“Yes, signora.”
Of course she tried to keep them apart, and of course failed drearily every day of the voyage. While she hunted the vessel over for them, they would be enjoying a quiet exchange of confidences in one of the secret nooks known only to lovers on shipboard. One day Armando confessed to a hopeless state of pocket. It had taken well-nigh every soldo he could raise to pay his passage. What he should do to support himself in America was, he owned, a knotty problem, but one that could remain unsolved only until his bust should be seen, admired, and purchased by the First Lady of the Land. It had been shipped three weeks before; already it was in America, and, oh, glorious thought! perhaps at that very moment standing upon a costly pedestal in the White House. Even if her Majesty the Presidentessa had not found it convenient as yet to receive it, she would do so in a fortnight at the longest. Great people like that always took their time. Meanwhile had he not Bertino, his bosom friend and commercial representative in the American market, to stand by him? With this golden view Marianna was in full accord, and his twenty years and her seventeen could see nothing to worry about in the New World.
CHAPTER XI
A RACE TO THE SWIFT
The morning that Carolina sailed for Genoa, Signor Di Bello began to reconsider the roar of derision with which he had treated Juno’s matrimonial aims, and before the day was out he had made up his mind to possess her as his wife. To be sure, he had promised Carolina not to marry for three months, and this pledge, given on his saint’s day, was of course inviolable; but he reasoned that there would be no breach of faith in offering Juno his hand, and having the nuptials set three months to a day from the Feast of St. George. He sat in the shop thinking over the great matter, when the sunlit floor was darkened by the shadow of Sara the Frier of Pepper Pods.
“Buon giorno, Signor Di Bello,” she said, in a tone that gave promise sure of more to follow.
“O Signora Sara, buon giorno.”
“Two cents’ worth of salt, if you please. Ahimè! Truly these are days of much expense. Never did I fry peppers that required so much salt.”
“Ah, si; much expense,” said Signor Di Bello, yawning and handing her out a two-cent bag.
From a deep pocket of her skirt she drew a begrimed canvas money pouch, and untied a long string with which it was closed at the top and wound about many times. Dipping in, she brought forth a handful of coppers, and selected two. These she laid on the counter with a sigh, first feeling of the bag to make sure that it was packed hard with salt. She looked about the shop, and stood a moment moving a red-stockinged foot in and out at the open heel of her wooden-soled slipper.
“Your nephew not here?” she remarked, and then with a chuckle, “With the singer, neh?”