“No, Count, thank you. No letters today.”

He gave the bag to the servant, who was then in the room; sat down at the piano, and played the air of the lively Neapolitan street-song, “

La mia Carolina

,” twice over. His wife, who was usually the most deliberate of women in all her movements, made the tea as quickly as I could have made it myself⁠—finished her own cup in two minutes, and quietly glided out of the room.