"Is this the keeper?" thought Césarine, laughing scornfully within herself. "A pretty boy for the austere Clemenceau to trust! Do not excuse yourself," she called out. "Close the door—it causes a draft! So, you told my husband that you loved me?"
Far from expecting this address, the Italian let several seconds pass before he faltered:
"Who told you so?"
"He did! he never lacks frankness, I will say that for him. Well, you have destroyed my chances of securing a peaceful life. And yet I never did you any harm, did I?"
"I destroy you?" repeated he, as she began to weep after a vain attempt to hide her eyes in her tresses.
"How is that?"
"Because I lost control of myself under his anger and his threats, and I confessed to him also that I was fond of you. We have a fellow feeling and selected the same confidant!"
"You love me?"
"For what else did I come back to this gloomy house? What else would have induced me to stay? He drove me away before, and I never suspected that it was to clear the scene for Rebecca, fool—child that I was! And now he picked the quarrel with me about you in order to go off with the heathen! You men are so monopolizing! He wants to be let love the inky-eyed Jewess, but I must not say a kind word to you! Oh, what am I to do now?" and in pretending to repair the disarray of her hair, down came a luxuriant tress. "What does it matter which way I turn? All roads lead to the river or the railroad—a step into the cold water or repose on the track of the iron horse, and no one will then torment poor Césarine!"
"You have some sinister plan," said Antonino, frightened by her manner. "I will not let you go away alone."