“Now, now, Nina, don’t be unjust,” he said.  “Mrs. Grey must hear the truth.  Mrs. Grey, this was a young Italian who wanted to be better acquainted with Miss Nina here—­I believe he used to write imploring letters to her, and that she cruelly wouldn’t answer them; and then he wrote to Maestro Pandiani, describing the wonderful tenor voice he had, and saying he wanted to study.  I suppose he fancied that if the maestro would only believe in the mysterious qualities of this wonderful organ of his he would try to bring them out; and in the meantime the happy Nicolo would be meeting Nina continually.  A lover’s stratagem—­nothing worse than that!  What is the harm of saying that you could take the high C if you were in ordinary health, but that your voice has been ill-used by a recent fever?  It was Nina he was thinking of.  Don’t I remember how I used to hear him coming along the garden-paths in the Villa Reale—­if there were few people about you could hear his vile falsetto a mile off—­and always it was: 

   ’Antoniella, Antonia,
    Antoniella, Antonia;
    Votate, Nenna bella, votate cca,
    Vedimmo a pettenessa comme te sta.’”

“Leo,” she said, with proud lips, “he never called me ’Nenna mia’—­never!  He dared not!”

In another instant, he could see, there would have been protesting tears in her eyes; and even Mrs. Grey, who did not know the meaning of the familiar Neapolitan phrase,[1] noticed the tremulous indignation in the girl’s voice.

    [Footnote 1:  Nenna mia or Nenna bella is the pet phrase used by
    the Neapolitan young man in addressing his sweetheart. Nenna has
    nothing to do with Nina, which is a contraction of Antonia.]

“Of course not, Nina,” he said, at once; “I was only joking—­but you know he did use to sing that confounded ‘Antoniella, Antonia,’ and it was always you he was thinking of.”

“I did not think of him, then!” said she, almost instantly recovering her self-control.  “Him?  No!  When I go out—­when I was going out in the Santa Lucia, I looked at the English gentlemen—­all so simple and honest in their dress—­perhaps a steel watch-chain to a gold watch—­not a sham gold chain to no watch!  Then they looked so clean and wholesome—­is it right, wholesome?—­not their hair dripping with grease, as the peasant-girls love it.  And then,” she added, with a laugh, for her face had quickly resumed its usual happy brightness of expression, “then I grow sentimental.  I say to myself, ’These are English people—­they are going away back to England, where Leo is—­can they take him a message?—­can they tell him they were going over to Capri, and they met on the ship—­on the steamer—­an Italian girl, who liked to look at the English, and liked to hear the English speak?’ And then I say ’No; what is the use; what would any message do; Leo has forgotten me.’”

“Oh, yes,” said he, lightly, “you must have been quite certain that I had forgotten my old comrade Nina!”