Page:Christopher Wren--the wages of virtue.djvu/119

Rh sight of Il Signor Jean Boule and the Bucking Bronco. "Soyez le bien venu, Monsieur Jean Boule et Monsieur Bronco. Che cosa posso offrirvi?" and, as they seated themselves at a small round table near the bar, hastened to bring the wine favoured by these favoured customers—the so gentle English Signor, gentilhomme, (doubtless once a milord, a nobile), and the so gentle, foolish Americano, so slow and strong, who looked at her with eyes of love, kind eyes, with a good true love. No milordino he, no piccol Signor (but nevertheless a good man, a uomo dabbéne, most certainly…)

Reginald Rupert was duly presented as Légionnaire Rupert, with all formality and ceremony, to the Madamigella Carmelita, who ran her bright, black eye over him, summed him up as another gentiluomo, an obvious gentilhomme, pitied him, and wondered what he had "done."

Carmelita loved a "gentleman" in the abstract, although she loved Luigi Rivoli in the concrete; adored aristocrats in general, in spite of the fact that she adored Luigi Rivoli in particular. To her experienced and observant young eye, Légionnaire Jean Boule and this young bleu were of the same class, the aristocratico class of Inghilterra; birds of a feather, if not of a nest. They might be father and son, so alike were they in their difference from the rest. So different even from the English-speaking Americano, so different from her Luigi. But then, her Luigi was no mere broken aristocrat; he was the World's Champion Wrestler and Strong Man, a great and famous Wild Beast Tamer, and—her Luigi.

"Buona sera, Signor," said Carmelita to Rupert. "Siete venuto per la via di Francie?" and then, in