“Blessed Virgin, that it should be so bad as that! But the saints themselves sent me out with this in my pocket. Cesare, caro, you shall! For Angelo, for Angelo!”
He had pushed it away with almost violence, but at this appeal looked down at it, and his hand hesitated. Peppina saw her advantage.
“The child must be hungry, and it is so bad for a child to be hungry. Take it, take it!”
He caught her wrist.
“Peppina, swear. Is it your own?”
“Is it my own! Whose else should it be? Yes, yes, yes, I tell you!”
He drew a long breath.
“I had begun to think of a pan of charcoal. There seemed nothing else, only there were one or two affairs I wanted to have arranged first.”
“Now you will get food?”
“Yes.”