnan and monan, steorran and eorthan, hè gesceop and geworhte on six dagum.”
“It is a very beautiful language. Say some more.”
He replied with glib promptness, with a passage from Beowulf.
“Hie dygel lond warigeath, wulfhleothu, windige naessas.”
“What does that mean?”
Tony looked embarrassed.
“I don’t believe you know!”
“It means—scusi, signorina, I no like to say.”
“You don’t know.”
“It means—you make me say, signorina,—‘I sink you ver’ beautiful like ze angels in Paradise.’”
“Indeed! A donkey-driver, Tony, should not say anything like that.”
“But it is true.”
“The more reason you should not say it.”
“You asked me, signorina; I could not tell you a lie.”
The signorina smiled slightly and looked away at the view; Tony seized the opportunity to look sidewise at her. She turned back and caught him; he dropped his eyes humbly to the floor.
“Does Beppo speak Magyar?” she inquired.
“Beppo?” There was wonder in his tone at the turn her questions were taking. “I sink not, signorina.”
“That must be very inconvenient. Why don’t you teach it to him?”
“Si, signorina.” He was plainly nonplussed.
“Yes, he says that you are his father and I should think—”
“His father?” Tony appeared momentarily startled; then he laughed. “He did not mean his real father; he mean—how you say—his god-father. I give to him his name when he get christened.”
“Oh, I see!”
Her next question was also a surprise.
“Tony,” she inquired with startling suddenness, “why do you wear earrings?”
He reddened slightly.
“Because—because—der’s a girl I like ver’ moch, signorina; she sink earrings look nice. I wear zem for her.”
“Oh!—But why do you fasten them on with thread?”
“Because I no wear zem always. In Italia, yes; in Amerik’ no. When I marry dis girl and go back home, zen I do as I please, now I haf to do as she please.”
“H’m—” said Constance, ruminatingly. “Where does this girl live, Tony?”
“In Valedolmo, signorina.”
“What does she look like?”
“She look like—” His eyes searched the landscape and came back to her face. “Oh, ver’ beautiful, signorina. She have hair brown and gold, and eyes—yes, eyes! Zay are sometimes black, signorina, and sometimes gray. Her laugh, it sounds like the song of a nightingale.” He clasped his hands and rolled his eyes in a fine imitation of Gustavo. “She is beautiful, signorina, beautiful as ze angels in Paradise!”
“There seem to be a good many people beautiful as the angels in Paradise.”
“She is most beautiful of all.”
“What is her name?”
“Costantina.” He said it softly, his eyes on her face.
“Ah,” Constance rose and turned away with a shrug. Her manner suggested that he had gone too far.
“She wash clothes at ze Hotel du Lac,” he called after her.
Constance paused and glanced over her shoulder with a laugh.
“Tony,” she said, “the quality which I admire most in a donkey-driver, besides truthfulness and picturesqueness, is imagination.”
CHAPTER VII
On the homeward journey Tony again trudged behind while the officers held their post at Constance’s side. But Tony’s spirits were still singing from the little encounter on the castle platform, and in spite of the animated Italian which floated back, he was determined to look at the sunny side of the adventure. It was Mr. Wilder who unconsciously supplied him with a second opportunity for conversation. He and the Englishman, being deep in a discussion involving statistics of the Italian army budget, called on the two officers to set them straight. Tony, at their order, took his place beside the saddle; Constance was not to be abandoned again to Fidilini’s caprice. Miss Hazel and the Englishwoman were ambling on ahead in as matter-of-fact a fashion as if that were their usual mode of travel. Their donkeys were of a sedater turn of mind than Fidilini—a fact for which Tony offered thanks.
They were by this time well over the worst part of the mountain and the brief Italian twilight was already fading. Tony, with a sharp eye on the path ahead and a ready hand for the bridle, was attending strictly to the duties of a well-trained donkey-man. It was Constance again who opened the conversation.
“Ah, Tony?”
“Si, signorina?”
“Did you ever read any Angleesh books—or do you do most of your reading in Magyar?”
“I haf read one, two, Angleesh books.”
“Did you ever read—er—‘The Lightning Conductor’ for example?”
“No, signorina; I haf never read heem.”
“I think it would interest you. It’s about a man who pretends he’s a chauffeur in order to—to— There are any number of books with the same motive; ‘She Stoops to Conquer,’ ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona,’ ‘Lalla Rookh,’ ‘Monsieur Beaucaire’—Oh, dozens of them! It’s an old plot; it doesn’t require the slightest originality to think of it.”
“Si, signorina? Sank you.” Tony’s tone was exactly like Gustavo’s when he has failed to get the point, but feels that a comment is necessary.
Constance laughed and allowed a silence to follow, while Tony redirected his attention to Fidilini’s movements. His “Yip! Yip!” was an exact imitation, though in a deeper guttural, of Beppo’s cries before them. It would have taken a close observer to suspect that he had not been bred to the calling.
“You have not always been a donkey-driver?” she inquired after an interval of amused scrutiny.
“Not always, signorina.”
“What did you do in New York?”
“I play hand-organ, signorina.”
Tony removed his hand from the bridle and ground “Yankee Doodle” from an imaginary instrument.
“I make musica, signorina, wif—wif—how you say, monk, monka? His name Vittorio Emanuele. Ver’ nice monk—simpatica affezionata.”
“You’ve never been an actor?”
“An actor? No, signorina.”
“You should try it; I fancy you might have some talent in that direction.”
“Si, signorina. Sank you.”
She let the conversation drop, and Tony, after an interval of silence, fell to humming Santa Lucia in a very presentable baritone. The tune, Constance noted, was true enough, but the words were far astray.
“That’s a very pretty song, Tony, but you don’t appear to know it.”
“I no understand Italian, signorina. I just learn ze tune because Costantina like it.”
“You do everything that Costantina wishes?”
“Everysing! But if you could see her you would not wonder. She has hair brown and gold, and her eyes, signorina, are sometimes gray and sometimes black, and her laugh sounds like—”
“Oh, yes, I know; you told me all that before.”
“When she goes out to work in ze morning, signorina, wif the sunlight shining on her hair, and a smile on her lips, and a basket of clothes on her head—Ah, zen she is beautiful!”
“When are you going to be married?”
“I do not know, signorina. I have not asked her yet.”
“Then how do you know she wishes to marry you?”
“I do not know; I just hope.”
He rolled his eyes toward the moon which was rising above the mountains on the other side of the lake, and with a deep sigh he fell back into Santa Lucia.
Constance leaned forward and scanned his face.
“Tony! Tell me your name.” There was an undertone of meaning, a note of persuasion in her voice.
“Antonio, signorina.”
She shook her head with a show of impatience.
“Your real name—your last name.”