Meantime, the brother and sister had walked gaily along, passed the Spanish Steps, and were on the Pincian hill.  Here, Mae was indeed happy.  The fine equipages and dark, rich beauty of the Italians delighted her, and she and Eric found a shaded bench, and watched the carriages drive round and round, and criticised, and admired, and laughed like two idle children.  They bought some flowers, and Mae sat pulling them to pieces, when they caught sight, down the pathway, of two approaching Piedmontese officers.

“O,” cried Mae, and dropped her flowers, and clasped her hands, and sprang to her feet, “O, Eric, are they gods or men?”

The Piedmontese officer is godlike.  He must be of a certain imposing height to obtain his position, and his luxurious yellow moustaches and blue black eyes, enriched and intensified by southern blood, give him a strange fascination.  The cold, manly beauty and strength of a northern blonde meet with the heat and lithe grace of the more supple southerner to produce this paragon.  There is a combination of half-indolent elegance and sensuous langour, with a fire, a verve, a nobility, that puts him at the very head of masculine beauty.  Add to the charms of his physique, the jauntiest, most bewitching of uniforms, the clinking spurs, the shining buttons, the jacket following every line of his figure, and no wonder maidens’ hearts seek him out always and young pulses beat quicker at his approach.

Mae’s admiration was simply rapturous.  Utterly regardless of the pretty picture she herself made, of her vivid coloring and sparkling beauty, she stood among her dropped flowers until the two pairs of eyes were fixed upon her.  Then she became suddenly aware of her attitude and with quick feminine cunning endeavored to transfer her admiration to some beautiful horses cantering by, exclaiming in Italian, that the officers might surely understand she was thinking only of the fine animals:  “O, what wonderful horses!”

The foreign pronunciation, Eric’s amusement, Mae’s confusion, were not lost upon the men.  Their curiosity was piqued, their eyes and pride gratified.  They sauntered leisurely past, only to turn a corner and quicken their steps again toward the bench where Eric and Mae were seated.  They found the brother and sister just arising, and followed them slowly.

An Italian is quick to detect secrets.  The two had not proceeded far before one said to the other; “Eh, Luigi, we are not the only interested party.”

Luigi looked slowly around and saw a crowd of Italian loungers gazing at the little stranger with their softly-bold black eyes full of admiration.  He shrugged his shoulders slightly.  “Bah, they gaze in that way at all womankind.  See, now they are watching the next one,” and as he spoke, the boys turned with one accord to stare at a young Italian girl, who pressed closer to the side of her hook-nosed old duenna: 

“It is not those loungers that I noticed,” replied the other.  “Look there,” and he waved his hand lightly toward the left, where, under a large-leafed tree, gazing apparently in idleness, stood a young man.