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Presently he began again in his soft, murmuring
purr ("Just the voice a jaguar would talk in,
if it could speak and were in a good humour,"
Gemma said to herself with rising irritation).
"I hear," he said, "that you are interested in
the radical press, and write for the papers."
"I write a little; I have not time to do much."
"Ah, of course! I understood from Signora
Grassini that you undertake other important
work as well."
Gemma raised her eyebrows slightly. Signora
Grassini, like the silly little woman she was, had
evidently been chattering imprudently to this
slippery creature, whom Gemma, for her part, was
beginning actually to dislike.
"My time is a good deal taken up," she said
rather stiffly; "but Signora Grassini overrates
the importance of my occupations. They are
mostly of a very trivial character."
"Well, the world would be in a bad way if we
ALL of us spent our time in chanting dirges for
Italy. I should think the neighbourhood of our
host of this evening and his wife would make anybody
frivolous, in self-defence.


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