"The engineer is a jolly, old-fashioned, kind man; he resembles me, though he is older. But he is not here much. He comes for two weeks about this time of the year, and two weeks more in the Spring, and he pays a few short visits in between. Just leave him alone, and let him have his milk in the morning, his milk at night, his flask of Modena for dinner, his game of tarocchi, and his Milan Gazette, and Engineer Ribera is perfectly happy. But to return to Signor Maironi's beard. There is something even worse! I discovered yesterday that the gentleman has planted a jasmine in a wooden box painted red!" [J]
The Commissary, a man of parts, and probably in his secret heart, indifferent to all colours save that of his own complexion and his own tongue, could not refrain from slightly shrugging his shoulders. Nevertheless, he presently asked—
"Is the plant in blossom?"
"I don't know. I will ask the woman."
"Ask whom? Your wife? So your wife goes to Casa Maironi also?"
"Yes, from time to time."
Zérboli fixed his two little scornful eyes on Bianconi's face, and put the following question, enunciating every syllable very distinctly.
"Does she, or does she not, go there from good motives?"
"Well, as to that, it depends! She imagines she goes as a friend of Luisina's, to talk about the flowers, their sewing, and for little bits of gossip, and they chatter and chirp away as women will; you know the way. But I get out of her——"
"Tè chì, tè chì! Behold, behold!" Signora Peppina Bianconi exclaimed in her Porta Ticinese dialect, as she came forward with the coffee, smiling pleasantly. "The Commissary! What a pleasure it is to see you! I am afraid the coffee isn't very good, but any way it is fresh made. It is a great nuisance not being able to have it from Lugano!"