And the corollary of that, of course, was that he might give things a further and fairer trial some other day.
But his hope was still hard hurt; he was still in a profound dejection.
“The Signorino is not eating his dinner,” cried Marietta, fixing him with suspicious, upbraiding eyes.
“I never said I was,” he retorted.
“The Signorino is not well?” she questioned, anxious.
“Oh, yes—cosi, cosi; the Signorino is well enough,” he answered.
“The dinner”—you could perceive that she brought herself with difficulty to frame the dread hypothesis—“the dinner is not good?” Her voice sank. She waited, tense, for his reply.
“The dinner,” said he, “if one may criticise without eating it, the dinner is excellent. I will have no aspersions cast upon my cook.”
“Ah-h-h!” breathed Marietta, a tremulous sigh of relief.
“It is not the Signorino, it is not the dinner, it is the world that is awry,” Peter went on, in reflective melancholy. “'T is the times that are out of joint. 'T is the sex, the Sex, that is not well, that is not good, that needs a thorough overhauling and reforming.”