"Oh, well, yes, Ragna. She was most insolent to me last night, mad with jealousy and perfectly insufferable—you don't know what it is, Rico, to have a jealous wife! just think, she imagined some perfectly ridiculous thing between me and that slattern, Carolina. It seems impossible to have so little criterio. You wouldn't believe, Rico, the things she said! She almost got the better of my patience!" Ferrati smiled grimly. "We had more words this morning and in a fit of rage she said she would leave me, and I told her to go—a quel paese. Peggio per lei!"
His voice rose as he found a vent for his repressed feelings, he almost forgot Ferrati's presence in the joy of shifting to other shoulders the blame which in his heart he knew to be his. He paused, drawn to his full height, his eyes burning.
"It is always the same story 'put a beggar on horseback and he'll ride to the Devil!' I married her out of the gutter—"
"I beg your pardon, Egidio," broke in Ferrati's stern voice, "you did no such thing and if you set any value on my friendship, you will never repeat those words."
Valentini cast a furtive side glance at him.
"Oh, well, have it as you will. I married her colla camicia—it amounts to the same—she has nothing of her own, so the worse for her if she goes off, as she will soon find out. Then she will beg to be taken back and I won't, I swear I won't."
"What!" cried Ferrati horrified, "do you mean to say you have actually driven away your wife, the mother of your child?"
"If she went it was of her own accord."
"Then she has gone?"
Had he come too late? Had Ragna actually found courage to throw off her bondage?