“Pshaw! There is no reason to complain,” remarked Mlle. Cadet, “if they give us a serenade.”
“Do you consider yourself poor?” Mlle. de Sandoval asked Cæsar, disdainfully.
“Yes, I consider myself poor, because I am.”
During the following days Mme. Dawson and her daughters were introduced to the rest of the people in the hotel, and became intimate with them. The “Contessina” Brenda and the San Martino girls made friends with the French girls, and the Neapolitan and his gentlemen friends flitted among them all.
The Countess Brenda at first behaved somewhat stiff with Mme. Dawson and her daughters, but later she little by little submitted and permitted them to be her friends.
She introduced the French ladies to the other ladies in the hotel; but doubtless her aristocratic ideas would not allow her to consider Mlle. Cadet a person worthy to be introduced, for whenever she got to her she acted as if she didn’t know her.
The governess, noticing this repeated contempt, would blush at it, and once she murmured, addressing Cæsar with tears ready to escape from her eyes:
“That’s a nice thing to do! Just because I am poor, I don’t think they ought to despise me.”
“Don’t pay any attention,” said Cæsar, quite aloud; “these middle-class people are often very rude.”
Mlle. de Sandoval gave Cæsar a look half startled and half reproving; and he explained, smiling: