I may have to
ask your advice about something connected with her, later."
This fetched him, though with not too good a grace. "You don't know my
name," he said, with a return of impishness, as we walked together
towards the Contessa.
"I think that you have the advantage of me in that way, now."
"If you call it an advantage. I had a presentiment you weren't plain
mister, so I'm not surprised. You may tell your Countess that my name
is Laurence."
"Christian name or 'Pagan' name?"
"Make the Christian name Roy."
In another moment I was introducing Mr. Roy Laurence to the Contessa
di Ravello; and as they stood eyeing each other, the fairy Gaeta
pulsing with coquetry through all her hot-blooded Italian veins, the
Boy aloof and critical, I was struck with the picture that the two
figures made.
The Boy had three or four inches more of height than the Contessa, and
looked almost tall beside her, though I had thought of him as small.
Her round, dimpled face seemed no older than his oval brown one, in
this moment of his gravity, and the haughty air of a young prince
which he wore now, consciously or unconsciously, had a certain
provoking charm for a spoiled beauty used to conquest. The big blue
stars which lit his face expressed a resolve not to yield to any
blandishment, and this no doubt piqued Gaeta, before whom all the boys
and youths at Davos had gone down like grass before the scythe.
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