“Si, padre,” said the banker. “I shall be here.”
Juno took the happening more seriously than Signor Di Bello did. “What matters it if two crazy donkeys do wag their tongues?” he said, on the way down the aisle to the door. “You are mine, and nothing else matters. In a week we shall laugh at these meddlers—the priest as well.” But Juno knew that the disclosures which the signore did not believe meant the collapse of her reckless scheme. Plainly the banker and Bertino had met, and the history of the bust as well as the secret of their marriage had come out. And they would meet again before Bertino should receive her letter warning him to fly from the imaginary danger. In a few hours her husband would know that his uncle not only lived, but had sought to appropriate his wife. What firebrands of vendetta! Now it was she who should have to fly, else feel the temper of Bertino’s knife. What a blockhead she had been to put off so long the writing of that letter! Had she sent it two or three days ago, he would be far from New York now, perhaps out of America.
When the doors opened for them to pass into the street they found the church steps thronged with the populace of Mulberry. Word of the doings at the altar had gone abroad, and the appearance of the brideless groom and the groomless bride was the signal for a shower of jeers and derisive greetings. But the signore mustered a bold front and proved himself worthy of his royal resemblance.
“We shall go to Casa Di Bello,” he said as they entered the carriage, “and have the wedding feast just as though that noodle of a priest had not refused to marry you. And why not? It will only be observing the event a week in advance; for next Sunday the priest will see that these meddlers have made a fool of him, and he will be glad to marry you to Signor Di Bello. Now for the diversions of the feast of the marriage.”
He threw off the lid of a large pasteboard box that the driver handed down and took out a handful of candy beans of many colors, the size of limas. With them he pelted the people in front of the church, who put up their hands for protection, and quickly returned wishes of good luck, for this hail of sweets always comes after the church rites. The people thought they had been married, after all, which was just the effect that Signor Di Bello was willing his joke should have. As they passed the churchyard the signore shouted to a man perched on the wall to let the nuptial birds go. Next moment there arose three pigeons with white streamers attached to their legs to insure their recapture; it is an ill omen for one to gain its freedom. This was a Neapolitan rite in reverence of the Madonna and the Padre Eterno which Juno had asked for.
They could have turned the corner and driven one block to Casa Di Bello, whose dormer windows were visible over the monuments of the graveyard; but the signore, determined that the observance should be in every respect like that for a genuine wedding, ordered the coachman to make a tour of Mulberry. Up and down they drove, he showering the hard and heavy sweets and receiving noisy felicitations all along the way. He had dropped his regal bearing and was all a-smile now. His old comrades rejoiced to see that he was himself again.
“See what marriage does for one,” remarked Cavalliere Bruno, the wit of Caffè Good Appetite. “Our comrade goes forth to the altar like a king, and comes back like a gentleman.”
But the broad smiles vanished from the signore’s face when they drew near to Casa Di Bello. Before the door stood a cab on whose top lay a trunk of ancient pattern that he knew too well. On the sidewalk, gesturing madly, were the leading families of the Torinesi, the Milanesi, and the Genovesi, with a scant sprinkling of southern tribes. They surrounded the barouche and shook their fists at the occupants. A fine trick, indeed! A joke, perhaps, but not the joke of a signore. Ask people to a wedding feast, and then have the door slammed in their faces!
“Oh, misery is mine!” groaned Signor Di Bello, but for a reason more terrible than the tumult of the barred-out guests. That trunk on the cab had told him the withering truth. “She is here,” he whimpered, his courage all gone, and cold despair leaving his arms limp at his side.
“What is amiss?” asked Juno, and the others stopped their hullabaloo.