Who
should be there but Spicca, hat and all, looking like old Father Time.
He was bargaining for something--a wretched old bit of
brass--bargaining, my dear! For a few sous! One may be poor, but one has
no right to be mean--I thought he would have got the miserable
antiquary's skin."
"Antiquaries can generally take care of themselves," observed Orsino
incredulously.
"Oh, I daresay--but it looks so badly, you know. That is all I mean.
When he saw me he stopped wrangling and we talked a little, while I had
the embroidery wrapped up. I will show it to you after dinner. It is
sixteenth century, Ugo says--a piece of a chasuble--exquisite flowers on
claret-coloured satin, a perfect gem, so rare now that everything is
imitated. However, that is not the point. It was Spicca. I was
forgetting my story. He said the usual things, you know--that he had
heard that I was very gay this year, but that it seemed to agree with
me, and so on. And I asked him why he never came to see me, and as an
inducement I told him of our great beauty here--that is you, Consuelo,
so please look delighted instead of frowning--and I told him that she
ought to hear him talk, because his face had frightened her so that she
ran away when she saw him coming towards her in the street.
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