"Oh--Gabriele!" The Princess was shocked. "And you so 'simpatico,' too!"
"He has no brains," the Poet declared--"and he lives a base, material life."
"I'm _awfully_ sorry," McTaggart frowned. "He's the best rider to hounds I know. I'll never forget a run I had with him last winter in the Campagna. And a jolly nice fellow too."
He glanced across at Don Cesare, who was eyeing the Poet with disgust.
"We shall miss Bellanti," said the Countess. Her voice was calm. "I must write to his sister. Poor Bice! She was always so fond of him. I don't say he was intellectual"--she looked at the Poet thoughtfully--at his ugly, weak little face--"but so good looking--a thorough _man_."
Don Cesare laughed aloud. "Well--give me good looks any day--and a good seat. I'm for Bellanti."
"And so's Emilia----" he kissed the tips of his fingers to her across the table--"and so's Marco." Wickedly he turned his head toward the Count.
"Exactly--" that worthy watched his wife, moved by a subtle idea. "I was thinking, my dear," he addressed the latter--"We might ask the poor fellow here?"
"Pourquoi pas?" A shade of impertinence lay in the quick French response, and between the pair of dark eyes a silent, menacing challenge passed.
For the Count knew that his wife knew that he ... knew!
It was a bribe to settle the strained situation vis-à-vis with "La Carlotta."
And watching this matrimonial by-play McTaggart felt a growing scorn for the shallowness of the social life in which he found himself involved.
This Princess with her puny poet, who ruled her with a rod of iron, and Cesare, a mere school boy, eager for the latest scandal. The pretty woman by his side, playing her lover against her husband, and the Count, deliberately sacrificing his wife's morals to his own intrigues.
England might be dull, he thought, but at least the men and women there held a sterner code of honour. A glow stole through him at the contrast. People might talk of the laxity of conduct in the upper classes, but the latter had the decency to veil their occasional lapses from virtue.
And, as a whole, the national standard took a lot of beating, he decided. Love was still reverenced and marriage more than a legal tie to cover innumerable intrigues!