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Updated: June 18, 2025
They replied coolly to the formal bows of the other guests, and none of them cared to take part in the dances. The handsome Signor Carminatti shot incendiary glances at Mlle. de Sandoval; but she remained scornful; so one evening, as the Dawson family came out of the dining-room, the Neapolitan waved his hand toward them and said: "I protestante della simpatia."
She had a great success: the San Martinos, the Countess Brenda, the other ladies congratulated her. The hat, above all, seemed ideal to them. Carminatti was in raptures. "E bello, bellissimo," he said, with great enthusiasm, and all the ladies agreed that it was bellissimo, lengthening the "s" and nodding their heads with a gesture of admiration. "And you don't say anything to me, bambino?"
The Countess Brenda's daughter, Beatrice Brenda, in spite of her pea-hen air, was always endeavouring to stir up the Neapolitan and to start a conversation with him; but Carminatti in his light-hearted way would reply with a jest or a fatuous remark and betake himself again to the Marchesa Sciacca, who would make her disturbing children hush because they often prevented her from catching what the Neapolitan was saying.
Almost every night after dinner there was an improvised dance in the salon. Somebody played the languorous waltzes of the Tzigane orchestras on the piano. The Maltese and Carminatti used to sing romantic songs, of the kind whose words and music seem to be always the same, and in which there invariably is question of panting, refulgent, love, and other suggestive words.
The San Martino young ladies and the Countess Brenda's daughter kept trying to find a way to steal Carminatti for their group; but he always went back to the Maltese, doubtless because her conversation was more diverting and spicy.
She used frequently to go about in the company of an aristocratic old maid, very ugly, with red hair and a face like a horse, but very distinguished, who ate at the next table to Laura and Caesar. One day Carminatti brought another Neapolitan home to dinner with him, a fat grotesque person, whom he instigated to emit a series of improprieties about women and matrimony.
In spite of his frequent petulant fits, he was the person most esteemed by the ladies of the hotel, both young and married. "He is the darling of the ladies," the Countess Brenda said of him, mockingly. Laura had not the least use for him. "I know that type by heart," she asserted with disdain. During lunch and dinner Signor Carminatti did not leave off talking for a moment with the Maltese.
"I don't know what it is in my brother," thought Laura; "women are attracted to him just because he pays no attention to them. And he knows it; yes, indeed he does, even thought he acts as if he were unconscious of it. Both mother and daughter taken with him! Carminatti has been routed."
Signor Carminatti exchanged a few words with the Countess Brenda, and purposely acted as if he did not notice Caesar's presence. The Neapolitan's chatter did not irritate Caesar in the slightest, and as he had no intention of being his rival, he listened to him quite entertained.
Caesar made much of this phrase, because it was apt, and he took it that Carminatti considered the ladies protestants against friendliness, because they had paid no attention to the charms that he displayed in their honour. Two or three days later Mme. Dawson bowed to Caesar on passing him in the hall, and asked him: "Aren't you Spanish?" "Yes, madam." "But don't you speak French?" "Very little."
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