“Oh, Spello isn’t very amusing, dear. You will see it this summer. Besides, oughtn’t you to have a nice honeymoon.”
“I?” she exclaimed, trembling.
“Yes, you, Vittoria. I had to give you, my beauty, a nice, amusing, pleasing honeymoon. You deserved it; I hope I behaved well?”
“Very well,” she replied ambiguously.
“Have I been a good travelling companion—intelligent, zealous, amiable?”
“You have been all that, Marco,” she replied coldly.
“Have I, then, accomplished that part of my mission? Have I accomplished it as I ought to?”
“Have you, Marco, a mission? And what is it?” she asked, not without some harshness.
“That which the priest told me in Santa Maria del Popolo; that which the mayor told us at Campidoglio; that which I have given myself.”
“That is?” she replied, still coldly.