She was not offended, but she rose from her seat and stood looking at me
a moment. Then--"You should not have gone away!" she exclaimed. I
stayed for another hour; it is a very pleasant house.

Two or three of the men who were sitting there seemed very civil and
intelligent; one of them was a major of engineers, who offered me a
profusion of information upon the new organisation of the Italian army.
While he talked, however, I was observing our hostess, who was talking
with the others; very little, I noticed, with her young Inglese. She is
altogether charming--full of frankness and freedom, of that inimitable
_disinvoltura_ which in an Englishwoman would be vulgar, and which in her
is simply the perfection of apparent spontaneity. But for all her
spontaneity she's as subtle as a needle-point, and knows tremendously
well what she is about. If she is not a consummate coquette . . . What
had she in her head when she said that I should not have gone away?--Poor
little Stanmer didn't go away. I left him there at midnight.

12th.--I found him today sitting in the church of Santa Croce, into which
I wandered to escape from the heat of the sun.

In the nave it was cool and dim; he was staring at the blaze of candles
on the great altar, and thinking, I am sure, of his incomparable
Countess. I sat down beside him, and after a while, as if to avoid the
appearance of eagerness, he asked me how I had enjoyed my visit to Casa
Salvi, and what I thought of the _padrona_.

"I think half a dozen things," I said, "but I can only tell you one now.
She's an enchantress. You shall hear the rest when we have left the
church."