“This is Italy.”
“Yes, but I’m older than you, and I’ll settle.”
“I am your husband,” he said, smiling. They had finished their mid-day meal, and he wanted to go and sleep. Nothing would rouse him up, until at last Lilia, getting more and more angry, said, “And I’ve got the money.”
He looked horrified.
Now was the moment to assert herself. She made the statement again. He got up from his chair.
“And you’d better mend your manners,” she continued, “for you’d find it awkward if I stopped drawing cheques.”
She was no reader of character, but she quickly became alarmed. As she said to Perfetta afterwards, “None of his clothes seemed to fit—too big in one place, too small in another.” His figure rather than his face altered, the shoulders falling forward till his coat wrinkled across the back and pulled away from his wrists. He seemed all arms. He edged round the table to where she was sitting, and she sprang away and held the chair between them, too frightened to speak or to move. He looked at her with round, expressionless eyes, and slowly stretched out his left hand.
Perfetta was heard coming up from the kitchen. It seemed to wake him up, and he turned away and went to his room without a word.
“What has happened?” cried Lilia, nearly fainting. “He is ill—ill.”
Perfetta looked suspicious when she heard the account. “What did you say to him?” She crossed herself.