'Yes,' the woman said quietly. 'You have not been alone together for a moment since we left Venice, and that is not what you expected.'
'No,' Ortensia answered in the hurt tone of a disappointed child, 'I thought it was going to be quite different! And now we shall start again and drive all day and half the night, and then it will be just the same, I suppose!'
'Once in Florence, or even in Bologna, there will be no more hurry,' said Pina in a consoling tone. 'Besides, my lady, you can be properly married then.'
'Of course, of course! We shall be married as soon as we can, but all the same——'
'All the same, it would be pleasant to spend half-an-hour together without old Pina always listening and looking on!'
The nurse smiled and shook her head, but Ortensia could not see her, and did not think her tone was very encouraging; it sounded as if 'old Pina' thought it was going to be her duty to play chaperon two or three days longer, which was not at all what Ortensia wished.
'If he had even shown that he was a little disappointed, too——' the girl began, and then she stopped.
'That would not have been good manners, my lady,' Pina said primly. 'When a gentleman has carried off a young lady, with her own consent, the least he can do is to look pleased, I am sure!'
'I thought you would understand better,' Ortensia answered in a tone of disappointment.
Some one knocked at the door, not loudly but sharply, and as if in a hurry; Pina went at once to see who it was, and found Stradella himself outside.