There she was, moving toward him on the same side of the street, dressed no better than when he last came face to face with her, but her grand air not a whit impaired.
“At last, at last I find you!” he cried, catching up her hand and kissing it with a loud smack. “Ah! the good God knows how I have hunted for you. But joy, joy! I find you! I see you! My eyes look into yours! Come, away from here! Ah, the Three Gardens! Let us enter. I have something to say—something very important.”
He drew her into the caffè, and sought a table far from the door.
“What do you want to say to me?” asked Juno. She had responded not at all to Signor Di Bello’s passionate greeting.
“Ah, my angel! I want to say to you what I would have said long ago if I had found you. The hunt I have had! And once when I caught sight of you, it was only to have you vanish again like a wine bubble. Where have you been? How beautiful you are! Oh, the grand hunt!”
“Why have you hunted for me?” she said, releasing her hand from his, and moving her chair.
“To offer you what you demanded—a wedding ring.”
“You wish to make me your wife?”
“Yes. Before the Madonna, it is true! Months and months ago I was ready.”
For a moment Juno was silent, contemplative. Then she said, eying him steadily: