CHAPTER 12, part 12
"Amore misterio!" she said. "Amore profondo! Amore profondo del vasto mar." Ah, there was our poor bella lingua again. I wonder who wrote the libretto." "Mr Cortese wrote the libretto," said Georgie. Lucia did not hesitate for a moment, but gave her silvery laugh.
"Oh, dear me, no," she said. "If you had heard him talk you would know he could not have. Well, have we not had enough of Mr Cortese and his works? Any news? What did you do last night, when Peppino and I were in our purgatorio?" Georgie was almost equally glad to get off the subject of Italian. The less said in or of Italian the better.
"I was dining with Mrs Quantock," he said. "She had a very interesting Russian woman staying with her, Princess Popoffski." Lucia laughed again.
"Dear Daisy!" she said. "Tell me about the Russian princess. Was she a Guru? Dear me, how easily some people are taken in! The Guru! Well, we were all in the same boat there. We took the Guru on poor Daisy's valuation, and I still believe he had very remarkable gifts, curry-cook or not. But Princess Popoffski now----" "We had a seance," said Georgie. "Indeed! And Princess Popoffski was the medium?" Georgie grew a little dignified.
"It is no use adopting that tone, cara," he said, relapsing into Italian. "You were not there; you were having your purgatory at Olga's. It was very remarkable. We touched hands all round the table; there was no possibility of fraud." Lucia's views on psychic phenomena were clearly known to Riseholme; those who produced them were fraudulent, those who were taken in by them were dupes. Consequently there was irony in the baby-talk of her reply.
"Me dood!" she said. "Me very dood, and listen carefully. Tell Lucia!" Georgie recounted the experiences. The table had rocked and tapped out names. The table had whirled round, though it was a very heavy table. Georgie had been told that he had two sisters, one of whom in Latin was a bear.
