"A horrible contract," I muttered savagely, looking at the whole affair from an English point of view.
"I-think we argued that matter before," said Beltrami, coolly, "and, if I remember rightly, you did not agree with my reasons. However, it is too late now to blame me, seeing I have been married for nearly five weeks. We spent our honeymoon at Como--in fact, mon ami, we are spending it there still, only a perusal of yesterday's Lombardia sent my excellent wife off to this city in search of Signora Pallanza."
"I do not understand."
"No? Then I will enlighten you. Madame, my wife, thought this devil of a tenor dead, and, as he has been keeping quiet all this time, she never for a moment suspected the truth. I saw an announcement of his marriage in the newspapers, but you may be sure I did not let the Marchesa see it. Everything was going beautifully, and we were a model couple--outwardly--when, as ill-luck would have it, this paragraph appeared in the paper."
Beltrami handed me a copy of La Lombardia, and pointed to a paragraph, which I read. It stated that Guiseppe Pallanza, the famous tenor, was going to sing at the Grand Opera House, Madrid, and would be accompanied to Spain by his wife, the granddaughter of Maestro Angello, the celebrated teacher of singing.
"You can guess what a rage she was in," said Beltrami, when I had finished reading this fatal information. "Diavolo! she has a temper; but, as I told you, I am quite a match for Madame, and held my own during this furious quarrel. She demanded an explanation, and I gave her one."
"What? you told her----"
"Everything, mon ami. Your story, my story, Pallanza's story--all about the antidote, the vault, the supper. Eh! Hugo, she now knows as much as you or I. Mon Dieu, you should have seen her when I had finished!"
"Why? what did she do?"
"She smiled, that was all; but it was the smile that alarmed me."