Page:Her Roman Lover (Frothingham, 1911).djvu/32

 product of the social world in which she was about to make her first adventure.

Neither aunt nor niece was aware with what penetrating curiosity his well-trained European eyes were looking upon them, nor could they have imagined that they seemed strange to him, as belonging to a type of American to which he was unaccustomed. Their simplicity and social unconsciousness, something of unworldliness and lack of coquetry in their dress,—Mrs. Garrison had not troubled to remove her Shetland jacket before his entrance,—were unusual, and seemed a little crude to the Italian, though refreshing to a vision inured as his was to the cultivation of charm, the attempt to attract, which, in greater or less degrees of subtlety, are evident in all the women of his world.

The features of Gino Curatulo were not insignificant, and though Anne could not have told in what part of the Italian’s face were evidences of a violent and uncontrolled life, she felt that such life was there, and to a degree that was lacking in her American friends; but where the aunt disliked such things as were different from those she had known, the niece delighted in them and was not displeased with the visitor as he bowed to her low and formally, giving her one swift glance from intelligent and expressive eyes.