"Have you looked in your own room?" inquired Marietta indifferently, and turning her head on her pillow, as if she were tired of meeting Nella's eyes, as indeed she was.
"My own room indeed!" cried the maid indignantly. "As if I did not know what is in my own room! As if your new silk mantle could hide itself amongst my four rags!"
Why Nella and her kind, to this day, use the number four in contempt, rather than three or five, is a mystery of what one might call the psychical side of the Italian language. Marietta did not answer.
"It has been stolen," Nella repeated, with gloomy emphasis. "I trust no one in this house, since your brother and his wife have been here, with their servants."
"My sister-in-law was obliged to bring one of her women," objected Marietta.
"She need not have brought that sour-faced shrew, who walks about the house all day repeating the rosary and poking her long nose into what does not belong to her. But I am not afraid of the Signor Giovanni. I will tell the housekeeper that your mantle has been stolen, and all the women's belongings shall be searched before dinner, and we shall find the mantle in that evil person's box."
"You must do nothing of the sort," answered Marietta in a tone of authority.
She sat up in bed at last, and threw the thick braid of hair behind her, as every woman does when her hair is down, if she means to assert herself.
"Ah," cried Nella mockingly, "I see that you are content to lose your best things without looking for them! Then let us throw everything out of the window at once! We shall make a fine figure!"
"I will speak to my brother about it myself," said Marietta.