Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/326

314 "Ah, my dear soul," he said, sighing, "could you think it of old Mosca?"

Bellaroba hastened to disclaim. "No, no, no, I did not think it, Signor Capitano. But for a minute I had a little fear. Olimpia never loved Angioletto at all, and I don't think she loves me very much—now."

"To be plain with you, my lamb," said the Mosca, "she has no such vasty love for me. I have not set foot within her door since a certain day you may remember."

The girl shivered. "If I remember it! Ah, Madonna delle Grazie, she had a devil that day!"

"She had seven, I'm sure of it," cried the Captain. "So I leave you to judge how much of your story she may worm out of me."

He so beamed upon her, kissed her hands with such a lofty stoop, that she felt ashamed of herself, and begged his pardon.

This brought the Captain to his knees. "By the God who made the Jews," he swore, "I leave not this raw flagstone till you have unsaid those words!"

In the end, after a prodigious fuss, he drifted away down the corridor and left her to go about her business.

But he drifted not very far. He felt himself full of affairs which were as meat and drink to his spirit starved by neglect. It was so great a thing to have a pretext for approaching Count Guarini. That young lord had a way like a keen-edged knife. You might weave a whole vestment about your errand, fold upon fold of ingenious surmise, argument pro, argument con; Guarino Guarini