"How kind of you and Mr Lucas to come at such short notice," she said.
"Cortese hates talking English, so I shall put him between you and me,
and you'll talk to him all the time, won't you? And you won't laugh at
me, will you, when I join in with my atrocious attempts? And I shall
buttress myself on the other side with your husband, who will firmly
talk across me to him."
Lucia had to say something. A further exposure was at hand, quite
inevitably. It was no use for her and Peppino to recollect a previous
engagement.
"Oh, my Italian is terribly rusty," she said, knowing that Mrs Weston's
eye was on her.... Why had she not sent Mrs Weston a handsome
wedding-present that morning?
"Rusty? We will ask Cortese about that when you've had a good talk to
him. Ah, here he is!"
Cortese came into the room, florid and loquacious, pouring out a stream
of apology for his lateness to Olga, none of which was the least
intelligible to Lucia. She guessed what he was saying, and next moment
Olga, who apparently understood him perfectly, and told him with an
enviable fluency that he was not late at all, was introducing him to
her, and explaining that "la Signora" (Lucia understood this) and her
husband talked Italian. She did not need to reply to some torrent of
amiable words from him, addressed to her, for he was taken on and
introduced to Mrs Weston, and the Colonel.
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