“Juno Castagna.”
“A lie! She is the Presidentessa!” It was the staring man. His voice, loud and high pitched, resounded through the church and brought up every row of bowed heads. As he spoke the words he arose and left the pew, and stood close to the three at the balustrade. “She can not be that,” he went on, heedless of the priest’s upraised hands. “She must be the Presidentessa.”
Signor Di Bello seemed ready to fall upon the intruder, and the sacerdotal hand restrained him. Two sacristans hurried up the aisle, but without danger to praying women, for these were all on their feet now.
“The Presidentessa, I tell you—I that know so well.” He pointed his finger at the bride. Juno had winced at first, but now she understood it all, and knew she was safe for the present. “Did I not make every line of that face out of the marble? Don’t believe it, father. She is the Presidentessa. Juno! Oh, no, no! Child of the Mother, not that! Where is the peacock, if she is Juno?”
By this time the assistants, each holding an arm, had led Armando to the sacristy, and closing the door, smothered the last part of his frantic outburst. The priest went on with the ceremony, but every bowed head in the pews had been lifted and every eye and ear was now alert.
“Giorgio Di Bello, wilt thou take this woman to be thy wife——”
“Stop! In the name of the good God, stop!”
The words were shouted from the rear of the church by Signor Tomato, who hurried up the aisle, while the three at the altar stood silent, astounded.
“That woman is already a wife,” the banker continued, puffing as though he had had a hard run for it. “I swear it by the Madonna of Mount Carmel. Her husband is alive. Only yesterday I saw him, and you know what the proverb says: Once a——”
“Silence!” commanded the priest. “This is no place for oaths or—proverbs.”