Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/114

102 Ippolita shrugged, pouting. "Chi lo sa? I tell you, Nannina, I shall go mad in this place."

"And why not?" cried the other, with a snort. "You have examples enough about you, my conscience! What is all their singing and stuff about?"

"I think it is about me, Nannina."

"And their disputing?"

"It is about me."

"And the rhymes?"

"They are about me."

"And you have never—?"

"Never, never, never!"

"What, not in the garden even?"

"No, never, I tell you. Only my hand."

"Your hand—pouf! The nightingales sing there, I suppose."

"All night."

"And there is moonlight?"

"Floods of moonlight."

"Dio! Dio santissimo!" cried Nannina, striking her friend on the knee, "you must be out of this, Ippolita! This is unwholesome: I like not the smell of this. Faugh, fungus! Mawkish! I will see your father this very night."

Ippolita shook her head again. "My father is paid by these signori."

"Then the priest must do it. Father Corrado must do it."

"He dare not."

"A convent—?"

"No, never! That is worse than this. But—oh, Nannina! if I dared I would do such a thing."