“All Lombardy?” said Peter, without emotion.
Marietta stared again.
“All Lombardy? Mache!” was her scornful remonstrance. “Nobody owns all Lombardy. All these lands, these houses.”
“Who is she?” Peter asked.
Marietta's eyes blinked, in stupefaction before such stupidity.
“But I have just told you,” she cried “She is the Duchessa di Santangiolo.”
“Who is the Duchessa di Santangiolo?” he asked.
Marietta, blinking harder, shrugged her shoulders.
“But”—she raised her voice, screamed almost, as to one deaf—“but the Duchessa di Santangiolo is the Signorino's landlady la, proprietaria di tutte queste terre, tutte queste case, tutte, tutte.”
And she twice, with some violence, reacted her comprehensive gesture, like a swimmer's.