“We will not quarrel on this point,” she said, “especially as the present performance is not one to call forth much feeling; but it makes people happy, which is always something.” “Happy?” said Pandolfini; “is it this then which in your English calls itself happiness? Ah! pardon--the Italian is more rich. This is (perhaps) to be amused--to be diverted--but _happy_--no. We keep that name for better things. I, for instance,” he added once more, in so low a voice that she had to stoop forward to hear him, “I might say so much--and, alas! it is for a moment, for a breath, no more. But _they_, these gentlemen and ladies--they divert themselves: the difference is great.” “You must say ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Pandolfini,” said Diana, glad to be able to escape from too grave an argument; “in English it is more courteous to put _us_ first.” “Pardon,” he said, with the flush of ready shame, which every one feels who has made a slip in a new language. “I thought it was used so. But in all languages heaven goes before the earth. I ought to have known.” Diana laughed, but he did not laugh. He was not without humour; but at present he was in deadly earnest, incapable of seeing the lighter side. “At all events, that is pure Italian,” she said. “Your compliments are delightful, Mr. Pandolfini--so general that one ventures to accept them on account of all the other women in the world. I wish one could believe it,” she added, shaking her head. “I do believe it,” he said once more, in his deepest tone. “Ah! you speak too low: I cannot hear you--which is an English not an Italian fault. But you are right to discriminate between happiness and amusement. We do so too, but we are not sufficiently particular about our words, and use the first that comes to hand.” Then there was a pause, and this time it was he who began. “Is it true,” he said, “that this is soon to come to an end?--that you are going away?” “I suppose we must go, sooner or later. Not perhaps with the Hunstantons; but people do not stay here for summer, do they? It is for winter one comes here?”