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They had now been haggling, she said, for two or three years; a DENOUEMENT might be expected at any moment. If the Count's avarice could be appeased the unhappy child might expect to find herself, with as little delay as possible, an inmate of the floating harem on board the FLUTTERBY.
A fisherman named Luigi, paddling about the stern of the FLUTTERBY where, in consequence of the kitchen refuse thrown overboard, marine beasts of every shape and kind were wont to congregate, cast down his spear at what looked like a splendid caerulean flat-fish of uncommon size and brilliance.
The canvas hung in the stagnant air. From which quarter would the quickening breeze arrive? Whither would it bring him? And his glance fell upon a slender coquettish vessel, a new-comer, lying in the sunny harbour under the cliff. He knew it from hearsay. It was the FLUTTERBY, van Koppen's yacht.
Count Caloveglia was probably the only male person on earth to whom the owner of the FLUTTERBY would have extended such an invitation. "My dear friend!" replied the other. "I shall never be able to repay your kindness, as it is. Alas, it cannot be done, not now. And don't you think," he went on, reverting to his theme, "that we might revive a few of those forgotten recipes of the past?
Noticeable among them was an enormous floral tribute from the owner of the FLUTTERBY. It attracted the most favourable comment. People said that nobody but a multi-multi-multi-millionaire could afford to forgive an affront like that affair of the CREPE DE CHINE. As a matter of fact, old Koppen would have been the last person on earth to forgive an injury of this particular kind.
Among all h is various benefactions, none was ever projected with a lighter heart, with more sincere pleasure. It made him glad to be a millionaire. All the details had been settled. The FLUTTERBY was sailing in a day or two. The relic would be brought on board, at dead of night, by the faithful Andrea, who would return to the Count with a cheque in his pocket.
It struck me that bithywind might have come by the transposition of two letters from withybind, as if one should say flutterby for butterfly, or flagondry for dragonfly. Withybind is one of the numerous vernacular names of the common convolvulus. Lilybind is another.
Heard, reposing on the rough pumiceous ground with his eye fixed upon the naughty FLUTTERBY whose virginal whiteness, with declining day, had assumed a tell-tale crimson blush, pieced together these and sundry other little bits of information. They made him more than usually thoughtful; they chimed in with his momentary mood of self-analysis. One thing was dead certain.
It was understood, none the less, that Count Caloveglia was perhaps of use to the other in the accumulation of classical relics which the Italian Government forbidding the export of antique works of art were smuggled at night-time on board the FLUTTERBY to be incorporated in a magnificent museum somewhere out West, a museum which was destined to be presented by van Koppen as a gift to the great American people.
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