Most women reverse
the case entirely.' He looked again at Emily, who blushed deeper
than before for her aunt, and turned from him with displeasure.
'Well, signor!' said Madame Cheron, 'I protest you are a Frenchman; I
never heard a foreigner say any thing half so gallant as that!'
'True, madam,' said the Count, who had been some time silent, and
with a low bow, 'but the gallantry of the compliment had been utterly
lost, but for the ingenuity that discovered the application.'
Madame Cheron did not perceive the meaning of this too satirical
sentence, and she, therefore, escaped the pain, which Emily felt on
her account. 'O! here comes Signor Montoni himself,' said her aunt,
'I protest I will tell him all the fine things you have been saying
to me.' The Signor, however, passed at this moment into another
walk. 'Pray, who is it, that has so much engaged your friend this
evening?' asked Madame Cheron, with an air of chagrin, 'I have not
seen him once.'
'He had a very particular engagement with the Marquis La Riviere,'
replied Cavigni, 'which has detained him, I perceive, till this
moment, or he would have done himself the honour of paying his
respects to you, madam, sooner, as he commissioned me to say.
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