Page:Her Roman Lover (Frothingham, 1911).djvu/64

“Tut! tut! my dear! You Americans are so sensitive to criticism. I hope you won’t marry a Latin, whatever you do; and be careful also how you flirt with them. When they are hurt they strike. I say this because I hear you have walked in the Borghese Gardens alone with Gino Curatulo, and he is not one to be played with. Indeed, if it came to that, I think it would be safer to marry him than to play with him. There are two classes of Latin husbands. One of them marries to have a family and his wife is just the one woman in the world he would never dream of being in love with. To the other, his wife is the centre of the universe, and he will be nothing else but the centre of hers. If she walks out in the morning, he walks with her; if she is ill, he does not leave the house, and despairs, which is charming of him; if she buys a new dress, he must choose it with her, which would be a bore besides an inconvenience; if she talks to another man twice the same evening, ho thinks she is allowing him to make love to her, and is jealous. It becomes a question,” Lady Fitz-Smith chuckled, “it becomes a question which of the two husbands is to be preferred; but there is n’t, I think, any question of which kind Gino Curatulo would make. Now I must go to my ‘bridge’; but remember, my dear, don’t flirt with him.” And the

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