"She is nineteen--a _fanciulla_ of nineteen, she must have
much--eh--amusement, not so?"
He is fond of the Socratic method and I humored him.
"But doesn't she go to parties--has she no girl friends?"
"Ah, _sicurissimo, sicurissimo_. But a girl--nineteen years--it is
young men in the house that amuse her, eh?" And he slapped me on the
back and roared with laughter of a boisterous heartiness that somewhat,
as novelists say, "took me aback."
I have not exactly been seeing myself in the guise of a youth cut out to
amuse Gina Visconti.
"How of Sunday?" he asked, with a sudden quizzical soberness. "Sunday
you can come?"
I regretted his insistence, but somewhat laboredly I explained that I am
weakly addicted to books; and that Sunday was the single day when I
could sit among my books and--
"Ah, but of course!" gravely. He understood full well that I was a
student, a scholar, who outside office hours pursued a higher life, and
so forth.