Mimmo, alarmed by Valentini's rough voice had fled to his mother's knee, and Ragna, stung into reply by the child's presence, said:
"Be careful, Egidio,—the child—"
The child! Ah, here was the way to hurt her! Valentini's laugh rang hatefully in her ears; he beckoned to the boy, but Mimmo refused to leave his refuge.
"Ask your mother, Mimmo caro, what a bastard is?"
Ragna sprang to her feet, her eyes blazing; she carried the child to the door, set him down outside, bidding him run to Carolina, and returned to face her husband, who sat leaning back in his chair, his legs crossed, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, a sneering expression on his face.
Ragna advanced to the table and leaning both hands on it leant forward, her eyes burning with a fierce light.
"I have borne much from you, Egidio Valentini, since you married me. I have been a dutiful wife to you, and a faithful one, I am the mother of your child; you have no just cause for complaint against me. I married you in the first place, induced by your insistence, by your pleadings, by the seemingly disinterested offers you made me of protection and comradeship. You made me many promises none of which have you kept. Instead of that you have abused me morally and physically, you have taken pleasure in tormenting me and humiliating me; you have been openly unfaithful to me, you have even outraged me in my own home by ill-using my maid. All this I have stood, but to-day you have gone too far, you have struck at me through my child whom you bound yourself to cherish as your own. Coward!"
Egidio started from his chair threateningly, but she was not to be stopped.
"Yes, coward!" she repeated. "And I tell you, Egidio Valentini, I can bear no more, this is the end. I will take my child and go, I will shake the dust of your house off my feet, I will leave you to the curse of your own evil nature."
He turned upon her with a roar.