Annunziata looked up with eyes that seemed omniscient.
"I was thinking about you," she greeted them.
"About which of us?" asked John.
"About both of you. I always now, since a long while, think of you both together. I think Maria Dolores is the dark woman whom Prospero is to marry."
John laughed. Maria Dolores looked out of the window.
"And I was thinking," Annunziata went on, "how strange it was that if you hadn't both at the same time just happened to come to Sant' Alessina, you might have lived and died and never have known each other."
"Perish that thought," laughed John. "But I have sometimes thought it myself."
"And then," Annunziata rounded out her tale, "I thought that perhaps you had not just happened—that probably you had been led."
"That is a thing I haven't a doubt of," John with energy affirmed.
"You look as if you were very glad about something—both of you," said Annunziata, those omniscient eyes of hers studying their faces. "What is it that you are both so glad of?"