Here was a case of Mahomet, _en route_ to pay his respects to the
Mountain, being met halfway by the object of his pilgrimage; though to
liken the Contessa di Ravello to a mountain is perhaps to brutalise a
poetic license. She is a fairy of a woman, a pocket Venus. Gaeta is
her name, and her sponsors in baptism must have been endowed with
prophetic souls, for she is the very spirit of irresponsible,
childlike gaiety.
Not that she has a sense of humour. There is all the difference in the
world between a sense of humour and a sense of fun, and truth to tell,
the Contessa had no more humour than a frolicsome kitten. She had
always been in a frolic of some sort, when I had known her in Davos,
whither she had gone because she thought it would be "what you call a
lark"; and she was in a frolic now, judging by her merry laughter when
she saw me.
Her great wine-brown eyes were laughing, her full, cupid-lips were
laughing, and more than all, the two deep, round dimples in the olive
cheeks were laughing. Even the little rings of black hair on her low
forehead seemed to quiver with mirth, as her head moved with quick,
bird-like gestures. She was dressed all in grey, and the cut-steel
buttons on her dress twinkled as if they too were in the joke.
"Fancy meeting you here, of all places!" she said, in her pretty
English, lisping but correct.
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