Now I knew what the Baron had meant when he said to his wife:  “Something shall happen, my dear.”  He had telegraphed a danger-signal to Paolo, and Paolo had lost not a moment in responding.  This looked as if Paolo meant business in deadly earnest, where the Contessa was concerned; for how many dinners and medals must he not have missed in Paris, how many important persons in the air-world must he not have offended, by breaking his engagements in the hope of making one here?

He was fair, with a Latin fairness, this famous young man.  There was nothing Saxon or Anglo-Saxon about him.  No one could possibly bestow him—­in a guess—­upon any other country than his native Italy.  He was thirty-one or two perhaps, long-limbed and wolfishly spare, like his elder brother, whom he resembled thus only.  He had an eagle nose, prominent red lips, sulky and sensuous, a fine though narrow forehead under brown hair cut en brosse, a shade darker than the small, waxed moustache and pointed beard.  His brows turned up slightly at the outer corners, and his heavy-lidded, tobacco-coloured eyes were bold, insolent, and passionate at the same time.

This was the man who wished to marry butterfly Gaeta, and who had come on the wings of the wind, in an airship “shod with fire,” or in the train de luxe, to defend his rights against marauders.

His look, travelling from me to the Boy, and from the Boy to Innocentina and meek grey Souris, was so eloquent of contempt passing words, that I should have wanted to knock the sprawling flannelled figure out of the basket chair, if I had not wanted still more to yell with laughter.

He, the Boy and I were like dogs from rival kennels eyeing each other over, and thinking poorly of the other’s points.  Paolo di Nivoli was doubtless saying to himself what a splendid fellow he was, and how well dressed and famous; also how absurd it really would be to fear one of us dusty, knickerbockered, thick-booted, panama-hatted louts, in the tournament of love.  The donkey, too, with its pack, and Innocentina with her toadstool hat, must have added for the aeronaut the last touch of shame to our environment.

As for us,—­if I may judge the Boy by myself,—­we were totting up against the Italian his stiff crest of hair, for all the world like a toothbrush, rampant, gules; the smear of wax on the spikes of his unnecessarily fierce moustache; the ridiculous pinpoints of his narrow brown shoes; the flaunting newness of his white flannels:  the detestable little tucks in his shirt; his pink necktie.

In fact, each was despising the other for that on which the other prided himself.

All this passed in a glance, but the frigid atmosphere grew no warmer for the introduction hastily effected by Gaeta.  To be sure, the Boy bowed, I bowed, and Paolo bowed the lowest of the trio, so that we saw the parting in his hair; but three honest snorts of defiance would have been no more unfriendly than our courtesies.