"Pretty words for a girl! Sor Tommaso told me. A little more, and I would have torn his tongue out. Just then, the Englishman came in. Sor Tommaso got off easily."
The girl's tone changed very much when she spoke again, and there was a dull and angry light in her eyes. Her long lips were still parted, and showed her gleaming teeth, but the smile was altogether gone.
"Yes. Too easily," she said, almost in a whisper, and there was a low hiss in the words.
"In the meanwhile, it is true—what he said," continued Stefanone. "You make eyes at him. You wait for him and watch for him when he comes back from the mountains—"
"Well? Is it not my place to serve him with his supper? If you are not satisfied, hire a servant to wait on him. You are rich. What do I care for the Englishman? Perhaps it is a pleasure to roast my face over the charcoal, cooking his meat for him. As for Sor Tommaso—"
She stopped short in her speech. Her father knew what the tone meant, and looked up for the first time.
"O-è!" he exclaimed, as one suddenly aware of a danger, and warning some one else.
"Nothing," answered Annetta, looking down and arranging the knives and forks symmetrically on the clean cloth she had laid.
"I might have killed him just now in hot blood, when the Englishman came in," said Stefanone, reflectively. "But now my blood has grown cold. I shall do nothing to him."
"So much the better for him." She still spoke in a low voice, as she turned away from the table.