Peter asked.
“Young and lovely! Mache!” derided Marietta. “He was past forty. He was fat. But he was a good man.”
“So much the better for him now,” said Peter.
“Gia,” approved Marietta, and solemnly made the Sign of the Cross.
“But will you have the kindness to explain to me,” the young man continued, “how it happens that the Duchessa di Santangiolo speaks English as well as I do?”
The old woman frowned surprise.
“Come? She speaks English?”
“For all the world like an Englishman,” asseverated Peter.
“Ah, well,” Marietta reflected, “she was English, you know.”
“Oho!” exclaimed Peter. “She was English! Was she?” He bore a little on the tense of the verb. “That lets in a flood of light. And—and what, by the bye, is she now?” he questioned.