“Very well. I go to look for the apartment. This evening we meet. Where? At the Caffè of the Beautiful Sicilian?”
“No, no; not there!” said Bertino. “You must not come to Mulberry.”
“Why?” she demanded, eying him closely.
He made the only answer that could have satisfied her:
“It is no place for such a signora as you.”
They appointed another meeting place—one that lay beyond the zone of Signor Di Bello’s nightly revels, and with a wave of the hand Juno took leave of her husband. He watched her proudly as her stately figure moved toward the Bowery. She carried her head with the dignity of the ladies she had seen driving in the Chiaja of Naples on a sunny afternoon.
Bertino returned to the shop in Paradise Park. As he picked his way through the swarms of children on the sidewalk he thought of his uncle sitting in the sunlight, all unwary that the prize he coveted had passed to another. And the elation of the conqueror gave a spring to his step, and a swagger, until he turned a corner and beheld the sign of the Wooden Bunch. Then misgiving filled his soul and restored his trudging pace, his peasant gait—misgiving that the vanquished one might exact an accounting.
“Soul of a lobster!” cried Di Bello, springing from his chair, when the young man appeared at the door. “Where the crocodile have you been? Animal! To keep me waiting like this, and a grand game of bastoni to be played at the Three Gardens. By the Dragon, you are going too far!”
He flung out of the shop, not waiting to hear Bertino’s lame excuse.
That evening, after the shop was closed, Bertino and Juno visited a large instalment house in the Bowery and made their selection of furniture.