It was Carolina’s cue, and she snapped it up. In a few quick words she unmasked the marital climax her drama was meant to produce.
“Disgrace?” she said. “What need of disgrace, my brother? Are not the guests here, is the feast not waiting, also the priest, and the bride ready?”
“The bride?”
“Yes, and one that is worth a hundred—nay, a thousand—of the baggage that you have lost; the bride that I have brought you all the way from Cardinali. Hear those cattle below, how they bellow and stamp on your name! But my bride can shut their ugly mouths. Here is the young and sympathetic Marianna.”
She turned slightly and beckoned Marianna to her side, but the girl remained where she was, hand in hand with Armando.
“No, no,” said Marianna, recoiling.
“Bah! She is young, my brother, and does not know what she wants. Can’t you see that if you are not married at once the colony will always despise you? Never again shall you hold up your head.”
“But the people will know just the same that I have been put in a sack,” groaned Di Bello.
“Listen,” said Carolina, putting a finger beside her nose shrewdly. “Those people are fools. They will believe anything you say, if only you go before them with a bride. Let it be one of your famous jokes. A little surprise you have prepared for your dear friends. Naturally, they had you betrothed to the wrong woman, for that was all a part of the joke. You laugh at them then. You laugh last. How silly they will feel! What merriment! Ah! they will say it is Signor Di Bello’s grandest joke!”
“By the stars of heaven, I will!” cried the grocer.—“Here, my pretty Marianna, do you wish to be a happy wife?”