“What have you to do with that house?” she asked quickly.
“I live there.”
“But it belongs to Signor Di Bello.”
“Yes; I am his nephew.”
A new interest awoke in her wary and artful eye. “They say he is very rich,” she mused, looking toward the patch of green in Paradise. “He admires my singing very much.”
“Your singing! Bah!” Bertino’s love was not deaf. “Don’t you know why he makes a baboon of himself when you are on the stage? You have turned his old head with your beauty.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said absently, while there came into her mind an extravagant avowal of love that Signor Di Bello had made to her behind the scenes the night before. “Well, he is rich,” she went on, “and you—are poor.”
“True; I am not rich now, but I shall be soon. Ha! Do you know how I am going to make money? I do not tell everybody—not even my uncle—but I will tell you. I have a friend in Italy, at Cardinali. Do you know the place? No matter. My friend is what is called a sculptor, and he is going to make statues—oh, so fine!—of great people in this country. Now, it is I who am to tell him what to make. When I have made up my mind, I shall send him the picture of some great American—some famous man—and from this he will make a marble bust. The marble is all ready. When it is done he will send it to me, and I shall—well, perhaps I shall put it in some fine gallery like our Palazzo Rosso in Genoa. Ah, what a place that is! I was there once on the Feast of the Child. Now, my friend is a sculptor most wonderful. I know what he can do. You should see his beautiful Juno and the Peacock. If you——”
“Juno and the Peacock?” she broke in. “What is that?”
“Ah! a lady most beautiful, without any clothes, and a great bird with a long tail. Oh, how beautiful—as beautiful as you!”