“He leaves Rome perhaps for Naples?”
“Perhaps. I do not know. But not yet.”
“I can wait,” he said significantly. They relapsed into silence again, walking in the shadows. It was Peppina who at last spoke again. Cesare’s life was so solitary that he felt little need of speech. All the money he could earn was spent on Angelo, and in providing himself with the barest necessaries of life. He was never seen in a wine-shop.
“I will go to that Nina of those people in the Porta Pinciana,” said the girl. “The Englishman marries one of them, and she will chatter like a magpie if I let her. It will please you if I find out, eh, Cesare mio?”
She touched his arm softly with her finger as she spoke, and turned up her face to his. He stooped and kissed her.
“I have told you,” he said briefly. But she missed a passionate ring in his voice for which she hungered.
“I believe you are thinking only of the Englishman,” she said with reproach.
“That is true,” he allowed simply. “He fills my being. There seems no room for anything else, not even for you. You must wait, Peppina.”
If it had been a woman of whom he spoke, her wild blood would have carried her away. But she understood and could sympathise when he only meant revenge. It seemed quite natural to her.
“I will wait,” she said. “Yes.”