"We are to be married," he answered with the frank simplicity of Italians in such matters.
"Heaven be praised!" the woman cried. "Will the Signore step into the house?"
"She is here, then?" Vanno asked, entering the vestibule that opened into the white coldness of the hall.
"She has been here for three nights and two days."
"Thank God!" Vanno muttered under his breath. An immense relief, like a bath of balm, eased the pain of suspense. He felt that he had come to the end of his trouble. After all, what did Angelo or any one in the world matter, except Mary? He trusted himself to make her realize this. A few minutes more and she would be in his arms, on his heart, and her scruples would be burnt to ashes in the fire of his love.
"Will you tell the Signorina that Prince Giovanni Della Robbia has come?" he said.
The woman threw out her hands in a gesture of apology and regret.
"The Signora will not let me go into the room," she answered, and a look of sullen ferocity opened a door into depths of her nature where fire smouldered. She lifted her eyes to Vanno's, and for a long instant the Prince and the peasant gazed fixedly at each other. At the end of that instant Vanno knew that this woman hated the "Signora" and her commands; and Apollonia knew that this man would protect her through any disobedience.
"Why does the Signorina keep her room?"
"It seems that she is not well."